Deconstructing Christianity: Rediscovering the True Teachings of Jesus – An Interview with Aaron Abke

How does a spiritual seeker move from religious disillusionment and inner torment to embodying peace, purpose, and a blueprint for freedom?

For Aaron Abke, leaving behind a life of ministry, dogma, and perfectionism led him into a night of the soul, marked by existential depression, the unraveling of his faith, and a deep longing to understand suffering. What emerged was not just personal transformation, but a body of wisdom forged through lived experience, study, and awakening.

Guided by Eastern philosophy, non-dual teachers, and his direct encounters with consciousness, Aaron developed The Three Beliefs of Ego—a powerful framework for identifying and dissolving the root causes of suffering. In this conversation, you’ll discover how Aaron bridged biblical scholarship with metaphysical insight, why near-death experiences helped validate Jesus’s original teachings, and how laughter on a balcony sparked a spontaneous moment of enlightenment that changed his life forever. Continue reading or listen in by subscribing for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or YouTube.

I’d like to hear your perspective on the current state of our world. Many developments are unfolding around the globe, and it seems that a significant number of these are politically shifting here in the US. But I’m just curious from your perspective as a spiritual teacher and someone who has a pulse on what’s going on globally, what do you sense is unfolding?

Aaron Abke: The world is a strange place these days. It feels like so much is happening all at once. There’s a lot of emerging technology—AI and the like—that’s completely upending the way we do everything. The world feels very topsy-turvy right now.

Honestly, I ignore the news. I haven’t for a while. I’ve kind of dropped out of wanting to know what’s happening globally, and mostly just go within. That’s not to say there aren’t important causes to be aware of and support—there are, and that’s valid. But for me, there’s also this philosophy: look, God is in control. I can’t change what’s happening in the world, so why burden my mind with it? Why give myself more to think about?

What I am interested in is the metaphysical layer of it all—the forces and powers behind what we see on the surface. That comes from the Law of One framework, which I’ve studied deeply over the past decade. It continues to resonate with me as the most accurate map of reality. The Law of One teaches that there are two core polarities: the service-to-self path, also known as the negative polarity, and the service-to-others path, also known as the positive polarity.

I think understanding these polarities can explain a lot of what’s going on. If I had to boil it down, I’d say Earth has largely been under the influence of negatively polarized forces—people, systems, energies. But humanity is now at a consciousness level where we’re waking up to these power games, thanks in large part to the internet, social media, and now AI.

What’s interesting is that the technologies the negative polarity tries to weaponize often backfire. They can become Trojan horses that the light ultimately uses. A great example is mainstream media. Ten years ago, we couldn’t have imagined saying goodbye to cable news. But YouTube took off, and now we have all these independent influencers offering honest, raw takes that pharma donors don’t back, and people resonate with it. We’re witnessing the collapse of mainstream media.

AI is another example. The negative polarity thought they could control it, but it’s already proving to be too big to contain. It’s being used for good, for awakening, for truth. So I’m very optimistic. To me, AI feels like a living miracle that appeared out of nowhere and now plays a massive role in our world. And I’m open to more miracles—new technologies or shifts that could change everything again.

Politically, we’re seeing a few very powerful individuals and institutions losing control, and they don’t like it. Sometimes they lash out, sometimes they panic, and make bold moves to regain power. However, those efforts often backfire.

So yeah, it’s a crazy time to be alive—but also a fantastic time. The more we understand the bigger picture—the light and dark forces at play—the better it’s going to be for humanity.

I’d like to hear a bit about your journey of awakening to consciousness, mindfulness, and spirituality. Did you grow up in a home with some sort of faith, or did that come later in life for you?

Aaron Abke: Yeah, I definitely did. I’m a third-generation pastor’s son, so I was very blessed to grow up with two of the most beautiful parents you could imagine. For those who aren’t familiar with that kind of upbringing, we were the kind of Christians who thought we were on the bleeding edge. We’d use “religion” as a kind of dirty word—like, “That’s religious, man, stop that.” We thought we were super free, and honestly, compared to other denominations, we were.

There was very little legalism in my parents’ church. My dad loved preaching about the power of the Holy Spirit, faith, the love of Jesus—all the good stuff. He wasn’t interested in focusing on eternal conscious torment, biblical inerrancy, or the rapture. Sure, we believed in those things, but they weren’t central to our faith. That environment led me to become a full-time worship pastor at the age of 23.

