Jesus was not a liberal. Not even a close description of what he stood for or what he was saying to the world.
Easter Sunday is a big deal around our house every year, much as Christmas is, and this year was no exception. With the family over we had all the goodies out and the house was decorated to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And marshmallow Peeps.
Not that we are religious around our house, but we never let a holiday pass without celebrating it.
During the Christmas holiday I always manage to catch a showing of “King of Kings” with Jeffery Hunter in the role of Jesus. While the movie focused on the divinity of Christ and the role of politics in the events of that period (Hunter is seen dutifully walking around in an ‘aura’ half the time while the Romans plot his demise); I’ve often thought about Jesus the man, rather than as a god or ‘the’ God.
Had the divine aspect of Christ been eliminated from historical texts, Jesus most certainly would have gone down in history as probably one of humankind’s greatest philosophers. The reason I bring this up, is that the leftists always claim that ‘Jesus was liberal’, or that liberalism is based in Christianity’s role in social suffering. The argument is that governmental constructs of altruism are what Jesus would have wanted. 
Hardly. I don’t remember Jesus in the Bible asking the Romans for help, or suggesting that maybe Rome should be paid more taxes to help out their suffering neighbors. He didn’t suggest that we should outsource our charity to a government program.
In fact, it was just the opposite.
Take for example, Jesus’ most seminal speech, The Sermon on the Mount. While interpretations of the sermon are varied and diverse, the essential role of man in society is very simple to Jesus—love they neighbor as well as one loves thyself:
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Without getting into the religious implications of the Sermon, it’s clear Jesus had one thing on his mind that day– that man must act with mercy and grace toward one another, not that man must ask his government to do so for him. He must act out of his own free will to treat each other with equanimity and love. The issue of free will and self governance was thematic throughout most of Jesus’ sermons and speeches.
In an almost ‘eastern’ philosophical line, Jesus continues:
For after all these things do the Gentiles seek for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Jesus is saying here, that what should be in our hearts should be seeking the kingdom of God through acts of kindness and not enforcing your will upon others. ‘Take each day at a time’ and with grace was a revolutionary idea in the period of the Roman Empire, and is a decidedly eastern approach to human behavior. It has more in common with Buddhism than any current Christian ideal, and certainly is the opposite of demanding government enforce societal altruism on the whole.
Of course there’s the most famous line about judging others:
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
The liberal mentality is always to judge someone else’s behavior rather than their own. The leftist desires government to enforce laws on a society that does not comply with its leftist sensibilities. Do as I say, and not as I do, certainly was not in Jesus’ lexicon. He desired man to take care of each other through acts of charity and kindness, not demand government do so for them.
Jesus was a liberal?
Gimme a break.
