You idiot. You are NOT God. You seem to be under the impression that all of your opinions are right. Honestly I have NEVER encountered someone as egotistical and arrogant as you.Where does one start with this rant? First, I would argue that Jesus certainly was NOT a liberal in the modern sense; I would argue that He was fundamentally pro-liberty. There was his unambiguous focus on sin and repentance. If people were not responsible for their own actions/inactions, if they were manipulated by strings as if a puppet, there is no responsibility, accountability.
You have made it clear that you think all liberals are Satan and we’re all going to hell. I read your recent post where you even claim that people who believe in reproductive rights can’t be Christians at all. That’s what prompted me to write to you and ask if you’ve ever actually read the Bible? I know you are uneducated trailer trash who dropped out of high school so I assume you haven’t done any serious theological research. On the other hand, I have a MASTERS in theological studies at a well known university, and I can tell you this: Jesus was a LIBERAL.
Let’s look at the ACTUAL FACTS. Jesus admonished the Pharisees for praying in public. He would therefore be for separation of church and state and against prayer in school.
Jesus said that the rich will have trouble getting into heaven and told us that we must give to the poor. He spoke out against income inequality.
Jesus was FOR women’s rights. He stood against the archaic anti-woman laws of the time, while conservatives are FOR those laws today.
Jesus was FOR taxes. He said “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.”
Jesus said we should accept everyone. Conservatives don’t accept people in the LGBT community, women, or immigrants.
Jesus was a tolerant, peaceful man who despised greed and violence. He was a liberal.
If anyone in the Bible was conservative, it was Judas. In fact, I think you two have a lot in common.
-Tim
Let's be very clear: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged." Matthew 7:1. This guy is engaging in multiple personal attacks: "Conservatives don’t accept people in the LGBT community, women, or immigrants." Not true: I'm very pro-immigration; I have a live-and-let-live attitude on LGBT's (even if my moral principles differ from theirs') and believe in the right to freely associate, and I respect the women in my life and profession, and many I met or cited in academia (e.g., my OLL professors; my only research collaborator was a fellow PhD student back at UH, applied behavior researcher Patricia Wright, etc.) What most social conservatives object to is socially experimental policy, government intervention using the monopoly of force to impose crony special interest preferences on societal norms, including traditional institutions of marriage and family. Most conservatives deal with the people in their lives one on one but reject divisive identity politics and believe in voluntary, not compulsory activities dictated by some hypocritical, judgmental, self-anointed, morally self-superior "progressives" imposing their personal preferences on other people using the monopoly of government force.
"You idiot...You seem to be under the impression that all of your opinions are right. Honestly I have NEVER encountered someone as egotistical and arrogant as you. That’s what prompted me to write to you and ask if you’ve ever actually read the Bible? I know you are uneducated trailer trash who dropped out of high school. On the other hand, I have a MASTERS in theological studies at a well known university ...If anyone in the Bible was conservative, it was Judas. In fact, I think you two have a lot in common." Vain, judgmental ad hominem crap. Raising the name of Judas, the arch-villain traitor of Jesus in the Passion, is particularly obnoxious; to me, the highlighted verse below makes it clear that Judas was a judgmental redistributionist. In fact, Tim is some presumptuous prick whom doesn't have the slightest idea what charitable acts Matt does anonymously in his private life; Matt is someone whom distinguishes between feeding the State bureaucracy versus feeding the poor and may object to morally hazardous social welfare net policies which unduly lure people into a perpetual dependence on the State instead of actuated independence. It's one thing to advocate voluntarily sharing your surplus in private; it's another thing to covet another's goods and mandate the confiscation of his goods in some self-serving rationalization of legal plunder, which violates Judaic-Christian principles. Finally, in this regard, Jesus goes out of his way in His infamous Sermon on the Mount to praise the "poor in spirit", i.e., the humble and contrite, the realization that we are all fallible, sinful creatures whom have enough wrongdoings without rationalizing them away or pointing out fingers at others. Jesus makes it clear that many who had heard the Truth did not incorporate it into their everyday lives; it's a theme He constantly reinforces by pointing out the simplicity of the little children, by noting how the enemies of John the Baptist and His own had attacked them personally, ignoring the evidence, the authenticity of their own deeds, and like taunting, daring juveniles, repeatedly challenged them, putting them to their own tests, not unlike "progressive" groupthink on political correctness.
Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Matthew 6:1-4
Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages.""Leave her alone," Jesus replied. "It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me." John 12:3-8
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:3
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." Matthew 18:1-4
“To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: ‘We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.” Matthew 11:16-19It seems quite clear that Jesus respected spontaneous order vs. megalomaniac autocratic rulemaking, even by some oppressive political majority mob:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:25-34It is indisputable that Jesus rejected a political mandate, did not agitate against the Roman occupiers for social change; He sought conversion at the individual, voluntary level:
Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. John 6:15
"Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah." Matthew 16:20
Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place." John 18:36Now let us look at this Master's guru on his specific claims:
- Jesus admonished the Pharisees for praying in public. He would therefore be for separation of church and state and against prayer in school.
Jesus would have been very hypocritical to argue against public prayer because He went to temple, He taught the Lord's prayer, He prayed in view of His disciples, etc. In fact, before His Ascension, He called upon His disciples to testify the Good News to people of all nations:
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20.If you look at Matthew 10, it's clear that Jesus is a promoter of His message, of religious speech, even if His disciples find themselves persecuted by the State for doing so. The idea that Jesus endorsed censorship, suppression of religious speech in any context, including a State monopoly on public schools, is a revisionist state of denial. Jesus' caution about the proud Pharisee dealt more about the insincerity of prayer than its public manifestation: the Pharisee was more interested in being seen praying or in giving alms to demonstrate to others how good and faithful a Jew He is. God is not fooled by empty words; the truly righteous pray and give as a response to God's message in their lives, not to be seen by others for whatever manipulative reasoning.
What would Jesus say about brief prayers in public settings? I think that He would want people to pray authentically, voluntarily, not because of public pressure; He would be displeased with judgmental behavior towards those who choose to pray or not to pray. He would also point out that silent prayer is acceptable to and heard by the Father. But support authoritarian censors of religious speech? Absolutely not.
On the broader issue of separation of church and state, I doubt that He would be pleased with those whom attempted to codify and mandate His message and preempted a voluntary, authentic response of faith. As I discussed above, He distinguished His mandate from a political one. I think he would have been appalled to see members of Christian churchs killing each other in His name, the Church stray from its mission of spiritual leadership on matters of faith and morals to dabble in public policy or be co-opted by political authorities. I don't think that He would be supportive of a Christian majority mob imposing what they (falsely) believe are Christian policies on other people, which is not exactly consistent with independence of church and State. Tim seems to believe that separation of church and State applies only to public prayer, which is simplistic and arbitrary.
- Jesus said that the rich will have trouble getting into heaven and told us that we must give to the poor. He spoke out against income inequality.
Tim grossly mischaracterizes Jesus' position on wealth; it is true that Jesus often used hyperbole, like "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." (Mark 10:25) or ("Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” John 6:52) and he told an aspiring wealthy young disciple to go and sell all he had--in addition to keeping the commandments (Mark 10:21). Let us not forget: "On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirite and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.” From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him." (John 6:60-66) I'm going to return to this passage later, but Jesus is really making 2 points: (1) men, rich or not, cannot earn heaven of their own accord; and (2) don't be satisfied with what you can accomplish in the socioeconomic realm of this world or even checklists of spiritual/ethical norms or religious customs and rituals; the Father expects more from you given this precious gift of life. Jesus is not some radical populist/rabblerouser trying to say what the people want to hear. He wants you to see your brother in need as a fellow child of God and you voluntarily respond to your brother's needs as a type of prayer to God. God expects more of us than adopting to some daily ritual and being blind to the plight of your brothers. It's easier to make this point with the wealthy.
But Jesus also points out something that Tim would shrink from on the basis of regressive taxation, i.e., the widow's offering: "Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:41-44). Notice that Jesus is not commenting about the rich people throwing in their voluntary vs. compulsory "fair share", which dwarfs the widow's small coins.
Tim is living in a fantasy world trying to argue that Jesus wanted to substitute compulsory secular regimen for almsgiving vs. a religious one; Jesus did not focus on agitating His followers to pressure the powers that be for poverty support policies. He focused on individual response to grace, not collective action, on prayer and repentence, all quite useless from a political perspective. He didn't go from town to town establishing charities multiplying loaves and fish for the poor, setting up hospitals for the ill. As He told Judas above, the poor will always be with you; He didn't reject Judas' ostentatious, phony concern for the poor--He was more concerned with Judas' judgmental attitude towards Mary's loving gift.