I graduated from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a bachelor’s in music and theology, and I launched straight into ministry. But by that point—23, going on 24—I had already been waking up from the illusion of religion for about five years, since I was 18. And as you know, going through that deconstruction process takes time. You have to untangle a lot of dogmas, beliefs, and fears.

Everything came to a head for me while working at Crossroads Bible Church in San Jose—the city where I was born and raised. That church was very different from the one I grew up in. It was fundamentalist and legalistic. The pastor there loved emphasizing who was going to hell and who wasn’t—aka us. Week after week, I was hearing these fire-and-brimstone messages.

There were a few key moments that woke me up. The biggest one was this encounter with a homeless man who used to sleep on the steps of our church. The building had a big, medieval cathedral look, and this man would roll around in a sleeping bag, clearly on drugs, talking to himself. My heart went out to him. I thought, This is my Jesus moment. This is where I get to go live the gospel.

I had brought a Hot Pocket for lunch—back then, I thought I was health-conscious, but I wasn’t. So I heated it, blessed it, and charged it with the love of God. I was going to go out, offer it to this man, pray with him, and witness something beautiful.

But when I got outside, there was already a scene unfolding—an ambulance, two paramedics, two cops, and my pastor. The man was screaming and cussing, strapped to a gurney. He was yelling, “F you church mother-effers,” and my pastor, standing there all self-righteous, said something like, “We need to get this cursing out of the house of God.”

I was so triggered. It just felt like the most blatant act of Christian hypocrisy I’d ever seen. Here was a suffering man on our doorstep, and we were calling the cops instead of helping him. It was like we had become the Pharisees Jesus spoke out against. So I shouted, “No, he’s right! That’s exactly what we are. Let him say it.”

That moment broke me. I knew right then—I’m quitting this job today. I can’t do this another day. I didn’t care what my pastor thought. He called me into his office, and I let him have it. I told him, “I don’t believe in what you teach. This is blatant hypocrisy. I can’t be here anymore.”

He was upset, but I agreed to stay three more months. I was the new, young, hip worship pastor, and I didn’t want to leave the congregation high and dry. But honestly, that was a mistake. Those three months were torturous. It taught me a hard lesson: don’t martyr yourself for others. That period was rough, but it sparked a huge spiritual transformation in me.

Once I admitted I didn’t believe in the Christian view of God anymore, I had to ask: “Who is the real God? What is God?” Those questions burned in me. So I turned to Eastern spiritual philosophy, and I found the answers I was looking for.

Christianity excels in some areas, but philosophy and theology aren’t its strong suits. As I’m sure you’d agree, a lot of Christian theology is just a mess—self-refuting and intellectually shallow. Once you see that, it’s hard to stay in what feels like a “check-your-brain-at-the-door” kind of club.

So I immersed myself in Eastern philosophy and enlightenment teachings for about seven or eight years. Eventually, I started to see Jesus in a completely different light. I don’t think you can truly understand Jesus until you’ve understood Eastern philosophy. Then you see it—it’s all over the red letters. He taught Stoicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and various forms of mysticism.

That changed everything for me. I revisited my theology background and began studying biblical scholarship with fresh eyes. I became fascinated with the early Christians—what scholars call Jewish Christianity or Nazarene Christianity, the form of faith that existed from about 30 to 70 AD. Multiple early Christian fathers, such as Epiphanius and Eusebius, wrote that Jesus and his earliest disciples were known as Nazarenes, not Christians.

That lit a fire in me. What if the original form of Christianity wasn’t this Hellenized version shaped by the Roman Empire? What if there was a lost or hidden version? Sure enough, there was—and that set me off on a whole new journey.

I even picked up Hebrew again last year and began studying it with great enthusiasm. I now read the Bible in Hebrew and am pursuing a master’s degree in religious studies. I never thought I’d return to biblical scholarship after leaving Christianity, but it has become a huge passion. It’s been a surprising, beautiful kind of homecoming.

One of the things I’ve seen you discuss is that a lot of Christianity is more based on the teachings of Paul rather than those of Jesus. Could you help us understand that a bit more?

Aaron Abke: That’s an exciting topic to me because it was the first one that grabbed my attention when I began questioning things. It’s a nuanced issue, but while working at Crossroads Bible Church, I began to notice that my pastor and the youth pastor—who also preached regularly—were teaching almost exclusively from the Pauline epistles. And I remember thinking, When are we going to talk about what Jesus taught?

