Why do Republicans idolize a liberal socialist (Jesus)?

[Associate Justice PiT]

Lots of revisionism going on in this thread in general.

I'd say it's more presentism than revisionism.

     You hit the nail on the head here. I did not communicate my point well because I made it sound like Jesus was a Republican, but the truth is He did not belong to either party. His message is far deeper and more profound than "support welfare and give to the poor" or "oppose divorce and abortion". Christ teaches us to relinquish love of earthly things and chase after heavenly things. In order to do that, we need to accept that God's ways are not our ways, and He realizes His plan for humanity irrespective of human political programs hatched centuries after His final revelation.

     When we insist on contextualizing the Gospel in 21st century American politics, what we are talking about is no longer really the Gospel, but a perversion thereof. It's a hard trap to work your way out of, but we are not the measure of all things, and what seems immediately obvious to one's intuition may be entirely the wrong way to think about the issue.

[Basil]

Quite simply, Jesus was not a "liberal socialist". Or if he was, for a very idiosyncratic definition of socialism. If we take monasticism to be the thing closest to the holiness of the life of Jesus (as the Church Fathers say), there are obviously parallels to socialism. But in monasteries, there is a strict division of duties, a strict hierarchy, and so forth. As I understand it, socialism is intrinsically opposed to hierarchies. So then, if Jesus was a socialist, why did he establish his Church with such a strict hierarchy?

[Progressive Pessimist]

Because he is ostensibly the perfect human and that makes them want to co-opt him and use him to shame people they don't like.

[Grassroots]

Why do you assume all Republicans are christian?

[SingingAnalyst]

Two things: (1) one could poke holes in the idea that Jesus was a liberal socialist: Matthew 13:12 "He who has will be given more... he who does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him." Sorry, but this passage is less in dispute than John 7:53-8:11, a liberal favorite.

(2) Conservative Christians (most) believe in something called "Dispensationalism": that is, the Sermon on the Mount was part of the old law, which was nailed to the cross. We Christians are living in the "Christian Age", so as long as we follow the post-Resurrection teachings of the book of Acts and the Epistles (mostly by St. Paul) and accept Christ as Savior, we'll be OK.

I disagree with that aspect of Conservative Christianity.

[We Live in Black and White]

All these years, they needed an excuse. But now they've corrupted society to the point that they can get away with fascism with or without religion.

[T'Chenka]

Why do you assume all Republicans are christian?

I didn't say "all Republicans", I said "Republicans". The majority worship Christ.

[Grassroots]

Why do you assume all Republicans are christian?

I didn't say "all Republicans", I said "Republicans". The majority worship Christ.

Same goes for Democrats. I don't see your point.

[Inmate Trump]

Why do you assume all Republicans are christian?

I didn't say "all Republicans", I said "Republicans". The majority worship Christ.

Same goes for Democrats. I don't see your point.

The point is that Democrats tend to favor more policies in line with Christ's teachings than do Republicans, and most especially than does Trump.

[Basil]

Why do you assume all Republicans are christian?

I didn't say "all Republicans", I said "Republicans". The majority worship Christ.

Same goes for Democrats. I don't see your point.

The point is that Democrats tend to favor more policies in line with Christ's teachings than do Republicans, and most especially than does Trump.

If you ignore the parts of Christ's teaching about sexuality and what I'll call "social morality" (as opposed to economic morality) sure.

[HisGrace]

Liberalism did not exist as a political ideology 2000 years ago and based on the descriptions of his beliefs and behavior in the gospels Jesus would most certainly not apply as one. His main message to 100% submit yourself to his and god's will is about as illiberal as it gets.

He never stated any views on economic policy other than that people should pay their taxes so again, don't see how you can say he was a socialist. He never called for anything to be nationalized which is the key point of socialism.

I am not a Christian and evangelicals are blatantly hypocritical on a lot of things but this meme is so tedious. If you think Jesus was like a 60's hippie you've obviously never given the Gospels even a cursory reading.

[HisGrace]

(2) Conservative Christians (most) believe in something called "Dispensationalism": that is, the Sermon on the Mount was part of the old law, which was nailed to the cross. We Christians are living in the "Christian Age", so as long as we follow the post-Resurrection teachings of the book of Acts and the Epistles (mostly by St. Paul) and accept Christ as Savior, we'll be OK.

