The Right has been very successful in fusing some aspects of Christianity with their ideology. The above thread is a discussion about their latest tactics in this regard, which frankly is the culmination of 50+ years of fusing Christianity with the nativist Right.
Anyway, in this thread, you have been asked by a progressive preacher to help her with a sermon: ‘Biblical arguments which support the Left’. She is glad for whatever you can offer - ideas, lists of Bible quotes, logic and arguments based off of Christ’s teachings, more.
She is open to general thoughts of Christianity + Progressivism as well as Bible-centric ones as well.
In general, Jesus was opposed to violence, felt that wealth distribution was the way forward, believed in paying your taxes, and didn’t believe in dividing people into groups based on race nor culture.
If you remove Jesus from the Bible then it’s hard to justify progressive ideology. But if you remove everything except Jesus from it, you effectively have progressivism.
One of the key tenets of Jesus was “My kingdom is not of this world.” In other words, there should be less America-centrism by American Christians (or of any other nation by its Christians - I’ve even heard of Finnish Christians taking a sort of Finland-exceptionalism attitude). Many believers fuse their national patriotism with their faith - whatever their nation is - and think they’re special.
I’d also argue that Christianity is 100% compatible with a program of reducing incarceration, sentences, having more humane rehabilitation/incarceration, etc. (although still compatible with death penalty)
There should also be way more private charity (although using the Bible to argue for government welfare is canard)
Now one of the experts in the law came and heard them debating. When he saw that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is: ‘Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Mark 9:33-35:
Then they came to Capernaum. After Jesus was inside the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. After he sat down, he called the twelve and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
I’ve found vaccination is a great wedge issue to separate those who put Christ first from right-wing idiocy. Getting vaccinated in order to prevent the spread of contagion is undeniably an act of love towards one’s neighbor and an act of service to others. Refusing to be vaccinated (because of fear, selfishness, legal “rights”, etc) is putting yourself first.
Jesus doesn’t really mention abortion, nor anything related, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had been pro-life.
Neither party is opposed to divorce but maybe (?) there are more Republicans opposed to it than Democrats? Jesus is fairly unambiguously opposed to divorce.
Hell, early Christianity was pretty much Communism without the godlessness. There is SO MUCH material here
For starters - racism. Completely off the table “In Christ there is neither slave nor free, Jew nor Greek”. Equal value of all humans. Paul bitching at some church in a letter about how he heard that they were treating rich people more respectfully and politely, and making poor folk sit at the back and this was soooo not on. All the folk in Acts selling property and giving it all up to be divided as needed among church members - and then Aninas and Sapphira getting whacked when they tried to cheat the system.
Reaching back to the OT - the whole economic system was setup so that everyone had access to the means of production (you were supposed to leave a bunch of crops when you were harvesting, so that poor people could come along, do some work, and get direct access to the product of their labour). Property ownership reset every 50 years. You weren’t supposed to charge interest to poor folk. There’s “you’ve been oppressing the poor” listed among God’s reason for doing smitings pretty much every time smiting is a thing.
Parts of the Epistle of James read like a lefty blog. No wonder Martin Luther wanted to reject it as non-canonical.
Let’s see…
Faith without works is worthless. Most evangelicals reject that. They’re all about faith, not works.
James 2:14-17
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
That prosperity gospel horseshit gets shot down. Don’t rip off your workers is in there too.
James 5:1-6
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
Loudly proclaiming yourself to be on God’s side…
James 1:26-27
26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
President Carter tried this approach and he was repaid by the likes of Jerry Falwell and other religious leaders mobilizing the Religious Right in backlash to his policies.
I remember when he brokered the peace agreement at Camp David between Israel and Egypt he invited Begin and Sadat to a joint session of Congress. At the culmination of Carter’s speech he gave credit to those two leaders by quoting: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God”. And according to people who were there at Camp David the president used his personal faith to salvage a deal when things were on the verge of collapse (this took 13 days of trying).