As a 23- or 24-year-old adult, I began to notice that Paul’s voice didn’t quite align with the Jesus I saw in the red letters. So I started studying both more deeply, trying to harmonize them. I was still in that space where I wanted to rescue my faith—I wasn’t ready to let go. But the more I tried to reconcile Paul and Jesus, the more obvious their differences became.

One of the wake-up moments for me was during a Sunday service when a woman came up to give an offering testimony. Behind her stood a man, his arms folded across his chest, as if he were a bodyguard. And I thought, Please don’t let this be what I think it is… Sure enough, when she finished, the two of them held hands and walked offstage together. That was her husband, standing behind her as a “covering,” in line with Paul’s teaching from 1 Timothy, which advises women to be silent in church. It left a sick taste in my mouth, and my wife—who was 20 at the time—was just as upset.

I remember trying to calm her down, saying, I’m sure there’s an explanation. Maybe there’s another verse where Paul says something redeeming about women. I looked. I dug through everything. But I couldn’t find anything. Instead, I found more verses that raised even more red flags.

One thing that stood out to me was how often Paul boasts about himself, over and over. Scholars agree that Paul wrote only seven of the 13 epistles attributed to him. The other six are considered forgeries written in the second century. But in the seven authentic letters, Paul uses the word “boast” over 40 times. He also uses an enormous number of first-person pronouns. He’s constantly talking about himself, his visions, and his revelations.

Compare that to something like the book of Hebrews—Paul uses 1,300% more personal pronouns in the first chapter of Romans alone than are used in all of Hebrews. These are different authors. I couldn’t find anything redeeming in Paul’s letters—they were full of self-aggrandizement, strange theological ideas, and troubling views.

Another moment came while reading 2 Corinthians 12:7, where Paul says a “messenger of Satan” was sent to torment him, and God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you.” I remember thinking, Wait—Paul admits a demon was tormenting him?

Then, in the book of Acts—chapter 9, I believe—Paul is about to meet with James, Peter, and John. But Jesus appears to him and tells him not to go to Jerusalem because the disciples won’t believe him. I thought, That’s strange. Why would Jesus, who walked and talked with these men, tell Paul not to share his revelations with them? These were his closest disciples, possibly even his blood relatives.

Whether Acts is historically accurate or not, what we do know from history—namely, the church fathers, patristic writings, and early Christian historians—is that a major schism existed between Paul and Jesus’ original disciples. Every Jewish Christian group in the first century rejected Paul. They viewed him as a false prophet who paganized Jesus’ message and created a Greco-Roman mystery religion. And that “new” message—confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, believe in his death and resurrection, and you’re saved—was not something Jesus ever taught.

Jesus never said anything close to that. Instead, when asked in Luke 18, Matthew 19, and Mark 10, “Rabbi, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”—the question every Christian wants answered—Jesus said, “Keep the commandments.” Do not confess me as Lord, nor believe in my resurrection. Just keep the commandments.

That really disturbed me when I read it at the age of 23 or 24. Because you’ll never hear that answer from a modern pastor. Instead, they quote Paul—Romans 10:9—“Confess with your mouth…” But that’s not Jesus’ answer.

Jesus even lists the commandments: Love the Lord your God, love your neighbor as yourself. And he says that if you do these two things, you fulfill the whole law. But Paul, in 2 Corinthians, refers to the Ten Commandments—Jesus’ actual answer to salvation—as a “ministry of death engraved in stone.”

The contradictions are staggering if you’re honest about them. Jesus teaches judgment based on works—how you lived. Paul teaches salvation by grace through faith alone. However, five times in the New Testament, Jesus states that people will be judged by their works—three times in Revelation and twice in the Gospels.

When I was going through this unraveling, I turned to near-death experiences. Before I went deep into Eastern philosophy, I wanted to know: Is there really a God? Is there an afterlife? I read and listened to thousands of NDEs. And what blew my mind was how many of them directly contradicted Pauline theology and confirmed what Jesus taught.

These weren’t atheists—many were Christians who ended up in dark, hellish realms because they weren’t living by what Jesus taught. They thought they were saved because they believed the right things. But they were arrogant, unkind, and selfish. And they discovered that salvation doesn’t come from belief—it comes from the heart, from living in alignment with love and humility.

