Zeitgeist concludes its religious critique with a sweeping philosophical claim: religion exists to control people.
The film argues that religion—particularly Christianity—performs three psychological functions:
- Detachment from nature: Religion separates humans from the natural world, creating a false dichotomy between the “spiritual” and the “material”
- Blind submission: Religion demands unthinking obedience to authority, suppressing critical thinking and individual conscience
- Elimination of responsibility: By attributing everything to God’s will, religion allows people to abdicate moral responsibility and justify crimes in the divine name
If this analysis is correct, religion isn’t just historically mistaken—it’s morally corrupt by design. Christianity wouldn’t be a well-intentioned error but a sophisticated mechanism for producing compliant subjects.
It’s a serious charge. But does it accurately describe what Jesus actually taught and what early Christianity actually practiced?
The Hermeneutics of Suspicion
Before examining the specific claims, it’s worth noting the method Zeitgeist employs.
The film operates with what philosophers call a “hermeneutics of suspicion”—the assumption that religious claims are masks for hidden interests. If someone invokes divine authority, the real explanation must be political. If an institution promotes certain beliefs, the motivation must be control.
This approach has genuine value. Power does corrupt. Institutions do manipulate. Religious language has been weaponized to justify terrible things. A degree of suspicion is healthy.
But suspicion can become its own dogma. If every religious claim is presumed to be a power play, the conclusion is built into the premise. The question “Is this true?” never gets asked because “Who benefits?” has already provided the answer.
The challenge is to maintain appropriate suspicion without letting suspicion replace investigation. The question isn’t whether religion can be used for control—obviously it can, and has been. The question is whether that’s all it is, or even what it was designed to be.
This requires actually examining what the religious sources say.
Claim 1: Religion Detaches Humans from Nature
The first claim is that religion creates a false divide between humans and the natural world—teaching people to despise the material realm and long for an immaterial “spiritual” existence.
This describes certain strands of religious thought (particularly Gnosticism, which early Christianity actively opposed). But it doesn’t describe the Jewish or Christian mainstream.
Creation as “Very Good”
The opening chapter of Genesis presents creation not as a prison or illusion but as the deliberate, delighted work of God. After each act of creation, God declares it “good.” After creating humanity, he declares everything “very good” (Genesis 1:31).
This is the opposite of nature-rejection. The physical world is affirmed as the arena of God’s purposes, worthy of care and cultivation.
Torah as Ecological Stewardship
The Jewish Law (Torah) embeds environmental concern into religious practice.
E.P. Sanders notes that first-century Jewish writers defended the Law precisely on “humanistic” grounds that extended to the natural world. Philo and Josephus argued that the Torah displayed philanthropia (love of humanity) through commands that:
- Extended Sabbath rest to animals, not just humans
- Required the land to lie fallow every seventh year (the Sabbath year)
- Prohibited the wanton destruction of fruit trees even during warfare
- Required consideration for the welfare of working animals
Far from detaching humans from nature, the Torah mandated a stewardship that respected the limits of the land and the welfare of other creatures.
Jesus and the Natural World
Jesus’ teaching is saturated with attention to the natural world—not as something to escape but as something that reveals God’s character and purposes.
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Matthew 6:28–29).
“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them” (Matthew 6:26).
“He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).
Gerd Theissen observes that Jesus’ ethics are rooted in “wisdom motives” that treat nature as transparent to God’s will. The natural world isn’t a trap to be escaped but a teacher to be attended. The parables draw constantly on seeds, soil, weather, animals, and agricultural rhythms.
This is nature mysticism, not nature rejection.
The Incarnation
The central Christian claim—that God became human in Jesus Christ—is the ultimate affirmation of the material world.
The incarnation declares that flesh is capable of bearing divinity. The body isn’t evil; God wore one. The material world isn’t a prison; it’s where God chose to dwell.
The resurrection reinforces this: Jesus rises bodily, not as a disembodied spirit. The Christian hope isn’t escape from the physical world but its transformation and renewal.
