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“You Got Your Lao Tzu on My Jesus!”

“You Got Your Lao Tzu on My Jesus!”

Last updated on: September 23, 2026 at 7:09 pm by Gregory T. Smith

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“You Got Your Lao Tzu on My Jesus!” 2026-09-23T19:09:10-08:00 Gregory T. Smith

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Jesus and Lao Tzu: The Way of Love

Image created by Gregory T. Smith on Canva

What do Jesus, Lao Tzu, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups have in common? More than I expected—and enough to become a book.

A little over two years ago, I began this series by asking, “How Are Jesus & Lao Tzu Like Peanut Butter Cups?” I told the story of how my ninth-grade World History teacher introduced me to the Tao Te Ching through Benjamin Hoff’s unassuming book, The Tao of Pooh.

When this Christian boy read Lao Tzu, his words seemed strangely familiar. They sounded like Jesus! And, for the past forty years, Jesus and Lao Tzu have been quietly having a conversation in my head. And I wanted to share that conversation with you.

Book Release: September 22

Back in 2024, I brought that conversation to you through blog posts. That article became a series, and that series eventually became my new book**,** Jesus and Lao Tzu: The Way of Love, published by Quoir, and releasing September 22.

So, as the book prepares to make its way into the world, it seems appropriate to return to where we started. What follows is a shortened version of the book’s preface—and yes, it begins with those peanut butter cups again.

How Are Jesus and Lao Tzu Like Peanut Butter Cups?

Do you remember the old TV commercials where two cowboys are sitting by the fire? Their elbows knock together, and snacks collide. Each one looks to the other with furrowed brows. “You got your chocolate in my peanut butter,” the first one drawls. The second, just as offended, says, “You got your peanut butter on my chocolate!” The viewer wonders if a dust-up or gunfight might ensue. Then, as if a lightbulb turns on over their heads, they realize they’ve stumbled into something wonderful. The announcer says, “The two great tastes that taste great together, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.”

I felt like one of those cowboys by the fire when my ninth-grade World History teacher introduced Taoism to our class. “Hey! You got your Lao Tzu on my Jesus!” Years later, it was as if my university Taoism professor said, “You got your Jesus in my Lao Tzu!” Taoism and Christianity were the two great faiths that “faith” great together.

Tao and Christianity Side by Side

Over the decades, I’ve continued studying the Tao and Christianity side by side. This book grows out of the conviction that when Jesus says, “I am the Way,” he reveals a God very different from the angry father-in-the-sky many of our Sunday school teachers handed us. Though Jesus himself was Jewish, the God he reveals often resonates with what Taoist wisdom calls the Tao: the humble, steady current of divine love in which we live and move and have our being, not the distant, unpredictable deity many of us were taught to fear. That realization sent me back to Jesus and Lao Tzu again and again, looking for the places where their views clash and where they quietly come together in ways that both surprise and reassure me.

Taoism is a tradition that distrusts force, values humility, and points toward a life of simplicity, compassion, and non-coercive action that doesn’t strain against the grain of things. In times like these, Christianity desperately needs to hold a conversation with these values.

My aim is not to draw a strict parallel between Christianity and Taoism. Instead, my hope is to highlight areas where Jesus and Lao Tzu are in alignment and to show that, like peanut butter and chocolate, a person can savor both at the same time. The aim is not to prove that “Lao Tzu predicted Jesus,” or that Christianity secretly owns Taoism, but to sit honestly with both streams of wisdom and see where they come together. We’ll also stretch ourselves to see where Lao Tzu’s non-coercive Tao challenges versions of Christianity, and where Jesus’s crucified love refuses to let Taoist calm drift into indifference. Taken together, they can lead us back to the Way of Love.

Why Have This Conversation?

You may ask, “Why have this conversation at all?” If Christians are looking to be “saved,” they don’t need to look outside of Jesus. But the Way of Christ is about more than going to heaven when you die. It’s also about how we live peacefully and openly in the world today. If we want to learn to become less frantic, less controlling, less performative, and more like Jesus, then Lao Tzu can offer a way to read the Gospels that moves beyond either/or thinking and is more expansive than many Western readings.