Furthermore in other aspects of his presidency Carter would not just quote religious doctrine as nice-sounding flowery remarks but try to reconcile with the public in the mannerism of a sermon of how far away the country was going. This culminated with his notable “Crisis of Confidence” speech which later became characterized as the ‘malaise’ speech even though that word was never used.
Yes, he was, but at the time a man’s marriage was more about supporting his dependents than permanently binding him in a relationship. I don’t think a divorce of equals would be a problem for Jesus. Those who abandon their wives for their own selfish interests (Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, et al) definitely go against Jesus. Obviously open to variation in theology.
Jimmy Carter is definitely the best Christian who’s been in the White House in my lifetime.
It’s really pretty sad that the question in the OP is one that can seriously be asked. It just shows how hard the right has hijacked ‘Christianism’ that so many people both in and out of the right have actually been convinced that their political platform is actually aligned with their faith.
On the divorce thing - the quote is “I hate divorce, and I hate a man covering himself with violence as with a cloak”. Which is kind of opaque flowery language, but my modern day paraphrase is “I hate divorce and I hate domestic violence” … which rather puts a different spin on it. Remember also that the divorce he hated was inherently sexist - it consisted solely in the ability of a man to kick his wife to the curb. AFAIK, women did NOT have the ability to divorce their spouse under Jewish law of the time - they could leave, but they were still considered married until the husband said so
I would point to the writings of Jim Wallace and his Sojourners magazine. Much of his work is about applying Biblical teachings to address poverty. “Jesus didn’t speak at all about homosexuality. There are about 12 verses in the Bible that touch on that question. Most of them are very contextual. There are thousands of verses on poverty.” He frequently speaks on the difference between the parts of the Bible the right focuses on, and the things Jesus focuses on. “This is what Jesus meant when he said to love our neighbor—to get outside of our tribal pathways and listen to the lives of the ones whose pathways have been so “different” from ours and whom Jesus defines as our neighbor. They are the test of loving our neighbor—not merely the people we meet on our narrow pathways every day. That biblical and spiritual reality has never been more true in my lifetime than it is right now. We need to reclaim Jesus’s message here, by seeking and finding our true neighbors, if we are going to have any integrity for our faith or any health in our democracy.” To me, this is a message the Christian left wins over the Christian right any day of the week.
I have heard it said that this means that, since the food came from a miracle and not from human effort, God will provide for the poor and that man doesn’t need to.
That doesn’t match the descriptions given by Jesus. E.g., “Have you not read that He Who made them in the first place made them man and woman? It says, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will live with his wife. The two will become one.’ So they are no longer two but one. Let no man divide what God has put together.”
From the Gnostic texts and other materials, the idea that man and woman combine to become a greater spiritual whole is more strongly emphasized. I’m not aware of anything in either source that presents the topic in an economic light.
Also the one major divorce discussed in the Gospels is between a noble and the daughter of a king. John the Baptist was willing to die for his opposition to their divorce and it’s unlikely that Phasaelis was looking at poverty after her divorce.
It’s very clear that Scripture commands people to provide for the poor.
Just a sampler.
5. There will always be poor among you (Deuteronomy 15:10–11)
“Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.”
As Paul reminds us, “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:6–7). God didn’t want the Israelites to simply give generously to the poor; He wanted them to do so with grateful hearts. This command came with a promise. If they were unselfish and kind, God would bless them.
3. Help the poor among you (Leviticus 25:35–36)
“If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you. Do not take interest or any profit from them, but fear your God, so that they may continue to live among you.”
8. Be kind to the needy (Proverbs 14:21)
“It is a sin to despise one’s neighbor, but blessed is the one who is kind to the needy.”
9. Oppressing the poor shows contempt for their Maker (Proverbs 14:31)
“Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.”
Once again, people tend to follow religious teachings that tell them what they want to hear, and “prosperity gospel” preachers are just as capable of quoting scripture as you are.