I disagree with that aspect of Conservative Christianity.

That's a really weak theological argument to me. If you don't consider Jesus's teachings part of the Christian canon your religion is built around Paul, not Jesus.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Relevant to the thread:

https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1207389557873946629

This is why I shake my head every time a Republican wants to lecture people, especially practicing Christians like myself, about Jesus, and what he "really meant."

Because get this, folks: Jesus may not have been a Democrat, or a socialist, or a liberal, but he sure as HELL wouldn't want anything to do with blasphemous conservative politics today.  I don't care how many f#cking passages you cherrypick.  What passes for Christianity is, in many respects, a disgrace.  And that's as true today as it was 2000 years ago, when political figures quickly started bastardizing Jesus' teachings to exercise power over their fellow human beings.

It is disgusting, it is evil, and it WILL earn you a place in Hell.  And if you want proof of Hell, take a good look around you and see what fundamentalist demagogues have done to people in the name of God.  If certain people had their way, Christian-majority countries would look the way Syria does today.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Three of those have no scriptural support. Jesus never had anything to say about what constitutes marriage (nor does the Bible itself, especially as there are tons of examples of marriages between more than just one woman and a man).

     Jesus makes it extremely clear in the second section where He condemns divorce that He upholds the teaching from Genesis about the nature of marriage:

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

     And yes, there were polygamous marriages in the Old Testament. St. Augustine taught that that was tolerated to increase the population of the faithful, though there is no need to accept his theory for it. It is not supported by the moral teachings of the Gospels, so are you going to say they don't matter now?

Jesus also didn't say anything about sexual immorality: it was a few of the disciples who got into that, and it still was only mentioned a few times, nowhere near as much as people like to make out.

     That's completely wrong. Read Matthew 5:27-30. That is about sexual immorality. Jesus is speaking, not just some disciples.

Jesus also did not demand almsgiving from those who could not afford it. He praised the poor who did give, but nowhere did he demand it.

     Same as He praised the rich who gave. When it is convenient to the left, it is a requirement. When it is inconvenient to the left, it is just a suggestion. Doing this, you can make Jesus support any ideology you want.

In fact, he focused a lot on how difficult it would be for the rich to get into heaven, especially as they are unwilling to part with their money.

     That is a clear example of lefties reading what they want to read. Jesus says that the rich will have a hard time entering the Kingdom of Heaven:

23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”

24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is[e] to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

     The disciples clearly understand this is a commentary on how hard it is for anyone to enter Heaven: 'The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?” '. The rich man fell away because he loved his possessions, and we all love what we have. Jesus then assuages their fears in Mark 10:27 and says 'Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” ' Nobody can enter Heaven, except by the grace of God. Liberals really want Him to be condemning the wealthy, but it doesn't work that way.

It's also important contextually to remember women weren't allowed to initiate divorce and Jesus being against divorce was a way of protecting women, as men could drop women whenever they wanted and leave them destitute just because they wanted the hot new model. We can't assume that he would be for or against no-fault divorce: he allowed for divorce in cases of adultery, which again, supports the theory that his reasoning was to protect those who would be injured by divorce.

     I'm sorry, but Jesus made it clear why He is against divorce. I quoted it above. It pulls apart what God has put together. For someone attempting to accuse me of saying things without scriptural support, it is hypocritical of you to then inject your own fan-fiction explanation for why Jesus did what He did.

As for salvation, that's a theological concern and people across the political spectrums believe different things, so trying to tie that to politics is disgusting.

     I bring it up because saying that is something the left does not want to hear. I've had people argue earnestly with me that all religions are true, but Jesus utterly refutes that claim.

So, please, stop pretending you are representing Jesus or scripture when you say these things. I've got the receipts for what I've said; how 'bout you?

     I will stop claiming to represent the Bible when people stop claiming that He was basically Bernie Sanders. It is disgusting for Democrats to act like they they are the ones representing His will when they simply ignore all of His teachings that are inconvenient to them. The same is naturally true of Republicans, but when someone starts acting like Jesus would somehow be at home in the modern day Democratic Party, that is a falsehood that needs refuting.

