I dunno about his politics, but Jesus would clearly be a fan of the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints. And oddly enough, the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Jesus loves the lowly and downtrodden, and SEC fans can attest that there are none more lowly and downtrodden than the Bully-dogs.
Jesus would despise Notre Dame. Because Notre Dame is evil.
how naive. you think religious structures aren’t inexorably linked to politics and society? :rolleyes:
Jesus was a liberal two thousand years ago, who knows what he’d be today. An unfrozen caveman lawyer probably.
Jesus was a radical anti-materialist who told people to give everything they owned to the poor and that rich people couldn’t go to Heaven. Jesus preached constantly that the poor were the real heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven and that the coming of the Son of Man would bring about a complete reversal of the social order, where the “first would be last, and the last would be first.”
Trying to categorize any 1st century person by modern ideological political standards is probably a fool’s errand anyway, but in the case of Jesus it’s made even more futile by virtue of the fact that he was, first and foremost, and endtimer. He wasn’t looking for, or advocating a political or social system for people to live by indefinitely. He thought it was all over. He thought it was time to sell the house for a dollar and head to the hills. He thought the Son of man was coming to kick ass, so a plan for a future way of life didn’t matter.
For what it’s worth, the Book of Acts says that the first Christian communities were literal communes where no one owned any private property or wealth and everything was shared in common, so the very first generation of Christians were collectivists.
Socially, you could probably say that Jesus was a hardcore, fundy Jewish theocrat (actually, i’m not even all that sure about that. He appeared to reject some notions of ritual purity in favor of ethical considerations), but in terms of economics and class struggle, he was as red as a candy apple.
I can pretty much agree with that, except the “red” part. I can’t see him saying that the government should force a communist system on the people. It’s more like: communism is a great system-- for a family, or very small community.
But he was apolitical. “Render unto Caesar” means, in the case of UHC, pay taxes if your gov’t has UHC and pay taxes if it doesn’t. That phrase takes no position on what the particular policies should be one way or the other.
There’s that story of Jesus cursing the fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season. Ignoring science/nature in favor of the supernatural? Sounds Republican to me.
Well played, worthy adversary.
Here’s another way to look at it. Jesus proved that he was fully capable of healing anyone, to the point of raising people from the dead. Since he didn’t cure everyone, even in his immediate environs, it would seem that he did not favor UHC.
Do you want people to force you to give them your things? If not, then I think the clear application of the golden rule is that you should not vote for people that will use the government to do that very thing to other people.
QED, Jesus was a RandRoverian.
Did the Pendant strike a nerve ?
I never thought of Jesus as a religious structure.
I hate that. I’m not sure why they don’t just treat taxes like other laws and just rely on the courts, but no, every April 15 they send out the armed thugs. Just a few days ago the armed men showed up at my door and forcibly tried to take money from me. Luckily I was armed and shot them in the head, as instructed by G Gordon Libbey since they may have been wearing bullet proof vests.
Maybe so. But Notre Dame is His mother’s favorite school. 
If you don’t pay, you go to jail. That is “the use of force” every bit as much as your armed thugs scenario.
Yeah, threatening wealthy people with burning in a lake of fire isn’t coercion. :rolleyes:
I don’t want all of society’s wealth to be hogged by the greediest and most vile. I don’t want to live under Social Darwinism, where the evil prosper and the good are crushed. And I want people to pay their fair share to the the running and betterment of society. I don’t want to live in your nightmare world. If that means that I have to pay taxes, then I pay taxes.
Wow, what a shit analogy.
Allow me.
Being cool with raising taxes on the wealthy, then ascending into money, and then complaining about your taxes being too high would be a violation of the golden rule.
Raising taxes on the wealthy, and then having a problem with having your property expropriated by the federal government, is not.
but of course you knew your analogy wasn’t really valid anways.
Jesus would be a utopianist. Whether it’s a communist utopia or a capitalist utopia is probably irrelevant.
Originally Posted by Chief Pedant:
“In short, Jesus was apolitical, not conservative or libertarian or liberal.”
I find no indication that Jesus promoted the idea of establishing a “religious structure” or any other structure that interacted with the political domain.
It’s not clear to me why you think this little editorial is germane to the OP’s question.
Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18: 36) He appears to have been uninterested in the political affairs of humankind.
I frankly see in “his teachings” (warning: I am not religious at all, so all I’ve gotten is some plato’s cave rendering of what is actually in the good book) a very realistic notion that “life on earth” is shitty, harsh, plagued by scarcity, and that everyone should collectively help everyone else try to get through it, and in doing so you earn your passage into the next world.
then he’s a utopian anarchist. to act as if you can be a religious figurehead divorced from the practical necessities of political and social governance is simplistic, imho.
say JC avoids crucifixion, winds up becoming extremely popular, and is faced with a mob of devotees who won’t listen to anything but what He says. what’s he gonna say “sorry, guys! I’m apolitical. Don’t look to me for any of that social ordering crapola”