Taoist wisdom, especially in the Tao Te Ching, specializes in exposing the spiritual disease of grasping. The modern Western Christian urge to overpower, to force outcomes, to be seen as right and strong, is a disease that runs counter to the spirit of Christ. And it may take Lao Tzu to help us realize this. We don’t need Taoism to fix Christianity, but it might just remind us of who Jesus meant for us to be by diagnosing the control, ego, and oppression that has fascinated us for centuries, using language that slips past our defenses.

Sharing a place at the campfire means neither tradition tries to outshine the other. Taoist texts don’t seek certainty the way many Christian teachings do. Instead, they teach a posture: listen longer than you lecture. Because the Tao Te Ching isn’t trying to “prove” anything, Christians don’t need to read it defensively. We can recognize resonance (“this sounds like Jesus”) without flattening difference (“therefore it is Jesus”). That distinction is the difference between dialogue between two faiths and one religion colonizing the other.

Side by Side—Not Blended

One caution before we go further. When you put two wisdom traditions side by side, it’s easy (almost automatic) for the mind to start stitching them into a single seamless fabric. My “peanut butter cup” analogy is meant to describe the two being enjoyed next to each other, not blended together. Chocolate is still chocolate; peanut butter is still peanut butter. You can taste them together, and the contrast can even sharpen the flavor of each, but they remain distinct.

When I highlight agreements or similarities between the two traditions, read them as honest echoes, not absolute equivalencies. The goal is not to make the Tao Te Ching secretly Christian or to make the Gospel quietly Taoist, but to hold Jesus and Lao Tzu in the same room long enough for the conversation to change us.

Fallen off the Christian Wagon?

Some readers from the traditions that raised me may worry at this point that I’ve fallen off the Christian wagon entirely. I haven’t. I still confess Jesus as the clearest face of God I know, and I still pray with the Bible open on my lap. If something is true, it is true because it flows from this one Source of truth, not because Christians own it. I’m not asking anyone to drop their loyalty to Jesus or to family members who first taught them to pray. If you’re a Christian, I’m inviting you to stay rooted in Christ while letting the Tao Te Ching hold up a mirror to some of our Christian assumptions, so the God we love can grow larger, kinder, and more like the One whom Jesus actually reveals.

Whether or not Jesus ever heard the word “Tao,” his enemy-love, downward mobility, and solidarity with the poor bear a strong similarity to Lao Tzu’s vision of a humble, hidden way. However, I would be mistaken to claim the philosophies of Jesus and Lao Tzu are the same. It’s better to say they share a remarkable kinship. It is at the crossroads where Jesus and Lao Tzu meet that I have found my footing.

If you are drawn to Taoism, contemplative practice, or simply the ethical teachings of Jesus, my hope is that you will find an unpressured space where both traditions can speak. In short, I’m writing for people who still ache for Love, but no longer trust force, whether that force comes from empire, ego, or religion wearing God’s name.

I’m glad you’ve joined me as we follow this sacred Flow.

Jesus and Lao Tzu: The Way of Love is now available on Amazon. Order your Kindle copy today.

For related reading, check out my other articles:

General Christian

History and Religion

Health, Fitness and Religion

Interreligious diaglogue

Jesus and Lao Tzu

Tao Te Ching

Taoism and Christianity

About Gregory T. Smith

I live in the beautiful Fraser Valley of British Columbia and work in northern Washington State as a behavioral health specialist with people experiencing homelessness and those who are overly involved in the criminal justice system. Before that, I spent over a quarter-century as lead pastor of several Virginia churches. My newspaper column, “Spirit and Truth,” ran in Virginia newspapers for fifteen years. I am one of fourteen contributing authors of the Patheos/Quoir Publishing book “Sitting in the Shade of Another Tree: What We Learn by Listening to Other Faiths.” I hold a degree in Religious Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University and also studied at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. My wife Christina and I have seven children between us, and we are still collecting grandchildren. You can read more about the author here.

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