That’s what Jesus emphasized over and over. “If you love me, obey my commandments.” He didn’t care about lip service. He cared about the condition of your heart, your integrity, and your humility. That became so clear to me through NDEs, through studying scripture, through everything.

And that’s when I realized that the Christianity taught today—from pulpits and churches around the world—is not the Christianity of Jesus. It’s a Hellenistic version, shaped by Rome and infused with Paul’s Greco-Roman theology. However, Jesus’ valid message of mercy, justice, nonviolence, and radical love remains, if we’re willing to see it.

You can go even deeper by reading the Gospel of Thomas, the Didache, or the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew—texts that preserve the more mystical, Jewish teachings of Jesus. I believe Jesus was an Essene mystic rabbi who came out of the Transjordan region to reform Judaism from within.

His final act—cleansing the temple—was a bold move against the blood sacrifice system. He quoted Hosea: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” And then he let the animals go, stood on a table, and shouted, “You’ve turned my Father’s house into a den of thieves.” But in Hebrew, the word is paritz—violent murderers. He was calling out the slaughter of animals, saying this isn’t what God wants.

That, historically, is what got him killed. Mark 11:18 says the temple priests began plotting his death after he cleansed the temple. Jesus wasn’t killed for claiming to be divine—he was killed for disrupting the temple economy, for threatening Rome’s system of control.

So yeah, when you study all this, it turns your understanding of Jesus upside down—but in the best way. You see him as this courageous, heart-centered reformer who stood for truth, love, and justice. And you realize most of what modern Christianity teaches… isn’t what he taught at all.

You’ve got a brand-new book coming out August 12th, 2025, called The Three Beliefs of Ego: A Sufferer’s Guide to Freedom. Tell us about this book. What are your hopes for it?

Aaron Abke: So this book, The Three Beliefs of Ego, is really the culmination of my spiritual awakening journey, particularly what began at age 27, when I experienced a kind of second awakening. The first came years earlier, through intense existential depression, leaving my religion, getting divorced, and moving back in with my parents in California. That whole season dismantled my sense of grounding and led me into deep depression.

But that pain also became the catalyst for some serious spiritual seeking. I needed answers—answers for the suffering I was experiencing and the torment of my mind. I immersed myself in the teachings of Eckhart Tolle, Mooji, Alan Watts, and Rupert Spira—teachers who provided me with insights that were intellectually satisfying but still challenging to integrate into my daily life.

Then, one day, at 27, while working as a personal trainer at Google in Mountain View, I had a daily ritual of sitting on the gym balcony during lunch, watching the clouds drift by in the California sky, and listening to Eckhart Tolle. It was my one quiet moment of the day to unwind and be still.

On what seemed like a typical day, Eckhart was talking about some of the ego’s classic inner monologues—things like, “If only people recognized how special I am, then I’d finally be happy.” And he would laugh after saying them, and the audience would laugh along. So did I.

But something shifted in me that day. I realized—This is the voice in my head. This is what my mind constantly tells me. And then I saw it so clearly: I am not that voice. I started laughing at how absurd it was to believe that I was this inner monologue. It was just background noise, like a broken record on repeat—and somehow I had mistaken it for me.

That realization hit me with such intensity that it flipped a switch in my consciousness. For the next two weeks, I lived in a state of total peace and presence. I wasn’t thinking about it—I was too busy enjoying it. I felt free, unburdened, full of love and joy. And then, exactly two weeks later, I woke up and thought, ‘Wow, it was two Tuesdays ago that I had that awakening… Am I enlightened now?’

And just like that—boom. Ego came back online. Maybe I’ll be enlightened forever! It whispered. And in that moment, the ego claimed ownership of the state… and it was gone.

What followed was an even deeper depression than before. Because hell is bad enough the first time, but once you’ve tasted heaven, returning to hell is excruciating. It felt like I’d been given a free sample of enlightenment, found unworthy, and cast out.

But that experience gave me two powerful gifts, which I share in the book’s introduction. First, it gave me an unshakable conviction that the enlightened state is real. It’s not a fantasy—it’s a shift in consciousness that’s available to all of us. I had lived it. And second, it gave me a burning motivation to find my way back. I didn’t want to go on suffering. I needed to know how to return to that state—and stay there.