I have, for a long time, viewed Koharu, to be kind, rather negatively.  She's a person where I've asked myself if I were being unfair about that.  I now realize why I view her in such a negative light.  She misrepresents the Gospel.  She does it all the time, insisting that the Gospel, and Scripture as a whole, backs up HER political stances (which include support for abortion on demand, and without apology).  

PiT puts it better than I could.  Koharu makes argument that no Biblical Christian would make, and the people who agree with her in this thread are people who have never had a good word for Biblical Christians, and are cherry pickers when it comes to citing Scripture.  They are people that would not allow Scripture to serve as a source to effect personal correction and change because they don't believe in its Authority.

Of teachers, Scripture says this:

“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1 ESV).

I certainly wouldn't want to be Koharu, based on that Scripture.  But I have a feeling that I'd much rather be her when I face God than her teachers who appear to have filled her head with ideas that, however one may agree with them, simply aren't supported by Scripture.  They're just not.  What Koharu presents here is NOT a Scriptural view of Jesus.  It's something else.

[Crumpets]

Idolize or exploit?

[T'Chenka]

Jesus makes it extremely clear in the second section where He condemns divorce that He upholds the teaching from Genesis about the nature of marriage:

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Serious question: if your parents are disabled and/or homeless, is  it not a sin to live with them after you marry? It CLEARLY states in Jesus' own words that a man will leave his mother and father and be united with his wife. Also, it's okay to live with the wife's parents, just not the husband's parents. Like you said, it's extremely clear.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Relevant to the thread:

https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1207389557873946629

This is why I shake my head every time a Republican wants to lecture people, especially practicing Christians like myself, about Jesus, and what he "really meant."

Because get this, folks: Jesus may not have been a Democrat, or a socialist, or a liberal, but he sure as HELL wouldn't want anything to do with blasphemous conservative politics today.  I don't care how many f#cking passages you cherrypick.  What passes for Christianity is, in many respects, a disgrace.  And that's as true today as it was 2000 years ago, when political figures quickly started bastardizing Jesus' teachings to exercise power over their fellow human beings.

It is disgusting, it is evil, and it WILL earn you a place in Hell.  And if you want proof of Hell, take a good look around you and see what fundamentalist demagogues have done to people in the name of God.  If certain people had their way, Christian-majority countries would look the way Syria does today.

Jesus dined and was the houseguest of Zaccheus, a tax collector loathed by the ordinary Jews as Trump is loathed by the liberals of today.  (And for good reason; he over-collected taxes, essentially robbing people.)  After one night with Jesus, Zaccheus vowed to restore fourfold what he took unjustly from people.  He liked the Rich Young Ruler, who could not sell what he had, give it to poor, and follow him.  (That's not a requirement for salvation, but it was the "Good Master" testing the heart of a man.

Much is said about Jesus's commitment to the poor.  Scripture clearly condemns injustice toward the poor, and in more than one verse or book.  But Jesus also said, "The poor you will always have among you."  Now those words of Jesus are not license to shift more wealth to the 1%, but he did say this.  That's not a utopian statement; He, himself, said that poverty would always be with us.  Undoubtedly, that is because of the sin nature of man, and the greed that is manifested by it, but it certainly makes it hard to label Jesus a "socialist" when you think about it.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Jesus dined and was the houseguest of Zaccheus, a tax collector loathed by the ordinary Jews as Trump is loathed by the liberals of today.  (And for good reason; he over-collected taxes, essentially robbing people.)  After one night with Jesus, Zaccheus vowed to restore fourfold what he took unjustly from people.  He liked the Rich Young Ruler, who could not sell what he had, give it to poor, and follow him.  (That's not a requirement for salvation, but it was the "Good Master" testing the heart of a man.

Much is said about Jesus's commitment to the poor.  Scripture clearly condemns injustice toward the poor, and in more than one verse or book.  But Jesus also said, "The poor you will always have among you."  Now those words of Jesus are not license to shift more wealth to the 1%, but he did say this.  That's not a utopian statement; He, himself, said that poverty would always be with us.  Undoubtedly, that is because of the sin nature of man, and the greed that is manifested by it, but it certainly makes it hard to label Jesus a "socialist" when you think about it.

