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.
Where to start. I guess by saying there are a couple things missing from your list.
1. If he’d be against abortion, he’d be against the death penalty too if it was all about Thou Shall Not Kill… yet conservative policies are also very pro-death penalty. I’ve never understood how a good christian can be supportive of the death penalty. I know I know… law of the land old testament, etc. But, Jesus wouldn’t have agreed.
2. What troubles me most is your comment about what the conservative policies state vs. what the politicians are saying. While lying may not be in the ten commandments, I’m pretty sure the God I believe in wouldn’t approve. I hear a lot about “all you have to do is accept Him as your savior” etc. but that’s NOT enough. If God really knows peoples hearts, not just what they SAY to people, many of these liars will never get where they say they are going… NEVER. God will know how they really feel and act when no ones looking. Being a hypocrit will NOT get you there. So, many of them that believe end days are coming, should be WAY more careful and maybe a bit less excited if they find they don’t end up where they think they will
3. Why do so many of them judge others the way they do. For goodness sake, even just saying all Democrats are lazy and don’t want to work etc, is a judgement that they are not supposed to be making. they should be helping these people. I know some play the game, but that’s not what they are saying when they say ALL. And even not wanting to help, is certainly NOT what would endear them to Jesus.
I’m never ashamed to be a believer, but am often ashamed to be lumped into what many “believers” are really like. I really wish some would spend more time getting the real message that he was here to teach us.
Couldn’t even wait to make my comment until it hit FB, so it’s already on your article… or at least awaiting your approval to be on there.
To piggyback on Kim’s first point, abortion is not mentioned anywhere in Christ’s teachings, or for that matter, in the bible. That life is to be held sacred, well, yes, but then shouldn’t that extend to non-human life as the Buddhists approach does? So the pro-life stance is hypocritical in itself.
Tim, you’re dead on, but you will NEVER get a conservative Christian to see it. Those who vote that way are followers; they have not diligently worked to form their own conscience, to discern how to behave (and vote) based on what they purport to believe, they simply believe what and vote the way another man tells them solely because he stands in a pulpit and is supposedly communicating God’s word because he must be closer to it right?, after all, he is a man of god. Much as Catholic priests held sway over their parishioners in generations past, conservative pastors and preachers are doing the same. It is so far from WWJD that it doesn’t even smell like Christianity anymore.
mine too
Here’s what I think Jesus would do. I think Jesus would set up the most efficient economy that he could so that everybody could prosper. In doing so he could reduce spending on the poor because there would be less of them. The elderly would have had more money during their lifetimes so they wouldn’t be reliant on social security and medicare. I think Jesus would set up a system so people get paid what they are worth, instead of letting unions hold employers hostage. I think Jesus would fire bad teachers and in doing so save money on education. This is apropos because it takes a miracle to do so. I think Jesus would make the government smaller so there was less of a tax burden on everybody. I think Jesus would realize everybody thinks they pay too much tax and terms like disproportionately are relative. I think Jesus would scold the ulra rich who do nothing for other people as well as the poor who do nothing for themselves. That’s what I think. Of course I’m not really religious or conservative.
@Brian: I really do love your utopian view, and if everyone played for the common good, it could actually work that way. But as you said, that would take a miracle, and so it probably is in God’s hands to pull that off.
The reality we are stuck with is to try and create a delicate balance of competing interests. At present, we’re off balance, but at times in history we’ve been off balance in the other direction, and we will doubtless be again.
I agree that Jesus would probably opt for the balance point. What I can’t explain is that given we’re out of whack already, why are the Christians jumping up and down on the heavy side of the scale like they’re trying to get the damn thing to tip over?
I guess the answer to your analogy is that they don’t think they are on the heavy side. They are not balancing their position against the same people you are. They think the system is broke and needs fixing. Assuming they truly believe that, letting the country continue down the path of destruction seems very unChristianlike to me.
So you want to talk about medicare and the poor and elderly. I want to talk about property taxes and the poor and elderly. School taxes and property taxes keep going up, putting the squeeze on fixed income homeowners. Why do they keep going up? Because the wages of the public workers that belong to public unions keep going up. Why is it so unChristian like to want to do something about it? I’m not for more polution, but I understand that it costs us jobs. Everything is not as black and white as you make it seem.
That should say, regulation costs us jobs.
This may be the first time I’ve been accused of being black & white. Usually I’m hopelessly gray. To that end, my firm belief is that it’s all about achieving a balance.
