I’ve been having a protracted email discussion with someone who’s a very fervent Christian and also a staunch conservative. Anyone paying any attention to American politics will be quick to observe this is not exactly a rare breed—a point which I have trouble reconciling in my feeble brain. It seems to me that Christian Conservative should be an oxymoron, at least within the context of what the conservative agenda has revealed itself to be in this country.
To that end, I posed the following question to my pen-pal this morning, and I’m posing it here as well in the hopes of generating some conversation and insight.
Presumably a Christian’s worldly politics are aligned with what they feel Jesus would advocate for if he were here today. In essence, WWJD? Yet most of the fundamentalist Christians seem strongly aligned politically with the conservatives. I would go so far as to say there is a pretty strong correlation between those who profess to model their lives on Jesus and those who vote conservative.
It strikes me that in his day, Jesus was a flaming liberal. He advocated for the poor, the downtrodden, and the sick. He accepted everyone. He turned the other cheek. He taught to give away your worldly possessions, help your neighbors, and love everybody. He was persecuted precisely because he stood as an organizer of the people and was seen as a threat to the power structure of the day.
While I can understand Jesus might be strongly pro-life on abortion, most of the remaining conservative agenda seems to me to be against what Jesus would do.
- Reduce or eliminate social security (meaning many elderly will live in poverty)
- Reduce or eliminate Medicare/Medicaid (meaning most poor and elderly will not receive adequate medical care)
- Place the tax burden disproportionately on the backs of the non-rich
- Eliminate unions (removing the voice of the people)
- Eliminate environmental regulations (leading to pollution, extinctions, ecosystem damage)
- Reduce spending on education
- Reduce spending on assistance for the poor
- Increase militarism, don’t negotiate with our enemies
Note that all the bullets above are references to policy positions, proposals, or legislation backed by conservative politicians within the last year. This is not about what they are saying, but about what they are actually doing. (It seems Jesus would be big on the whole doing part as opposed to just giving lip service to high ideals.) I can’t fathom Jesus entreating his followers to get behind any of this.
In that light, if good Christians are truly trying to create a world Jesus would be proud of, why are they primarily standing behind people and policies it seems Jesus would have reviled? I don’t get it.