Jesus' teachings are not a liberal panacea

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Wed Aug 8, 2012, 04:12 PM - Edit history (1)

This post is about the political appropriation of Jesus' endorsement of views, not about the validity of any religion.

_______________________

Sermon on the mount? Great stuff. Be nice to the little people. All men are your brothers.

But Jesus was not a hippie. He was, in some ways, a religious conservative. And he would certainly not be on board with the entirety of modern liberalism.

For instance... Jesus was a fanatic about traditional marriage. Among the most reliable "words of somebody named Jesus," (Q document stuff—the sections within the gospels that may actually date back to Jesus' life-time) and the first policy statement he makes in the Bible, is that remarriage is adultery... Needless to say, he was entirely opposed to divorce, and felt that the law of Genesis—one man one woman one time—trumped the law of Moses. The idea that a man with the most old-school, conservative view of marriage available in Jewish culture circa 30 AD would be on board for same-sex marriage is preposterous. (But Jesus would probably not have santioned stoning gay people, which is good. See... that was good for 30 AD. JC's an okay guy, but he is not Bernie Sanders.)

And he had no real interest in improving things on Earth. He did not think the Earth was very important. Jesus never says a word against slavery—that part of the law of Moses is unchallenged, while much other Talmudic law is. (Paul is plainer on the topic, telling slaves to be as obedient to their masters as they are to God, and when he meets a runaway slave tells him to go back to his master.)

Jesus' calls for charity are, though admirable, more for the spiritual improvement of the giver than for the benefit of the recipient. This plays out to its logical extension when the apostles later run around kissing Lepers on the mouth. This is not charity, as such, but using the lepers as a means to demonstrate your own humility to God.

There is never a sense that the poor are entitled to a better lot... except perhaps in the kingdom of heaven.

We are talking about a man living two thousand years ago who chose to live most of his life in fanatically celibate cult for men, where accidentally dropping your towel after bathing was worth a year of censure.

There is much worthwhile in the New Testament, but anyone, right or left, who thinks Jesus approves of their 21st century politics is being silly. The guy didn't give a rat's behind for anyone's politics. He had little interest in the governance of a society only a few years away from the end times.

[lunatica]

1. I think he would have evolved

if your interpretation is valid. It is an interpretation.

[mmonk]

2. Or you could read him in the context of the day

that the Kingdom of God was to be here on earth. If done in that way, he was more liberal than the religious and political authorities of the time.

[cthulu2016]

8. I do not question that he was liberal (in some ways) for his time

But his time is not our time... and our politics must be about our time.

I just find the whole, "Here is what Jesus would think of my politics" thing to be intrinsically conservative, whether from right or left.

It is a more extreme example of the familiar, "Here's what the founding fathers would think of my politics" thing.

[NightWatcher]

3. how many times has the bible been translated, added to, subtracted from.....?

It's like the world's worst game of "Telephone" at this point. Jesus' word has been altered by politically motivated translations and omissions too many times to count.

For anyone (not you) to claim that they know the "gospel truth" is almost laughable. I dont see how anyone (right wing fundie preachers included) can claim to know what Jesus would do or how he would act or what he would think of something 2000 years after he would have lived.

[The Magistrate]

4. Indeed, Sir: People Who Think Paul Diverted Some Progressive Wonderland Are Vastly Amusing

The person now known as the Christ was an End Times preacher, distinguished only by being unusually good at it....

[ohheckyeah]

5. "is that remarriage is adultery... even remarriage after your spouse dies."

What scripture is that?

[pnwmom]

10. Someone in the 21st century must have written that one. n/t

[ohheckyeah]

11. I know - but I would still like to know what

scripture because I can't find it and I don't remember it.

[pnwmom]

13. There isn't one -- that's what I'm saying. n/t

[ohheckyeah]

15. Okay - thanks.

I didn't think so. It appears the OP was making up stuff...wonder why?

[LanternWaste]

21. I think it was Paul in one of his letters to one of the smaller churches,

I think it was Paul in one of his letters to one of the smaller churches, who said that he believed (as opposed to hearing it from JC) divorce was not to be recognized by humanity for any reason other than two specific instances-- death and adultery. But again, that was Paul being Paul (although I realize many people conflate Pauline doctrines and the classical Christian doctrines.)