The claim that Christianity detaches humans from nature requires ignoring the creation narrative, the Torah’s ecological commands, Jesus’ nature-saturated teaching, and the incarnation itself. It describes Gnosticism—which Christianity rejected as heresy—not Christianity proper.
Claim 2: Religion Demands Blind Submission
The second claim is that religion suppresses critical thinking, demanding unquestioning obedience to authority.
This describes certain religious communities, past and present. But it doesn’t describe Jesus’ actual teaching, which consistently prioritized critical moral reasoning over mechanical rule-following.
Jesus vs. Formalism
The Gospels depict Jesus in constant conflict with religious authorities—not because he rejected moral standards but because he rejected their reduction to external compliance.
James D.G. Dunn argues that Jesus’ disputes with the Pharisees weren’t attacks on the Law itself but on a “factionalism” that used the Law to create social boundaries while neglecting its deeper purposes. Jesus pressed “behind the immediate issue” to the fundamental questions of motive and intent.
When challenged about hand-washing rituals, Jesus responded: “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him” (Mark 7:15). This shifts attention from external compliance to internal character.
When criticized for healing on the Sabbath, Jesus asked: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4). This subordinates ritual observance to human welfare.
This is the opposite of blind submission. It’s active, critical engagement with the moral purposes behind religious rules.
The Heart of the Law
When asked to identify the greatest commandment, Jesus didn’t point to a ritual requirement. He pointed to love:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love the neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37–40).
This defines obedience not as checking boxes but as actively seeking the welfare of others. Love requires judgment, discernment, attention to context. It cannot be reduced to mechanical rule-following.
Critique of Religious Authority
Jesus reserved his harshest criticism for religious authorities who used their position to burden rather than bless:
“They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger” (Matthew 23:4).
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23).
This isn’t demanding blind submission to authority. It’s modeling prophetic critique of authority that neglects its proper purposes.
The “Traditions of Men”
When religious tradition conflicted with genuine moral obligation, Jesus sided with moral obligation:
“You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men… You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!” (Mark 7:8–9).
The example Jesus gives is the Corban vow—a legal mechanism that allowed people to dedicate money to the temple while using it to avoid supporting their aging parents. Jesus calls this out as using religious formalism to evade genuine ethical responsibility.
Far from demanding blind submission, Jesus empowers his followers to reject religious authorities when those authorities abuse their position.
Claim 3: Religion Eliminates Moral Responsibility
The third claim is that attributing events to God’s will allows people to abdicate responsibility for their actions and justify crimes in the divine name.
This concern has historical warrant. Terrible things have been done “in God’s name.” But the claim that Christianity teaches the elimination of responsibility inverts what the sources actually say.
Judgment by Works
Jesus’ teaching consistently emphasizes that people will be held accountable for their actions.
The parable of the sheep and goats (Matthew 25:31–46) is particularly striking. In this judgment scene, admission to the kingdom depends entirely on ethical action—specifically, how one treated the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and imprisoned.
“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”
There’s no escape clause here. No “but I believed the right doctrines.” No “but I was doing God’s will.” The criterion is concrete ethical treatment of vulnerable people.
This isn’t the elimination of responsibility. It’s the radicalization of responsibility. Every encounter with a suffering person becomes an encounter with Christ. Every act of neglect becomes a failure before God.
The Intensification of Ethics
Bart Ehrman and Gerd Theissen both note that Jesus’ ethic “intensified” rather than relaxed moral demands.
The Sermon on the Mount doesn’t lower the bar; it raises it:
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder’… But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” (Matthew 5:21–22).
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27–28).
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:38–39).
This isn’t reducing responsibility. It’s expanding it—from external action to internal disposition, from not-harming to actively blessing, from retaliation to reconciliation.
The Prohibition of Violence
Zeitgeist suggests that religion allows crimes to be justified in God’s name. But Jesus’ explicit teaching forbids precisely this:
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).
“All who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:52).
“My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting” (John 18:36).
The early church understood this. For the first three centuries—before Constantine, before any political power—Christians were known for refusing military service and accepting martyrdom rather than violence.
