The main reason for this article is to debunk the ridiculous idea, propagated mainly by liberals, that Jesus and the Gospel is essentially and arguably liberal.
Is this true?
I just can’t help but laugh at articles written by mainstream liberal celebrities, songwriters, actors, left winger, pundits etc, who claims and believes that, according to them, Jesus, Christian Gospel of the Bible, actually teaches unquestioned “acceptance” and “tolerance.” Now who said that liberals are dulls? Those liberals believes that Jesus is on their side not with begotted, judgmental, homophobic, Islamophobic, right-wing Christians!
Really?
A Left leaning, liberal Christian website describes Jesus as:
Jesus was the ultimate liberal progressive revolutionary of all history. The conservative religious and social structure that He defied hated and crucified Him. They examined His life and did not like what they saw. He aligned Himself with the poor and the oppressed. He challenged the religious orthodoxy of His day. He advocated pacifism and loving our enemies. He liberated women and minorities from oppression. He healed on the Sabbath and forgave adulterers and prostitutes. He associated with drunks and other social outcasts. He rebuked the religious right of His day because they embraced the letter of the law instead of the Spirit. He loved sinners and called them to Himself. Jesus was the original Liberal. He was a progressive, and He was judged and hated for it. It was the self-righteous religionists that He rebuked and He called them hypocrites. [source]
We all know that liberals hate the authority of the Scripture, but if needed, they cherry-picks biblical verses out of context to justify their left-wing agendas. This is nothing new of course. I will try to debunk the statement as shown above but, before we get into the main course, let me briefly describe the ideology of liberalism.
What Is A Liberal?
For the purpose of this subject at hand we need a correct portrayal of political liberalism. You be the judge if the biblical Jesus fits as a genuine liberal.
I believe that it is absolutely imperative for us to have a firm grasp about what liberalism stands for so let me provide you but an ample descriptions or common traits of a typical 21st century liberal (Today’s liberalism is to be distinguished with classical liberalism).
Liberalism is an opposite to political conservatism. Liberals (also known as “progressives”) have high regards for human autonomy coupled with pleasure as summum bonum. Have a high disregard of biblical authority. Liberals are mostly egalitarian, feminists, and the majority of progressives propagates for same-sex matrimony.
Liberals also hate the idea of an absolute truth are therefore moral relativists. Liberals proposes the idea of political correctness which is the very antithesis of free speech.
The liberal values also aggressively promotes abortion, “tolerance” and “acceptance” of immoral behavior such as homosexuality, bestiality etc. [source]
Liberal Hypocrisy
When conservative Christians argues against the practice of homosexuality, for example, liberals would quickly resort to ad hominem and quickly quotes a verse or two from the Bible to silence the opposition.
Christians are not alone quoting verses which is quite popular thing to do. As with Christians, non-Christians secular liberals uses scriptural references too!
For instance, the most oft-repeated ”judge not,”"love your enemy,” and “turn the other cheek,” has become a tiresome mantra and slogan by liberals in which they hardly practice what they preach! Ask any Lefty or liberals if they would turn the other cheek and would indeed embracingly love their enemy who opposes the sin of homosexuality. NOT!
Yup, left-wingers, liberals loves to cram the ”judge not,” mentality down your throat while at the same time hateful and extremely intolerant against the Christian faith. Liberal hypocrisy is the key word here— “Do as I say, not what I do.”
If my memory serves me well, Jesus — of the Bible — hated hypocrites (Matt. 7:1-5)!
We all have our own hypocrites both side in the arena of ideas. So, liberals should first take the log out of their own eyes before judging Christians for being intolerant.
The Gospel And Liberalism
Liberals self-worship coupled with narcissism and solipsism should not, when it comes to scriptural interpretations, be taken seriously. Bible study is the last thing that comes to a liberal mind. If they did in fact took time in contemplating and searching the Scripture they would soon understand that the Bible, Gospel, Jesus and the disciples will not agree the human ideal of secular liberalism.
Was Jesus A Liberal Then?
Whoever wrote the Jesus-is-liberal quoted text above must have confused between Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus of Nazareth or between the biblical and historical Jesus with man-made liberal Jesus. What can we say in response to the above text? Was Jesus of Nazareth liberal then? Not a chance!
Firstly, Jesus didn’t came to earth for a political motivation and reformation as liberals want us to believe. Maybe, just maybe, Jesus was in a sense a revolutionary; religious revolutionary that is. But progressive? Nah!
The Bible tells us that Jesus came to save sinners and from the bondage of Satan. Jesus’ mission was purely and exclusively spiritual NOT political. I really wish that progressives will start in accepting this simple and obvious truth instead of living their lives in delusions.
And no, Jesus didn’t oppose the opposition to liberate women from political oppression — as the quoted text above wants us to swallow—but came to save sinners from their sins! Again, the biblical impression about Jesus’ earthly itinerant was more soteriological than ideological.
In addition, the ONLY oppression Jesus want to liberate women and men (Jesus wasn’t a feminist) is the oppression of sin this much is true!
The whole scheme and purpose of Christ’s Incarnation, the Virgin Birth, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension didn’t happened for the advancement of liberal ideology. Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Lk. 5:32) Saving his people from their sins was far more important to Christ than liberating them from any type of political ideologies that he might or might not agree!
In fact, the heart of Jesus Christ’s ministry (and the rest of the Scripture) was to call sinners to repentance. I might add that just because Jesus spended some time with the social outcasts (prostitutes, thieves, drunkards, etc) doesn’t mean that he approved of their behaviour, but on quite the contrary, he called these outcasts to repentance. Calling men as sinners and telling them about their need for repentance is HARDLY liberal since the majority of those progressives mainly believes that humans are essentially good. Duh!
Virtues such as love, mercy, compassion, charity and forgiveness embodies and reflects the true nature of Jesus Christ and there is no doubt about this.
But I do not see why these virtues correlates Jesus as a liberal or a Lefty! This is a false causation and anachronism. Besides, love, mercy, compassion, charity and forgiveness aren’t exclusively all too common a trait among liberals. Conservatives practices these qualities of virtues too!
The main underlying problem with the aforementioned virtues is that liberals and Leftist are confused about the real meaning of love, compassion, charity and mercy.
What about the statement that Jesus was progressive and revolutionary? In some sense, Jesus was a revolutionary (As I stated earlier), that is, religious revolutionary.
Jesus challenged and vehemently criticized the religious and the legalism of the Pharisees not because they were, somehow, politically conservatives!
The idea that Jesus was a progressive is totally gibberish! Remember, Jesus said that he did not come to abolish the law but to accomplish it (Matt. 5:17).
At last but not least, the Gospel narratives tells us what caused Christ’s crucifixion and death on the Cross on Golgotha wasn’t essentially politically motivated. But rather the motivation behind the wrath of the religious leaders against Jesus was mainly religious (and envy) not because he proposed and argued for welfare state, abolition of private properties, redefining the true meaning of marriage (between man and woman), socialism, abortion, centralized government, solipsism etc, etc.
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