The Catholicist Nation website is designed and assembled by David Beck.

I am a U.S. Government and Economics teacher with twenty years experience working in a high school in southern California. I have a Master's Degree in the Social Sciences from Azusa Pacific University. I am a husband, a father, and I have had church leadership roles in virtually every area of ministry.

I grew up with a Presbyterian religious background, and since high school I have considered myself a Christian. With little insulation from the power of the World, however, I spent much time, energy, and agony damaging myself and others. A few years ago I was introduced to that power by the profound exposition in Tupper Saussy's book Rulers of Evil, and I was driven back into Scripture with a radical new intensity to find a Jesus who was astoundingly more magnificent and gentle than I had ever thought.

The domain name is intended to move the web user to think about the nature of his relationship to Christ. Is his Savior the Jesus who at one point in history died to pay the penalty for his sin, rose again to demonstrate victory over death and despair, and presently walks with him as the most engaging, abiding friend? Or is he a brilliant counterfeit, a straw-man Jesus that takes one of a hundred different forms?

The name was also inspired a bit by Depeche Mode's 1989 single "Personal Jesus." It is a song about a caller offering himself as a girl's "own personal jesus." He cares and hears prayers. He's flesh and bone, a forgiver. But the whole song's tenor is that those things are not exactly what the guy wants to do for the girl. He wants to be her loving, wonderful straw-man Jesus.

Yourownjesus.net is not a dot-com because the website The Catholicist Nation is not a company. It is not a dot-org because it is not an organization. It is a dot-net because it is a network of considerations to get people to know the superlative reality of the One who is "I Am" against the spectacular backdrop of a virulently deceitful World.

This is not a Reformation website. It is not about assailing the duly-authorized Romanist power system, much less endorsing any change whatsoever in it. It is not about doing anything but sharing truth with those who've had the scales dropped from their eyes and can see enough to find freedom in the one place where it is offered: wholly and completely outside that system and in the embrace of Jesus Christ.

The only guide I have is Scripture. As much as I speak of its brutal treatment at the hands of clever Catholicists, as a Catholicist once myself I can be prone to brief bouts of Scripture misconception. If you think you see one at any point in this site, please email me. I am open to correction and would be happy to know about it. My only aim is to honor Him in this effort out of my love for Him because of His gracious love for me, and out of love for those who chance to come across it and find greater clarity and brighter illumination of the Living Word.

I too am on the route out of Babylon and am exuberantly grateful that I have a Lord who leads me on that route. It is always a wondrous adventure, though at times it can be frightening and sorrowful. No matter what, He is with me and that means everything.

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The Catholicist Nation

Why Scripture?

Some of the Counterfeit Straw-Man Jesuses

Some of the Ways Christians Still Wallow in Babylon

Tupper Saussy

A Personal Note

Web note: I have set this site to be reached through "catholicistnation.com" only to make it easier to access for some who remember it by its title. The "com" is gratuitous because it seems to be more used in the web world, but then again, the Nation is ruled by the Roman god of commerce anyway so it is certainly fitting. The site may also be reached through davidbeck.info.

February 2011 note: I must also add a word about who I'm not. According to howmanyofme.com, there are about 1,200 David Becks in the United States. That's quite a few. I'm not about to try to distinguish myself from all of them, but one of the not-me's that I should note is the David Beck of Southern Evangelical Seminary, author of a number of apologetic oriented books.

The URL address of this website is "yourownjesus.net," a title I began using when this webzine commenced in 2004. In 2009, Mark Hall of the musical group Casting Crowns produced a book with the title "Your Own Jesus." The theme of the book appears to be in line with why I myself used the phrase, yet Hall's intention appears to be more about building a more authentic relationship with Christ (indeed a perfectly fine endeavor). Mine is much more about insightfully identifying all the World System Jesuses used to keep people from Him. A page about which of those Jesuses you are following is here, and a page about all the different Jesuses there are is here.

This page was originally posted by David Beck at yourownjesus.net on October 23, 2004