We read the stories of the “Three Little Pigs” and “Little Red Riding Hood” without believing wolves talk. Or Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey without thinking short-tempered gods actually stir up sea storms. Just as pleasurably, we can read the Bible, also filled with sky gods, heavenly messengers, and a storytelling magician with profound words about life and death, without needing to believe they were real.

Jan Wojcik devoted himself to God at a young age, eventually becoming a Jesuit seminarian. But as he progressed through his education, he began to view the Bible differently than his peers—he began to see it as a work of art. And he began to see organized religion as wanting to suppress that art for the purposes of lucrative thought control.

Jan spent a third of his lifetime getting under and then throwing off the heavy cloak of religious control by reading the Bible as literature. While living to be eighty—and counting—under gospel guidance, he has found the beauty and joy of loving women and working the earth, stargazing, and fishing as Jesus instructed his disciples to do. He learned to lead a godly life that goes beyond belief.