Free market capitalism needs to be balanced by government regulation and unions. Both sides can over reach. There are certainly areas (like benefits) where public sector unions over reach, but making them illegal is not the way to achieve balance. On the flip side, private sector unions have been decimated such that on that side the balance is decidedly against workers. Yes, over-regulation can cost jobs, but corporate America is cash rich right now. There is no evidence that regulations or taxes are behind the lack of jobs. Further, there is evidence that the BP oil spill, the housing market crash, and global warming are a result of under-regulation.
I don’t doubt that most Tea Partiers or conservative Christians are sincere in the belief they are standing on the side of the scale that will help balance things. I don’t honestly think they are, as a group, out to intentionally make things worse. But I do think they’ve been duped and manipulated into thinking they are helping, when in reality they are exacerbating the problem they are trying to fix.
To a large extent the private sector’s union’s greed led to their own demise. The market will bear overpaying labor only so far. Unfortunately, that balance doesn’t exist in the public sector. If the government employees make too much, government doesn’t go out of business, they just raise taxes. Its a bad system.
I can think of several instances where you thought that regulations were too much, I don’t know why you think they’re out of balance the other way. The free market didn’t grant Time Warner a monopoly in Rochester. I recall a blog where you complained that companies were using patent law to hinder advancement instead of promote it (vonage lawsuit). Also there was the vaccine that wasn’t going to be available in the US any more. Why? Because the costs of getting the FDA to approve it made it unprofitable. (Still available in Mexico however.) Further, oil drilling is regulated. I can cite several sources that claim that the housing bubble was brought on by the government forcing the banks to lower their lending standards. I can’t imagine what regulations could have been in place that would have prevented global warming. Regulations are necessary, but balance is in the eye of the beholder.
You always seem worried about who is going to protect us from free market capitalism. Who is going to protect from the government? Corporations exist to make money. If they cease to offer products of value to someone, they go out of business. Government agencies just exist. The government keeps growing and growing. These people believe that its out of control and they want to put an end to it. They are doing what they can to fix a system that they feel is broken.
It’s not as simple as “regulation good” and “capitalism bad”. I don’t believe either of those things. Bad regulation (like government sponsored monopolies) are bad, and runaway capitalism is bad as well. As I said, it’s about balance.
That said, the government at present is not an effective balance against capitalism. Rather, they are in the pocket of big business–both parties. The Dems at least still lob an occasional pro-people policy out, while the GOP has even given up on the pretense of being anything other than a business lapdog. Neither party is really doing their job.
The Tea Party is right, we the people need to take our government back. It is, after all, supposed to be a government by, of, and for the people. It’s not now.
My concern is that in an effort to reclaim the government, they are actually embarking on a plan to neuter it. This means that if/when we can reclaim it, it will be a powerless charade. That’s the wrong solution.
I by no means wish to equate capitalists to criminals in the following analogy, but allow me to run with it for a bit. If you live in a city where the criminals have corrupted the police such that both sides are working against the people, the answer is not to dismantle the police department. You need to clean it up, fix it, or replace it. But merely taking away all its power only further emboldens the other side. Similarly, wiping out the criminals while leaving a large powerful police force in place is likely to lead to abuse from the other side. It’s about balance.
You said, “These people believe that its [government is] out of control and they want to put an end to it. They are doing what they can to fix a system that they feel is broken.”
Their heart is in the right place. We do need to fix a system that’s broken. But at present the fix seems to be to eliminate it. There’s a critical different between destruction and repair.
Your original post was how conservative Christianism is at odds with what you think Jesus would advocate. Now you say that you think their heart is in the right place. I don’t think this is something recent or something I talked you in to. I’ve tried to show that just because someone doesn’t subscribe to liberal policies doesn’t mean they don’t advocate for the poor or elderly. (I’m not talking about all of them. Let’s face it, there are some people who are just plain hypocrites.) This is, of course, complex stuff. So are we at least making progress in helping you understand their viewpoint, even if you don’t agree?
I love the police analogy. One of the ways that it is really appropriate is that problems increase by a magnitude when both sides are in cahoots with each other. I’d like to change it to a sheriff’s department however. The sheriff position goes up for election every 2 years but all the candidates are crooked. What’s not clear to me is whether eliminating a crooked police department makes matters worse.
We agree the government needs fixing. I don’t know what to do about it however. It seems to me that 2 party system is somewhat to blame. If we had smaller parties that truly represented the people in them, it would be harder for corporate America to own them. So I hope the Tea Party succeeds enough to spur other parties into prominence. Let’s have some real competition and choices on election day. Let’s get rid of the thought that voting for a third party is a wasted vote. I don’t know how well a multi- party system would work here, but it has to be better than what we have.