be Conservative,
when Jesus Christ
was so Revolutionary ?
What Jesus himself identified as
his most important teaching !
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be Conservative, when Jesus Christ was so Revolutionary ? |
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Only by ignoring much of What Jesus himself identified as his most important teaching ! |
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This page assumes that the reader knows what we mean when we use the terms "liberal" vs. "conservative" – which is not the case, if you have not yet read http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/Liberals. If you proceed without reading those pages, you may only imagine that you understand what you are reading here, because these are terms which mean very, very different things to different people. "Conservative" Christian preachers promote belief in a very stern God whose partiality to some people in this world is such that he instructs them to kill – not just fighting men -, but women and babies as well, in order to give their lands and communities to his favored people. Such preachers believe that passages like the ones we highlight at WhatkindofGod.org represent the "Word of God". We believe that Jesus of Nazareth knew God better than most, and we can't imagine him identifying with a God who would say, as Hosea claims that he did (Ch. 13:16) : "Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up."
We "Liberals Like Christ", on the other hand, base our beliefs about Jesus on what the Gospels tell us that Jesus actually said about God, about himself, and about what he and/or God expects of us, his followers. We invite those "Conservatives" who really want to conserve the teaching of Jesus, to reflect on precisely what Jesus taught and how he illustrated the true meaning of his words by his actions.
And Jesus described himself in similar words to his own cousin, John "the Baptist" :
" When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" In response to the question, "Sir, which is the most important command in the laws of Moses?" Jesus explicitly identified his and the Bible's highest priorities :
"This is the first and greatest commandment: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.' History has shown that despite the apparent simplicity of these commandments, loving one's neighbor isn't as simple or as easy as it sounds. While so-called "Christian Conservatives" are fond of saying : "Charity begins at home," that is about as far from the teaching of Jesus and the Bible as one can get. In his "preview of the Last Judgement", Jesus spells out what he means by "loving" one's neighbor, what it entails, and in the process, he makes it clear that loving neighbors who are hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, sick, imprisoned, or otherwise afflicted is what matters to him, not loving those in, or close to, our own families, neighborhoods, or country – which as he points out elsewhere everyone does naturally.-
"When I, the Messiah, shall come in glory, and all the angels with me, then I
shall sit upon my throne of glory. And all the nations shall be gathered
before me. And I will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep
from the goats, and place the sheep at my right hand, and the goats at
my left. Then I, the King, shall say to
those at my right, "Come, blessed of my Father, into
the Kingdom prepared for you from the founding of the world.
For I was hungry and you fed me;
I was thirsty and you gave me water;
I was a stranger and you invited me into your homes;
naked and you clothed me; sick and in prison,
and you visited me." The conservative commentary below on this important passage of the Gospels is an excellent example of the way Compassionate Conservatives often rationalize their fundamental disagreement with the liberal teaching of Jesus :
While "Christian Conservatives" espouse the idea that riches are "blessings" from God, according to Matthew 5: 2-12, Jesus proclaimed that it is poverty that he considers blessed:
Conservatives sometimes quote "Blessed are the poor in spirit" to poor people as reason for them not to seek relief from their poverty (at the expense of those more prosperous than themselves). But if Jesus considered poverty itself to be desirable, why would he have urged those afflicted with wealth to share that 'affliction' with those not so afflicted? Isn't it much more likely that when Jesus said "Blessed are the poor in spirit", he meant blessed are those who are content with a minimum of material possessions, in contrast to those who are never content with what they have, but are always trying to accumulate more and more, and fighting every effort made to tax them for the benefit of the poor and the needy? "One day Lazarus, a diseased beggar, was laid at the door of a rich man's
house. As he lay there longing for scraps from the rich man's table,
the dogs would come and lick his open sores. Finally the beggar
died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham in the place of the
righteous dead.
Is this parable relevant only to rich vs. poor individuals? Or does it relate to the rich Christian nations vs. the many extremely poor nations of this world? What if God cares enough about the multitude of poor people in this world to hold us "Christians" with vastly more wealth than the rest of world responsible for our neglect of those unlucky enough to have been born on the "other side of the tracks" ? . . . "And besides, there is a great chasm separating us, and anyone wanting to
come to you from here is stopped at its edge; and no one over there can
cross to us.'