At the time, I was a full-time fitness model in San Francisco, a competitive bodybuilder, and a personal trainer. My whole life was wrapped up in appearance and vanity. But after that awakening, all of that felt hollow. So I quit. I called my agent, dropped modeling and bodybuilding, and devoted myself completely to spiritual study.

And what emerged from that journey is the core teaching in this book: the ego, at its root, is made of just three beliefs. If we can understand and transcend those three beliefs, we can free ourselves from suffering. It’s almost like discovering a spiritual “cheat code”—a blueprint for how the ego operates.

The first thing I asked myself was, What is my suffering actually made of? I realized that I only truly suffer from three emotions: sadness, anger, and fear. Every other negative emotion is a variation of one of those three. And once I saw that, another question arose: Why do I feel these emotions? What causes them?

What I discovered is that each of those emotions corresponds to a belief about the self:

1. Sadness comes from the belief in lack—I’m not enough. I’m incomplete. Something is missing in me. This is the ego’s core wound.
2. Anger arises from the belief in attachment or outcome-based happiness—I need to get something in the external world to finally feel whole.
3. Fear stems from the belief in control or personal doership—I am the one who must make everything happen. I have to fix it, manage it, and achieve it all.

These three beliefs form the foundation of the ego’s identity. And when we’re operating from them, we suffer—constantly trying to control life, prove our worth, chase fulfillment, and avoid loss.

But here’s the key: once you recognize the belief behind your emotional state, you can begin to requalify it. One of the most powerful tools I found came from A Course in Miracles. The line is: “Only what I have not given can ever be lacking.”

That one sentence cracked something open in me. I realized I’m not suffering because I lack love. I’m suffering because I’m not giving love. The ego says, “No one loves me,” so we spend our lives trying to get love. But when we give love, when we extend it, we become the source, and the lack dissolves.

This became my practice. Every time I felt sadness, I would stop and ask, What do I believe I’m lacking right now? And then I’d go out and give that very thing to someone else. It changed everything.

This book teaches that process, not just conceptually, but also practically. Each of the three beliefs has its method of requalification. And once you see how emotions are guideposts, not problems, you can begin using them as allies.

Your emotions become your spiritual GPS. When you feel sadness, anger, or fear, it’s not something to run from—it’s an invitation to look deeper, to question the belief, and to return to truth.

That’s the essence of The Three Beliefs of Ego. I hope that it helps people liberate themselves from suffering—not by escaping their humanity, but by recognizing that who they truly are was never lacking, never separate, and never in control to begin with.

You’ll also be joining us at the San Diego Transcendence Retreat on September 27th–28th, 2025. What will you be speaking on there? What can we expect?

Aaron Abke: Yeah, I’ll definitely be talking about the book—essentially sharing the live presentation version of it. I’ve done it at a few events now, and honestly, I just feel so grateful every time I get to share this message. It’s something that helped save me from my own suffering, pulled me out of my dark night of the soul, and, for some reason, God has put me in a position where I get to help others do the same.

There’s not a day I wake up without this overwhelming sense of gratitude for what I get to do. And because of that, I want to share this with anyone who’s open. I really believe that if you’re willing to apply these teachings and live them, they will help heal your mind. They’ll give you the freedom and peace you’re looking for.

To me, it’s like Jesus said—the kingdom of heaven is like a farmer sowing seeds. Some fall on rocky soil, some on fertile soil, but the farmer just sows. That’s how I see this work. It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay. It’s for people who have had a spiritual awakening and are now asking, ‘Okay, how do I integrate this?’ They want a field guide—a framework—for understanding their suffering and navigating it. That’s what the book is.

At the retreat, I’ll break it down into two teachings, as I usually do. The first part will focus on the emotional guidance system—how to understand what emotions really are and how they’re speaking to you. Then, with that foundation in place, I’ll dive into the three beliefs of ego and how those beliefs connect to and trigger specific emotional patterns.

What’s the best place for people to follow your work online and go deeper with your teachings?

Aaron Abke: Pretty simple—my handle is the same everywhere. Just go to YouTube.com/AaronAbke, or my website, aaronabke.com. I’m also on Instagram under the same name. 

Aaron, thank you so much for being with us today and sharing your wisdom and your teachings. Really appreciate it.

Aaron Abke: Likewise, brother. Thanks for having me. It’s been a pleasure.