[cthulu2016]

23. Actually, Jesus himself said that in Mark and in Matthew

So in that instance Paul was merely towing the line.

[LanternWaste]

31. use textual criticism to better define precisely what divorce was in the post-Maccabean revolt era.

It may help if you use textual criticism to better define precisely what divorce was in the post-Maccabean revolt era. Within that context, it deals much less with marriage, and much more with the family as a whole.

[ohheckyeah]

35. It's not a divorce if a spouse dies.

I don't remember Paul saying it was.

[cthulu2016]

20. I apologize for that error.

Jesus does not contradict the Mosaic law that a widow shall be married to her husband's eldest brother.

[ohheckyeah]

22. Nor did he speak out in support of it.

I think you are missing the bigger picture of what Jesus stood for and that was grace. He didn't condemn the adulterous woman - he asked "who among you is without sin?"

What we do know from the New Testament is that neither Jesus nor the disciples were political animals.

[RobertEarl]

6. As a liberal

I find the idea behind Jesus to affirm my way of thinking.

You are of course free to think otherwise. But, pray tell, what do you think made you liberal? Did you come to this liberal position all on your own?

[cthulu2016]

12. Of course not. Nobody comes to their politics on their own.

We all grow up in a culture with values and counter-values.

Most of my values seem to have gotten rolling during the enlightenment. My values are not hostile to all of Jesus' teachings (to what degree we know them today), but they are not dependent on them.

No product of western civilization can subtract Christianity from his own values.

But, on the other hand, western civilization has been far from a moral paragon. And notions of charity are not unique to the west.

Notions of equality do seem to have a strong western flavor, and Christianity's implicit equality of souls in the eyes of god surely contributed to that.

But the political equality of people here on Earth was primarily a product of men who would, by today's standards, be considered atheists.

Christianity had 1700 years to abolish slavery, and did not. The enlightenment abolished slavery in a couple of centuries. And many people involved in that effort were religious. But it was the enlightenment that put such egalitarian values on the table as political values.

I am not disrespecting Jesus. I am questioning the way people across the spectrum seek his endorsement.

[ohheckyeah]

17. Judging from your OP

your idea of what Jesus said and what is actually recorded are two different things.

[truebrit71]

7. Which is just one of the reasons why we know that the bible was written by people with an agenda...

...and not 'an historic recounting' of a mythical Jewish carpenters time on earth....

[pnwmom]

9. For the time, Jesus's views on marriage were progressive. He was objecting

to men shedding themselves of their wives simply by saying, "I divorce you." Women had never had the equal ability to rid themselves of their husbands.

I've never heard of something Jesus said against remarriage after the death of a spouse. Are you sure you've read an actual Bible?

And I would like to know where Jesus condoned slavery. Do you have a quote?

[cthulu2016]

19. I withdrew the death issue from the OP.

I was confusing an implication of the question of the Sadducees. My bad. (I have read the four gospels many times. The Richmond Lattimore translation is a real treat.)

As for the divorce issue, I am not sure where you are coming from on that. Any woman who is wed is ruined for life... she can be divorced by her husband and can never remarry.

A man may divorce his wife for sexual misconduct and remarry. A woman cannot.

How does saying that no man can marry a divorced woman benefit women whose husbands cast them out?

Stripping women divorced (against their will) of the ability to ever remarry is highly conservative, not progressive.

Jesus calls for the higher implicit law of Genesis to rule the mistakenly hard-heated law of Moses—one man, one woman, one time.

So, again, the idea that Jesus would have been on board for same-sex marriage is bizarre. On the other hand, he wouldn't have favored stonging gay people. So that is progress.

Progress circa 30 AD is not a sensible guide to the wisdom and justice of contemporary political views.

[pnwmom]

24. You do realize that Paul was not Jesus, don't you?

To which sayings of Jesus are you referring?

[pnwmom]

14. Jesus was a liberal.

He didn't care about politics. But he did care about human beings, and especially about the poor and the powerless.

http://www.jesusisaliberal.org/

[MineralMan]

16. Well, to start with,

there's no evidence that any of the four Gospels were written by anyone who ever saw Jesus. So, we have second or third hand reports of what he might have said in a few situations. Do the words in those four Gospels actually reflect all of his opinions and attitudes? That seems very doubtful, really.

