[BSunday]

Oustanding Post! Thanks!

[Argus]

Jesus did not say "I'm OK, you're OK" or "Do your own thing" or elevate "choice" above all other considerations. He said "Take up your cross and follow me." That's a call for personal responsibility. Nothing could be more alien to the modern liberal.

[MEGoody]

I've had libs try to tell me Jesus was a liberal. When I ask them what characteristics He had or what teachings He espoused that were liberal, they usually can't think of a thing.

If they answer at all it's usually, "He was in favor of helping the poor." My response to that is, "He was in favor of YOU helping the poor, not in favor of you taking money out of other people's wallets to help the poor."

They have no counter argument for that.

[Mr. Buzzcut]

Whenever I hear a leftist make this claim, I ask for the chapter and verse wherein He espouses the coerced redistribution of wealth. Not surprisingly, I receive a lot of ad hominem slurs but never an answer.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[chesley]

This is as well said as any I have ever read on this subject.

[theDentist]

He would be neither Conservative or Liberal.

[AuH2ORepublican]

It's spooky that you posted this today, because just yesterday I got into an argument with a fairly agnostic friend of mine who said that Jesus would have wanted us to "turn the other cheek" and not attack Iraq.

[agrace]

Later read bump.

[Capitalism2003]

Jesus ranked tax collectors on a lower level than prostitutes.

[Fester Chugabrew]

There ain't no "WAS" about it. Jesus lives and rules to all eternity, and He is a radical of the kind I would be the first to crucify.

[Unam Sanctam]

Jesus was critical of religious authority in His time because their exagerrated attachment to the letter of the law actually worked against the underlying moral principles that the law is supposed to reflect. Jesus in no way was against morality, including sexual morality, but was if anything a more strenuous moralist than the authorities of his time. In fact, he called for individuals to go beyond mere acting out lustful thoughts to instead resist the thoughts themselves. He called for purity of heart. This is all very different from the modernist theologians of sexual license.

[ex-snook]

Jesus wanted people to care for the needy not the government.

Democrats want the government to do that but tax someone else and Republicans say 'poor happens' so don't tax me.

[Jotmo]

Bump for later.

[squidly]

I think about as political as Jesus ever got was when he said "Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and give unto God that which is God's."

[Gritty]

...Jesus was a “liberal,”... most of the people who embrace this idea don’t really believe that Jesus is divine.

Bingo!

They want to "use" Him, not worship Him.

[mrs. a]

I have a brother-in-law that I love to pieces, but sometimes he'll try to say anything to win an argument. Once he castigated me for wanting to own a gun - he couldn't believe that I worship Jesus "who was a pacifist" (his words!) and yet wish to own a gun.

He has never read the Bible - someone just told him that Jesus was a "pacifist" and he swallowed it.

He could not explain the "pacifist" act of Jesus in making a whip out of cords and driving the money changers from the Temple.

Jesus constructed a weapon. Jesus hit people. This is not concealed - it's right there in black and white.

I guess this is just my roundabout way of finally getting to this point - I have noticed that most of the people who opine on Jesus's character, or how he would handle things today, are the folks that are least likely to have read his life story.

[Lady Eileen]

Bump and thanks for the post.