Have Christians violated these teachings? Obviously, horrifically, repeatedly. But the violation proves the existence of the standard, not its absence. The problem isn’t that Christianity teaches violence; it’s that Christians have failed to follow what Christianity teaches.
The Counter-Evidence
If Christianity were designed for political control, we’d expect it to:
- Support existing power structures
- Demand unthinking compliance
- Promise rewards for obedience to earthly authorities
- Eliminate accountability for the powerful
What we actually find is:
A Movement of the Marginalized
The early church was composed largely of slaves, women, and lower-class workers. It offered them dignity, community, and hope that subverted existing social hierarchies.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
This wasn’t useful for Roman political control. It was dangerous to it.
Martyrdom Rather Than Compliance
For three centuries, Christians died rather than offer token worship to the emperor. They accepted torture and execution rather than comply with state religious requirements.
A religion designed for producing compliant subjects would not produce martyrs.
Critique of Wealth and Power
Jesus’ teaching consistently critiques the wealthy and powerful:
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24).
“The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you” (Matthew 20:25–26).
“Blessed are you who are poor… But woe to you who are rich” (Luke 6:20, 24).
This isn’t the rhetoric of control. It’s the rhetoric of revolution.
Prophetic Tradition
Christianity inherited Judaism’s prophetic tradition—a tradition of speaking truth to power, of condemning kings, of insisting that God’s requirements take precedence over human authority.
“We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
This principle has fueled countless movements of resistance against unjust authority: abolitionism, civil rights, anti-apartheid activism, resistance to totalitarianism. The claim that Christianity exists for control has to explain why it keeps generating movements against control.
The Deeper Question
Zeitgeist is right that religion can be used for manipulation. History provides ample evidence. The question is whether that use represents religion’s essence or its corruption.
A hammer can be used to build a house or bash a skull. The fact that it can be misused doesn’t mean its purpose is violence.
Christianity has been used to justify slavery—and to abolish it. It has been used to prop up empires—and to resist them. It has been used to suppress thought—and to found universities. The pattern suggests that Christianity is a powerful force that can be directed toward various ends, not a system designed for a single purpose.
The “religion is control” thesis requires us to believe that a movement which:
- Originated among marginalized people in an occupied territory
- Produced martyrs rather than soldiers for three centuries
- Taught love of enemies and rejection of violence
- Consistently critiqued wealth and power
- Generated repeated movements of resistance against unjust authority
…was secretly designed as a tool for producing compliant subjects.
This doesn’t add up. The historical evidence points in the opposite direction.
Conclusion
Zeitgeist’s claim that religion exists for psychological manipulation fails when tested against the actual content of Christian teaching:
On nature: Christianity affirms creation as good, embeds ecological concern in religious practice, and declares that God became flesh. This is nature-affirmation, not nature-rejection.
On authority: Jesus consistently prioritized moral reasoning over mechanical compliance, critiqued religious leaders who burdened rather than blessed, and empowered followers to reject traditions that violated genuine ethics. This is critical engagement, not blind submission.
On responsibility: Jesus’ teaching intensifies moral accountability, extending it from external action to internal disposition and making treatment of the vulnerable the criterion of divine judgment. This is radicalized responsibility, not its elimination.
On control: Christianity originated among the marginalized, produced martyrs who refused state compliance, critiqued wealth and power, and has repeatedly generated movements of resistance. This is the opposite of a control mechanism.
Has Christianity been misused? Undeniably. Have Christians violated their own teachings? Constantly. Does this prove that Christianity was designed for control? No—it proves that humans are capable of corrupting anything, even teachings that explicitly forbid corruption.
The question isn’t whether religion can be weaponized. The question is whether the teachings themselves point toward liberation or oppression.
The evidence suggests liberation.
Author’s Note (2026): This article was originally written in 2013 but was never published at the time. Prior to publication in 2026, it has been carefully reviewed and updated to ensure that historical references, scholarly claims, and source material are accurate, current, and properly represented.