"If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, ( which the rich man admits is true of his five brothers ), they won't listen even though someone rises from the dead." When Jesus was asked to clarify what the second of the two great commandments was all about, he explained in one of his the most important parables, that action speaks louder than words, and that GOD is not fooled by professions of faith, nor by what may appear lack of faith. What GOD appreciates and expects in people is a good heart which moves one to "love others as one does oneself", and to "do unto others what one would have others do unto them". Jesus went out of his way, in his "Parable of the Good Samaritan" to point out that GOD often finds what he is looking for, not in churchy people who hold the right "beliefs", but in "non-believers" who do the right "works".
"One day an expert on Moses' laws came to test Jesus' orthodoxy by asking him
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Although the following liberal teaching was actually preached by John the Baptist, there's no doubting the reason they were quoted in the Gospels, which were written to record the views and example of Jesus of Nazareth: Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages." |
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Christopher Columbus was enormously impressed by the indigenous people he found in "the New World":
"They are very simple and honest and exceedingly liberal with all they have; none of them refusing anything he may possess when he is asked for it, but, on the contrary, inviting us to ask them. They exhibit great love toward all others in preference to themselves. They also give objects of great value for trifles, and content themselves with very little or nothing in return . . . I did not find, as some of us had expected, any cannibals among them, but, on the contrary, men of great deference and kindness." Here's the way the "Christians" responded:
"They built a long gibbet, low enough for the toes to touch the ground and prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles. When the Indians were thus still alive and hanging, the Spaniards tested their strength and their blades against them, ripping chests open with one blow and exposing entrails, and there were those who did worse. Then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive. See much more about the behavior of the "Christians" who brought salvation to the pagan natives of the "New World", at |
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It is no accident that the so-called "Bible Belt" is where, for centuries, human slavery of dark-skinned people was practiced and defended to the death. Even after they had thrown away thousands of their youth on a senseless and immoral civil war, the Christian Conservatives of that time and place didn't repent. Instead even some of their clergy engaged in Ku Klux Klan terrorism and cruel segregation to keep their former slaves as close to slavery as they could. For all their talk of the Bible, whenever they are forced to choose between Conservatism and Christianity, these people are more likely to hold onto the tenets of Conservatism than those of Christ. Their great-grandparents enslaved the "darkies". Their parents segregated and terrorized them. And now that today's Republican party is proving itself so much better than today's Democratic Party at keeping blacks in their place, they are switching to the party that is doing the best job of restricting civil rights and affirmative action, and of resegregating America's grade schools and high schools through "education vouchers" and the like. It is just as absurd for today's Republican Party to claim to be "the party of Christ", as it is for it to claim to be "the party of Lincoln". Yet these people don't just think of themselves Christian, but as the only true Christians in this country, if not the world. If you think that's an exaggeration, then you need to read www.JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/BibleBeltChristianity.html. While Jesus warned that it was "almost impossible" for the "haves" who ignore the "have nots" of this world to be saved, "Christian Conservative" preachers have gained the enthusiastic and generous support of the rich and the powerful by teaching the very opposite of what Christ taught – which is why the rich and the powerful are only too happy to give the "Religious Right" all the money they need to endlessly and loudly promote their bastardized version of Christianity over the air waves, the internet, and in print, and at election time to distribute 70 million copies of their "Christian Voter Guides" – which while deceitfully claiming to be "non-partisan" – is part and parcel of the Republican Party's propaganda machine.
{ Matthew 19:16, 21-26 }
"If you want to be perfect, go and sell everything you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." But when the young man heard this, he went away sadly, for he was very rich. . . . Then Jesus said to his disciples, "It is almost impossible for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. I say it again – it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God! When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?" And Jesus replied, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible."
" No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. So he said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God." The multi-millionaire founder and president of the "Christian Coalition" Pat Robertson, who also owns the 700 Club and the "Christian Broadcasting Network", wasn't a particularly religious Baptist until he met a Dutch "mystic" named Cornelius Vanderbreggen, who taught him that a man of God can be rich. "God is generous, not stingy," Vangerbreggan told Robertson, as they dined at an elegant hotel. "He wants you to have the best." Given the choice between the Gospel according to Jesus and the Gospel according to Robertson and Vanderbreggan, Conservatives don't hesitate to embrace the one that tells them they are saved just the way they are, no matter how wealthy they are, or how much misery they are able to ignore in the world around them. That certainly wasn't the way those closest to Jesus understood his teaching. (according to the Acts of the Apostles, Ch.2 , 44 :) " All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need."
"So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!"
And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."
Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?'
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this question: "Teacher, what does a man need to do to live forever in heaven?"
Jesus replied, "What does Moses' law say about it?" "It says," he replied, "that you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. And you must love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself." "Right!" Jesus told him. "Do this and you shall live!"
Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul,
'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat,
drink, be merry.'