In a utopia, there would be no rich or poor.  We do not live in said utopia, due to the sinful nature of man.  Therefore, it is because of sin that we have people who live high on the hog while others go without.

This is not exactly an endorsement of the unfettered capitalism that most conservative "Christians" promote today.  Jesus would want us to destroy Mammon, not empower him and his flock.

[T'Chenka]

Much is said about Jesus's commitment to the poor.  Scripture clearly condemns injustice toward the poor, and in more than one verse or book.  But Jesus also said, "The poor you will always have among you."  Now those words of Jesus are not license to shift more wealth to the 1%, but he did say this.  That's not a utopian statement; He, himself, said that poverty would always be with us.  Undoubtedly, that is because of the sin nature of man, and the greed that is manifested by it, but it certainly makes it hard to label Jesus a "socialist" when you think about it.

Guys, can we put this one in the HFBoards Hall Of Fame?

The first two sentences are a confession ("yes, Jesus was a socialist"), the last sentence is a denial ("Jesus WASN'T a socialist") and the middle is the most incredible and jaw-dropping Republican argument I've EVER seen: "We can't fight too hard against poverty and eliminate it, because Jesus is The Truth and Jesus said we won't be able to. To eliminate poverty would therefore be un-christian and any serious attempt to ELIMINATE (not reduce) poverty would be blasphemy against Jesus."

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Much is said about Jesus's commitment to the poor.  Scripture clearly condemns injustice toward the poor, and in more than one verse or book.  But Jesus also said, "The poor you will always have among you."  Now those words of Jesus are not license to shift more wealth to the 1%, but he did say this.  That's not a utopian statement; He, himself, said that poverty would always be with us.  Undoubtedly, that is because of the sin nature of man, and the greed that is manifested by it, but it certainly makes it hard to label Jesus a "socialist" when you think about it.

Guys, can we put this one in the HFBoards Hall Of Fame?

The first two sentences are a confession ("yes, Jesus was a socialist"), the last sentence is a denial ("Jesus WASN'T a socialist") and the middle is the most incredible and jaw-dropping Republican argument I've EVER seen: "We can't fight too hard against poverty and eliminate it, because Jesus is The Truth and Jesus said we won't be able to. To eliminate poverty would therefore be un-christian and any serious attempt to do so would be blasphemy against Jesus."

In fairness to Fuzzy, I did not interpret his point that way.  It is true that we will always have poverty in the same way that we will always have sin.  This does not, in any way, mean that we shouldn't do all we can to minimize its presence.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Jesus makes it extremely clear in the second section where He condemns divorce that He upholds the teaching from Genesis about the nature of marriage:

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Serious question: if your parents are disabled and/or homeless, is  it not a sin to live with them after you marry? It CLEARLY states in Jesus' own words that a man will leave his mother and father and be united with his wife. Also, it's okay to live with the wife's parents, just not the husband's parents. Like you said, it's extremely clear.

It's a Biblical statement that ordains the family as an institution.  Indeed, God ordained the family as an institution LONG before He ordained the Church.  

The Old Testament model for family was for a man to live in his father's house.  The father would build on when his son got married; he lived in his own quarters, but they were attached to the father's residence.  (Yes, this got complicated with some of the polygamous patriarchs.)  

The application for today is this:  A teenager and a young adult's "significant other" is their parents.  Not their girlfriend or boyfriend.  

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Much is said about Jesus's commitment to the poor.  Scripture clearly condemns injustice toward the poor, and in more than one verse or book.  But Jesus also said, "The poor you will always have among you."  Now those words of Jesus are not license to shift more wealth to the 1%, but he did say this.  That's not a utopian statement; He, himself, said that poverty would always be with us.  Undoubtedly, that is because of the sin nature of man, and the greed that is manifested by it, but it certainly makes it hard to label Jesus a "socialist" when you think about it.

Guys, can we put this one in the HFBoards Hall Of Fame?

The first two sentences are a confession ("yes, Jesus was a socialist"), the last sentence is a denial ("Jesus WASN'T a socialist") and the middle is the most incredible and jaw-dropping Republican argument I've EVER seen: "We can't fight too hard against poverty and eliminate it, because Jesus is The Truth and Jesus said we won't be able to. To eliminate poverty would therefore be un-christian and any serious attempt to do so would be blasphemy against Jesus."