- Jesus was FOR women’s rights. He stood against the archaic anti-woman laws of the time, while conservatives are FOR those laws today.
Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”..Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” (John 8:1-11)
Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.Once again, Tim tries to interpret Scripture wrongly, from the context of presentist politically correct nonsense. The first passage must be understood in the context of the second. It's clear that Jesus has higher standards for marriage, both for men and for women. He's not worried about losing followers because His words are too hard. Still, despite Tim's thesis, Jesus does not select a woman for one of His apostles. It seems dubious to argue that Jesus is consistent with ideological feminism. He definitely would have condemned promiscuous behavior, and abortion and infanticide would have been abominations. He also would not have accepted the LGBT agenda. However, it is clear that He did not like harsh punishments for human failings or judgmental hypocrites pointing out the sins of other people, and He despised watering down moral precepts to accommodate the sinfulness of man:
Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
“What did Moses command you?” he replied.
They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”
“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” (Mark 10:1-10)
Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you...“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Luke 6: 37-42)So, after underscoring the indissolubility of marriage and emphasizing that adultery is equally wrong for men and women, how are we to interpret the stoning incident? Keep in mind that the Jewish authorities found Jesus' teachings disturbing and a threat to their own authority; they were gathering evidence against Him--violations of the Sabbath, etc. Did Jesus accept/challenge Moses' laws? Jesus saw through the traps and carefully drafted responses; He saw Himself fulfilling Scripture and appealing to its authority. Jesus is not defending the woman's sinful action; He uses this as a teaching moment for all men to focus more on their own sins than the sins of others. He does not leave her with the idea that adultery was acceptable behavior.
I think both male and female social conservatives are concerned about how easy it is to get divorced in most states (beyond community property and custody issues), single-parent households, and the fact that 40% or so of births are to unmarried women, but I am not aware of any conservative advocating the stoning to death of women for adultery or similar sanction; this is a knowing red herring.
- Jesus was FOR taxes. He said “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.”
Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who pretended to be sincere. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said, so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. So the spies questioned him: “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”This is a point I recently discussed in a FB Corner post, because Tim is being totally disingenuous here. It was one of those traps I just alluded to above. Notice Jesus did not say "Yes", which would have been direct and unambiguous. If Jesus said, "Yes", He would have been seen as a hated collaborator with the despised Roman authority; if He said, "No", He would have been seen as an insurrectionist, and the Roman authorities would execute Him. So Jesus craftily devises a response; He says "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's", which is no admission that the coins in your pocket are the property of Rome in taxes; it can mean little more than if you stole Caesar's robe, give it back. "Give back to God what is God's" clearly identifies two authorities: one in the lower realm (Caesar) and the higher in the upper realm (God). Jesus' authority is from the higher realm.
He saw through their duplicity and said to them, “Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
He said to them, “Then give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” (Luke 20:20-25)
- Jesus said we should accept everyone. Conservatives don’t accept people in the LGBT community, women, or immigrants.
On the question of immigration, as I mentioned, I'm strongly pro-immigrant, and I do think that Jesus addresses this theme in various ways, e.g., the parable of the good Samaritan, His interactions with the Samaritan woman, Jesus' cure of the centurion's servant, etc.
- Jesus was a tolerant, peaceful man who despised greed and violence.
“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. (John 8:58-59)
Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”
“We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” (John 10:31-33)
“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosyg in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. (Luke 4:24-30)
Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. (Matthew 12:13-15).And although Jesus is using hyperbole here, this is not something that followers found easy to hear:
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. Matthew 10:34-39Tim and likewise "Christian Progressives" are attempting to subordinate the historical Jesus to their political ideology. I am not trying to argue that Jesus was a libertarian, although Tim's point about Jesus' nonviolence is consistent with the key libertarian Non-Aggression Principle. I dislike attempts to reduce Jesus to some meek, easygoing person whom got along with everyone; Marx and others would have no use for religion as the opiate of the masses. Jesus was no insurrectionist nor some mere congenial secular humanist with His focus on prayer, sin and repentence; He focused on personal response to God, not collective action, not subordination to democratic mobs or other authoritarians. As a Christian libertarian, I do not deny righteous deeds as a powerful prayer to the Father, but I believe it is better done through voluntary action and not subcontracted to the corrupt State.
