Is Jesus a Liberal?

By The Evangelical Outpost

In 2004, Jesse Jackson wrote a newspaper column titled “There's no shame in being liberal”, in which he argued that some of the many of the leading lights throughout history—Moses, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson--were liberals too. One name, however, stood out from among the rest:

Think about it: A conservative Christian is a contradiction in terms. Christ wasn't a conservative. He fed the hungry simply because they were hungry. He didn't require that they go to work first. He healed the sick, simply because they were sick. He didn't push them into an insurance company, or let the drug companies gouge them on prices. Jesus was a liberal; Herod was the conservative.
Jesus fed crowds of people exactly two times. It’s not like he was running a food kitchen for free-loaders who refused to work. And while he healed the sick, he also admonished them to change their lives and stop committing sins. Is that what Jesse thinks modern liberals should do? To me it sounds like Jesus was running the sort of the Religious Right’s “faith-based charity” programs.

Beneath Jackson’s typical sloppy reasoning lies an interesting question. How would we evaluate whether Jesus was a liberal by the standards of American liberalism?

The problem is that the term “liberal” is too vague and undefined. Fortunately, Geoffrey Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago, provides a least a partial answer. In a recent article, “What it means to be a liberal”, Stone attempts to “articulate 10 propositions that seem to me to define "liberal" today.”

After reading through list of propositions I began to wonder how they would apply to Jesus. Would Jesus fit the mold of a modern liberal? Let’s examine the evidence to find out what happens if we put Him to the Liberal Test:

1. Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others.

Jesus said, “"I am the way and the truth and the life.” He doesn’t appear to have doubted his own truth or to have been open-minded to the “truths of others.”

Verdict: Not Liberal

2. Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support the civil rights movement, affirmative action, the Equal Rights Amendment and the rights of gays and lesbians. (Note that a conflict between propositions 1 and 2 leads to divisions among liberals on issues like pornography and hate speech.)

Jesus appears to have been tolerant of just about everything but sin. Modern liberals, however, seem to be tolerant of nothing but sin.

Civil rights is too vague but Jesus was for natural rights, since he gave them to us. As for affirmative action, it’s hard to tell. The parable of the workers in the vineyard seems to show that Jesus supported arbitrary, seemingly unjust, hiring practices so maybe he would have been in favor of affirmative action. The ERA question is inconclusive, though I suspect since Jesus is a complementation that he would oppose the legislation. As for the rights of gays and lesbians, Jesus would say that they have rights as human beings, not as a subset of sinners who engage in sexual practices that he abhors (see Leviticus).

Verdict: Based on the standard of modern liberalism, “Not Liberal”

3. Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate.

Jesus excelled in public debater, as did his apostle St. Paul. He would probably be broadly in favor of this “right and responsibility.”

Verdict: Liberal

4. Liberals believe "we the people" are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind.

This one is rather tricky, after all, Jesus is no secularist. Jesus is the head of his own kingdom—the very King of Kings—so he is, broadly speaking, a monarchist. As for earthly government, he appears not to have had much problem with the Roman system. In fact, when he was accused of subverting the empire and refusing to pay taxes to Caesar (Luke 23:1) he was found not guilty. Pontius Pilate didn’t think he was much of a democratic revolutionary.

Verdict: Not Liberal

5. Liberals believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion the rights of racial, religious and ethnic minorities, political dissidents, persons accused of crime and the outcasts of society.

If this makes one a liberal, than Jesus definitely fits the bill.

Verdict: Liberal

6. Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help those who are less fortunate.

Jesus believed that “neighbors”, not government, are the ones who have the responsibility to help those in need.

Verdict: Not Liberal

7. Liberals believe government should never act on the basis of sectarian faith. It is liberals who have opposed and continue to oppose school prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools and who support government funding for stem-cell research, the rights of gays and lesbians and the freedom of choice for women.

Jesus would have a fit if he heard that the government was telling children that they couldn’t speak to him (Mark 10:14). He was also the Creator of the universe (Col. 1-16) so he’d probably believe in teaching some form of “creationism.” He would probably be fore funding of ethical stem-cell research (ASCR) while opposing that which requires the taking of a human life (ESCR). And he would be rather intolerant of homosexual behavior and abortion. On this point, Jesus would be worse in the minds of liberals than any fundamentalist Christian.

Verdict: Definitely Not Liberal

8. Liberals believe courts have a special responsibility to protect individual liberties. It is principally liberal judges and justices who have preserved and continue to preserve freedom of expression, individual privacy, freedom of religion and due process of law.

In the one time Jesus stood before a court, he was treated unjustly. He would probably, therefore, be in favor of a court that protected liberties that were granted by him while excluding those created by man.

Verdict: Liberal

9. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, for without such protection liberalism is impossible.

Other than anarchists, who believes that government shouldn’t protect the safety and security of the people? Jesus was no anarchist so this is a gimme.

Verdict: Liberal

10. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, without unnecessarily sacrificing constitutional values. It is liberals who have demanded and continue to demand legal protections to avoid the conviction of innocent people in the criminal justice system, reasonable restraints on government surveillance of American citizens, and fair procedures to ensure that alleged enemy combatants are in fact enemy combatants.

Would Jesus be a reasonable, decent human being? Yes? Okay, we’ll give them this one too.

Verdict: Liberal

By my tally, that is five “Liberals” and five “Not Liberal.” That leaves just enough room for us to argue over which side Jesus would eventually land. Would he be a modern secular liberal posing as a religious figure ala Jesse Jackson or a well-meaning liberal evangelical like Jim Wallis. Or would he lean more toward the model of a right-thinking, traditionalist/conservative like…well, like me?

Perhaps, though, that is the wrong question. The Gospels don’t have much to say about how Jesus would vote or what political party he’d prefer. Maybe we shouldn’t be asking whether Jesus fits our pre-fabricated political mold but rather questioning how we could be more like Him. Instead of testing Christ’s liberal bona fides we should be more liberal about following his example.