In the early 1990s, AJ Miller (a.k.a. Jesus) was a married IT specialist preaching at the local Jehovah Witness church on the South Australian coast. It was a good, sensible life but it wasn’t enough. Deep down, AJ knew he was Jesus.His marriage didn’t survive the transformation. He spent the 2000s traveling and restyling himself, before he settled in rural Queensland with a former humanitarian worker named Mary Luck, who has since revealed herself to be Mary Magdalene. They set up a website called divinetruth.com and have been attracting the wrath of 60 Minutes ever since.Scepticism aside, you can understand the opportunity. If AJ is Jesus, then asking him for leadership advice is obvious. And if AJ isn’t Jesus, but people think he is, then asking for leadership advice is even more obvious. So I got on the phone and asked.
Jesus and Mary.VICE: Hi Jesus, how can I be a good leader?
Jesus: By embracing the ideas of love and truth in your own personal life, and by being humble. A good leader generally engages their interests with passion, and if they do it in harmony with love, truth, and humility, I feel they’ll be a good leader.Can we be more specific? In the office, how can I convince everyone I’m right?
Well, there’s a problem with persuading people that you’re right. I'd say that's a waste of time. For me, I’d just engage my ideas and if people don’t like them, I’d probably leave the organization and set up my own. Once you do that, the people around you become convinced by your passion when it works. If it doesn’t work, people won’t be convinced and you should be humble for that. You should think okay, that idea didn’t work and maybe I need to listen to others a bit more.Who are some world leaders that you admire?
I feel that Obama does a lot of things that are considered strong leadership, but if you look at American politics generally, it’s a lot about balancing the demands of an addictive public. I don’t think that’s the best way to lead. The best way to lead sometimes is to not give the average person what they want.Who are some bad leaders?
Anybody who leads by feeding the people’s addictions is a bad leader. For example, the average person in Australia is quite afraid of immigration so a government that promotes an immigration policy based on fear is leading badly.Are you a good leader?
To be honest, I don’t view myself as a leader, I view myself as a student of God. By being a good student, you meet others and then attract those people quite naturally.
Jesus delivering a workshop. Courtesy of AJ Miller.Yes, you attract people from all over the world.
No, that’s not true. That’s something the media has lied about.But I’ve seen 60 Minutes… I thought you owned a farm with dozens of followers?
No. In the last year, we’ve only had two families come stay with us and they were both close friends. We only have a small, one bedroom house so there’s no room for people to stay. There’s no such thing as a compound or bunks or anything like that.So the videos I’ve seen, they’re all made up?
Yes, totally made up. We visit people and host seminars but all of that is very rare. The reality is that the media wants to turn us into a cult.Do you run a cult?
No, not at all. It’s quite amusing when the media makes these accusations, especially when some of them stayed in our house and saw the reality. One of them even said that if they portrayed our life as it was, there’d be no ratings.But you claim you’re Jesus. That implies you’re a leader?
No, that’s only implied by people who have certain beliefs about Jesus. They get these ideas from the Bible so when I say I’m Jesus, they think I should be doing all the stuff that’s in the Bible.So you won’t die for our sins?
No. I never died for anyone’s sins, so I won’t do it again. And the first time they killed me was because they saw me as an enemy of the state. There was no sacrifice on my part, and there was no purpose from God.Are you ever concerned it’ll happen again?
It’s certainly a possibility. We have a lot of violent, angry people emailing us. Just the other day we received a letter from a religious man saying he was going to rape Mary in front of me and then murder both of us. Apparently he was also getting a whole lot of people to hang me on a cross. He was obviously in quite a disturbed psychological state.Are you willing to die for beliefs?
Certainly, although I don’t believe anyone should kill for their beliefs. However, I believe everyone should be willing to die if they have sincerity in their beliefs. And sincerity is part of being a good leader.Amen.Follow Julian on Twitter
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Jesus: By embracing the ideas of love and truth in your own personal life, and by being humble. A good leader generally engages their interests with passion, and if they do it in harmony with love, truth, and humility, I feel they’ll be a good leader.Can we be more specific? In the office, how can I convince everyone I’m right?
Well, there’s a problem with persuading people that you’re right. I'd say that's a waste of time. For me, I’d just engage my ideas and if people don’t like them, I’d probably leave the organization and set up my own. Once you do that, the people around you become convinced by your passion when it works. If it doesn’t work, people won’t be convinced and you should be humble for that. You should think okay, that idea didn’t work and maybe I need to listen to others a bit more.Who are some world leaders that you admire?
I feel that Obama does a lot of things that are considered strong leadership, but if you look at American politics generally, it’s a lot about balancing the demands of an addictive public. I don’t think that’s the best way to lead. The best way to lead sometimes is to not give the average person what they want.
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Anybody who leads by feeding the people’s addictions is a bad leader. For example, the average person in Australia is quite afraid of immigration so a government that promotes an immigration policy based on fear is leading badly.Are you a good leader?
To be honest, I don’t view myself as a leader, I view myself as a student of God. By being a good student, you meet others and then attract those people quite naturally.
No, that’s not true. That’s something the media has lied about.But I’ve seen 60 Minutes… I thought you owned a farm with dozens of followers?
No. In the last year, we’ve only had two families come stay with us and they were both close friends. We only have a small, one bedroom house so there’s no room for people to stay. There’s no such thing as a compound or bunks or anything like that.So the videos I’ve seen, they’re all made up?
Yes, totally made up. We visit people and host seminars but all of that is very rare. The reality is that the media wants to turn us into a cult.Do you run a cult?
No, not at all. It’s quite amusing when the media makes these accusations, especially when some of them stayed in our house and saw the reality. One of them even said that if they portrayed our life as it was, there’d be no ratings.But you claim you’re Jesus. That implies you’re a leader?
No, that’s only implied by people who have certain beliefs about Jesus. They get these ideas from the Bible so when I say I’m Jesus, they think I should be doing all the stuff that’s in the Bible.
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No. I never died for anyone’s sins, so I won’t do it again. And the first time they killed me was because they saw me as an enemy of the state. There was no sacrifice on my part, and there was no purpose from God.Are you ever concerned it’ll happen again?
It’s certainly a possibility. We have a lot of violent, angry people emailing us. Just the other day we received a letter from a religious man saying he was going to rape Mary in front of me and then murder both of us. Apparently he was also getting a whole lot of people to hang me on a cross. He was obviously in quite a disturbed psychological state.Are you willing to die for beliefs?
Certainly, although I don’t believe anyone should kill for their beliefs. However, I believe everyone should be willing to die if they have sincerity in their beliefs. And sincerity is part of being a good leader.Amen.Follow Julian on Twitter