Next, the New Testament as we know it was assembled hundreds of years later by some Romans. They selected the books and compiled what was to become the New Testament. As the de facto New Testament, what was assembled became the reality for Christianity, despite some other centers of the religion.

Bottom line is that we do not know what words Jesus spoke beyond what is recorded by writers who never heard him speak. 'Ttis a puzzlement.

[Mosby]

18. didn't he make a big deal about observing the sabbath?

He went off on some business owner working on shabbat and he turned over his work station or something.

Imo if Jesus was alive today he would be a ultra-orthodox Jew probably living in Judea or Samaria.

[Union Scribe]

26. No.

Matt 12

[Douglas Carpenter]

30. kind of the opposite“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Mark 2:27

23 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
25 He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26 In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
27 Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Mark 2:23-27

[MattBaggins]

25. How do you think Gandalf would have felt about these issues

Or Odin
Or Peter Piper

[Douglas Carpenter]

27. the world of two thousand years ago was a brutal and savage place. - Relative to the time he had

very enlightened attitudes at least based on the New Testament accounts. The idea that one would not only forgive their enemies but love them. The idea that it was not only the specific acts one did but the attitude behind those acts would have been revolutionary. But I would agree that political people throughout the ages and across all ideologies have made Jesus into the spokesperson of their particular worldview. It is entirely possible to quote scripture reasonably in contest to defend either a left-wing or right-wing worldview. However, there is no denying that Jesus' teachings were essentially anti-materialist, apolitical and other worldly. "My kingdom is not of this world."

[LanternWaste]

28. A religious conservative as defined in the here and now or as defined by his own culture and age?

A religious conservative as defined in the here and now or as defined by his own culture and age? From what I'm aware of, He certainly gave the Pharisees and Sadducees (from whom your towel anecdote is borne, and who were a sect of upper class and economically wealthy Hebrews) quite a hard time, and even the Essenes were a bit put off-- as He a was quite the man of action, a man who believed himself fully qualified and positioned to challenge and stand-up to the religious leaders of his time. He was called a heretic by the


And as for "fanatically celibate", well... I can only suggest a few books, Roth's 'A History of the Jews: From Earliest Times Through the Six Day War' and Segal's 'Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World'-- both of which seem to imply the opposite of your premise. Also, one must contrast His approbations re: family against the social backdrop of the Maccabean revolts that has only recently happened.

Regardless, your interpretation is interesting as are many other interpretations which run contrary to own position (Wellhausen's 'The Pharisees and the Sadducees' and especially Newman's Proximity to Power and Jewish Sectarian Groups of the Ancient Period)

[xchrom]

29. jesus was an anti-legalist. preferring the spirit to the letter of the law.

he shoves the letter of the law back in the face of legalists to make his point.

this is where paul really goes wrong.

[arely staircase]

32. that is a very valid point

Although I think Paul too is often taken out of context when it comes to slavery and homosexuality. His views on the matter are in letters to specific congregations that had their own unique circumstances. Hi advice is unenlightened but in both cases but do not amount to a universal acceptance of the former nor condemnation of the latter.

[intheflow]

33. There are parables that suggest the poor are, indeed, entitled to a better lot.

Jesus consistently sided with the poor, they are the chosen ones illustrating his parables. Consider Luke 18:2-8, the parable of the unjust judge who hears the pleas of the widow to help her against one who is persecuting her.

There's Matthew 20:1-16 which advocates fair wages for laborers.

Most damning to your argument is Matthew 25:31-46 in which he admonishes those who did not feed the hungry, house the homeless, or clothe those who needed clothes - for free, since he does not mention the poor needing to pay for these services.

As for Jesus being celibate, we don't know that, particularly if looking at the extant gnostic gospels. Mary was not only Jesus' especially close confidant, some of the other disciples were jealous of their closeness. In particular, the Gospel of Philip refers to Mary Magdalene as the koinônos (Greek variously translated as companion, partner, confidant) of Jesus, going so far as to note that Jesus used to kiss her often on the lips. (See http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gop.html, about half way down the page.)

[Fumesucker]

34. Amen, brother.. n/t