In fairness to Fuzzy, I did not interpret his point that way.  It is true that we will always have poverty in the same way that we will always have sin.  This does not, in any way, mean that we shouldn't do all we can to minimize its presence.

The purpose of the Christian Life is to Glorify God and His Son, and to bring the Good News of Salvation wherever possible.  It is not to eliminate poverty, although in doing so, the objective of Glorifying God and His Son can be achieved.

[TJ in Oregon]

I think we have a little bit of miscommunication here so I'll try to restate a bit more clearly.

Jesus was not a political revolutionary.

I guess it depends how you define "political" and "revolutionary". His words, actions and disciples re-defined government policy in christian theocracies for nearly 2000 years.

Compare Jesus to the Old Testament figures who were often political leaders and enacted political change. Then look at how Jesus treats his encounters with the government (Mk 12:17, John 19:11). No doubt the political course of the world has changed drastically because of Jesus, but he himself wasn't a revolutionary. If he were, he could have struck down and established whatever regime he wanted. But that was not his mission.

Jesus's command wasn't to be a "good person"; it was to give up everything and follow him. Of course he also had some messages about what a person ought to do along the way that are specific and generally applicable.

Oh right. That akward christian thing when you can be a terrible person and even a monster, but if uyou accelt Jesus into your heart as your Lord, you go to heaven. Forgot about that.

That's not what I said. It's an extreme rendering of sola fide, which is a Protestant doctrine that I do not even hold at all, much less the form of the in caricature you gave it. I have no theological qualm with the idea that we can lose salvation through sin and must be transformed by Christ. If you have any doubts see the rest of my original post for examples. The contrast I gave is that of being a "good person" according to the standards of the world but refusing to follow Christ.

Jesus (sounding perhaps like what you would call Bernie Sanders like) commanded us to help the poor. Notice the command is always a personal obligation rather than a command to support a political movement.

Jesus also defended the poor and minorities from persecution, or at least tried. His Father (he?) actively punished the Egyptian opressors and helped emancipate the jews. In those times, in those places, God and Jesus were taking sides between political "movements". If we follow their example and read between the lines of the bible, should christians not want Amazon to start paying taxes and giving the seniors that work in their warehouses bathroom breaks? Are you claiming the message was "do as I literally say but do not follow my non-verbal example"?

In the examples you give, the applicable law is the Old Testament covenant, which is explicitly made with one nation, the Jews. So it is inherently different than the post-Jesus world wherein the fullness of public revelation has already been received. Now, that being said, you do have a point. God is not ideologically neutral. He obviously does want us to work for justice. However, political outcomes are of secondary importance in the Gospel. Christ's teachings show you can be on the right side of every single issue but still be damned if you do not repent of your sins and follow him. The Pharisees were right about pretty much everything in the Old Testament Law, but it could not save them. They were (mostly -- there were some good Pharisees) condemned by their own hypocrisy. Christ's second of the two great commandments is to love your neighbor; all justice must be rooted in this. If you work for justice while hating your enemies it will merit you no reward.

But I do think, of all the points you have made in your response, this one is by far the strongest.

He told us to give our money to the poor, not to campaign for increased taxes on landlords.

Liberals / progressives / "socialists" would want to leave the majority of the lardlords' taxes alone mostly, and focus on the wealthiest 1%'s taxes. Unless the landlord owns dozens if properties, this isn't quote right.

I gave the example of a landlord as the landlord was the first rich person equivalent I thought of in ancient Palestine. No doubt there are others, but this objection is entirely beside the point, which was not about whether the top 1% or the 10% are the people who get tax raises, but that we are obligated to voluntarily give of our own money to help the poor. Whether this is best done alongside raising taxes is an exercise that can be left up to the reader, and another question of secondary importance for his mission (btw I'm no ancap...). But we are obligated to give of our own to help others.

His commands on sexuality were likewise our own condemnation for failing to comply, not political commands. The question of politics is of secondary, minimal importance. The primary importance is always repentance and conversion.

So you're saying Jesus wants YOU to focus on your sexuality and not the government? Combined with "just not lest ye be judged" and "let he who is without sin cast the first stone", I think christians should be interpreting the bible to legalize all gayness but for the LGBTQ people to personally deal with their sins in private and through prayer. I can't see how "it's a sin" leads right into "it should be illegal". Society isn't supposed to judge them, Jesus says so. Only God.

I think the same things I said above with regards to economics. The primary obligation is always on the individual to live a moral life, in the case of sexuality, a chaste life. Like before, I do agree that this has some political implications also. I agree that not all sins should be illegal. Lying, for example, is a sin that is next to impossible to outlaw. And attempting to do so would be disastrous.* However, I do think some sins should be illegal (e.g. rape, murder, and theft among others) and some should not be themselves banned, but the government should give any official recognition to (e.g. homosexuality as your example lists).

Since you mentioned the point about judgment, type of judgment condemned here is the person judgment of others, not a blanket prohibition on all prudential decision-making. If we accept the definition you allude to above, then we are also completely unable to make a judgment in the economic matters you described earlier.

*As a sidebar I have a friend who once got into a heated argument with myself a number of mutual friends about whether or not we should outlaw masturbation even though that meant putting cameras in all bathrooms. This is a good example of something that is gravely sinful - but the proposed remedy for its banning is not practicable.

Now, alongside of that is the role we play in our political decisions to vote for candidates who will work best for the good of society: for its conversion, for the poor, for moral social norms, etc.

Politicians should not be trying to convert voters en masse to their religion, otherwise they should have pursued a religious career and not a secular one. In a secular country, in this day and age, it's not literally violating the Constituton, but IMO it's violating it in spirit.

It is the role of every Christian, both religious and lay, to work for the conversion of all those around them whether they are politicians or not. I won't deny, however, that there are constitutional limits to the extent in which American politicians can do this in a public capacity; and those politicians should follow said limits. But at the very least, Christian politicians should take seriously the consequences of their actions on the salvation of their countrymen.

As for the rest of this one, I'm not sure we're that far apart. I do think the Christian implications on politics should be taken holistically and not piecemeal as it often is the modern American context though.

[TJ in Oregon]

Two things: (1) one could poke holes in the idea that Jesus was a liberal socialist: Matthew 13:12 "He who has will be given more... he who does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him." Sorry, but this passage is less in dispute than John 7:53-8:11, a liberal favorite.

(2) Conservative Christians (most) believe in something called "Dispensationalism": that is, the Sermon on the Mount was part of the old law, which was nailed to the cross. We Christians are living in the "Christian Age", so as long as we follow the post-Resurrection teachings of the book of Acts and the Epistles (mostly by St. Paul) and accept Christ as Savior, we'll be OK.

I disagree with that aspect of Conservative Christianity.

I think you vastly overestimate the fraction of conservative Christians in America who are dispensationalists, at least to the degree of believing the Sermon on the Mount is not applicable to Christians.

[T'Chenka]

Much is said about Jesus's commitment to the poor.  Scripture clearly condemns injustice toward the poor, and in more than one verse or book.  But Jesus also said, "The poor you will always have among you."  Now those words of Jesus are not license to shift more wealth to the 1%, but he did say this.  That's not a utopian statement; He, himself, said that poverty would always be with us.  Undoubtedly, that is because of the sin nature of man, and the greed that is manifested by it, but it certainly makes it hard to label Jesus a "socialist" when you think about it.

Guys, can we put this one in the HFBoards Hall Of Fame?

The first two sentences are a confession ("yes, Jesus was a socialist"), the last sentence is a denial ("Jesus WASN'T a socialist") and the middle is the most incredible and jaw-dropping Republican argument I've EVER seen: "We can't fight too hard against poverty and eliminate it, because Jesus is The Truth and Jesus said we won't be able to. To eliminate poverty would therefore be un-christian and any serious attempt to do so would be blasphemy against Jesus."

In fairness to Fuzzy, I did not interpret his point that way.  It is true that we will always have poverty in the same way that we will always have sin.  This does not, in any way, mean that we shouldn't do all we can to minimize its presence.

The purpose of the Christian Life is to Glorify God and His Son, and to bring the Good News of Salvation wherever possible.  It is not to eliminate poverty, although in doing so, the objective of Glorifying God and His Son can be achieved.

If you truly eliminated poverty, wouldn't that prove that Jesus was wrong about the future of poverty and therefore discredit him though?