Would Christ be Classified as a Liberal or Conservative by Today's Standards?

[Salty Booger]

It's a hard call for me. I mean, he was a bit of both. Your thoughts?

Photo by Rodolfo Clix from Pexels

 

[JustGeorge]

I could never consider him anything but an independent.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

He would be far left, very high in the upper-red quadrant.
Basically neither Liberal or Conservative. He would be religious-communist, more or less.

 

[Salty Booger]

Basically neither Liberal or Conservative. He would be religious-communist, more or less.

He would doom the workers to lives in the factories with no hope of escape?

 

[Lyndon]

God is very liberal, I mean even if you are evil like Trump he gives you the option to be reborn as a dog or a pig.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

He would doom the workers to lives in the factories with no hope of escape?

Where did you get that?
Jesus told his followers to sell everything they have and give the money to the poor, and he instructed an ascetic lifestyle that was communally-based. That's basically communism, which a strong emphasis on religion. Religious-commune is what we would typically call such arrangements today.
(and do keep in mind Marx did not create or invent communism, and Marxism (typically called Classic Marxism) is its own sub-category of communism)

 

[sun rise]

I personally would say that Christ was neither. Left and right are about government. His preaching was about love and how love would act in the world. Today's fights between left and right are due to a lack of love. Laws are passed to coerce people into stop doing things that they would not do if they had sufficient love. Bureaucracies are formed to organize and manage what would not need organization and management if there was sufficient love.

 

[epronovost]

He would be considered as third positionist or some sort of reactionary due to his views on property which are very much in line with paleo-communism (collectivism and agrarianism) and his conservative social views (ultranationalism and sexual repression). Like all religious leaders of Antiquity, he would be next to impossible to judge by modern standards..

 

[Valjean]

Clearly a left-wing, socialist Hippie.
He lived communally with a bunch of other guys, shared everything, and kept a common purse.
And look at all that peace-love-brotherhood stuff in his sermons.

 

[SeekerOnThePath]

By todays standards he'd definitely be a right winger. He was a conservative Jew of his time afterall, likely coming out of the Essene sect with a major focus on morality and asceticism.
Just because he harshly scolded the Pharasies doesn't make him any more liberal than the Nevi'im who scolded the Israelites constantly over similar kinds of issues.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Clearly a left-wing, socialist Hippie.
He lived communally with a bunch of other guys, shared everything, and kept a common purse.
And look at all that peace-love-brotherhood stuff in his sermons.

Hippies had free love. They dont inherent the kingdom. Underneath that peace and love lies what what we would basically call an autocrat (or messenger of an autocrat, or whatever) who rules with an iron fist tightly clinched. Many Christians will even describe heaven as a benevolent dictatorship.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

By todays standards he'd definitely be a right winger. He was a conservative Jew of his time afterall, likely coming out of the Essene sect with a major focus on morality and asceticism.

That's why he's high up on the y-axis of a political chart, because of these conservative religious views, strict dogma, and authoritarian rule. And he is Left because of his "economic" views, and quite far over that way too.

 

[Sunstone]

I don't think that little known Galilean mystic can be easily shoehorned into our contemporary political categories. That's not to say his teachings are irrelevant to today's politics, just that they cannot easily be classified in terms of today's politics. At least in my opinion.

 

[Tambourine]

Obviously Jesus would vote for the Monster Raving Loony Party.

 

[Valjean]

By todays standards he'd definitely be a right winger. He was a conservative Jew of his time afterall, likely coming out of the Essene sect with a major focus on morality and asceticism.
Just because he harshly scolded the Pharasies doesn't make him any more liberal than the Nevi'im who scolded the Israelites constantly over similar kinds of issues.

Not sure how conservative he was, by today's standards. I doubt He even wore a tie.

The brouhaha with the temple vendors didn't seem very business-friendly; He believed the Sabbath (law) was made for man, not man for the Sabbath; and then there are all those Hippie-radical statements in his sermons on the mount and the plain -- he really let his freak flag fly there.

His commune-like lifestyle and common purse were questionable, as well. The FBI probably has a file on him somewhere.

 

[Vouthon]

It's a hard call for me. I mean, he was a bit of both. Your thoughts?

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Photo by Rodolfo Clix from Pexels

The basis of Jesus's itinerant lifestyle and 'weltanschauung' was his belief in the looming advent of a fundamental "social reversal" in which the marginalized would be 'raised up', whilst those presently holding the reigns of power and privilege would correspondingly be 'brought low'.

He called this new order of things, "the Kingdom of God". An excerpt from “The Kingdom of Heaven,” Chapter 7 of Sage (pp. 80-82) by the historical Jesus scholar David Flusser:

For Jesus, the kingdom of heaven is not only the eschatological rule of God that has dawned already, but a divinely willed movement that spreads among people throughout the earth.

The kingdom of heaven is not simply a matter of God’s kingship, but also the domain of his rule, an expanding realm embracing ever more and more people, a realm into which one may enter and find one’s inheritance, a realm where there are both great and small. That is why Jesus called the twelve to be fishers of men [Matt. 4:19] and to heal and preach everywhere. “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 10:5-16).

That which Jesus recognized and desired is fulfilled in the message of the kingdom. There God’s unconditional love for all becomes visible, and the barriers between sinner and righteous are shattered. Human dignity becomes null and void, the last become first, and the first become last.

The poor, the hungry, the meek, the mourners, and the persecuted inherit the kingdom of heaven.

His revolution has to do chiefly with the transvaluation of all the usual moral values, and hence his promise is specially for sinners. “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you” (Matt. 21:31-32).
​

If one were to situate such a 'philosophy' in the context of contemporary Western politics, you'd likely place Jesus somewhere on the far-left of the spectrum, socialism basically. And indeed, the early church described in Acts practised 'communality of goods' and disavowed private ownership - which is conducive with proto-communism.

However, Jesus was not an 'authoritarian': quite the contrary:

25 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that among the nations, those who appear to be their kings lord it over them, and their 'great' men are tyrants over them. 26 But it shall not be this way among you, rather whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, 27and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)​

The disciples in the Markan version of this pericope had been discussing which of them was the "greatest", Jesus then places a child in their midst and says "here's the greatest" before delivering the above warning about tyrannical kings.

I agree with Professors Richard Horsley, Ched Myers, Dennis Hamm and Jonathan Reed (among others), that this is a case of Jesus "glancing nostalgically back to pre-monarchic times" when "no specific tribe or locale had primacy" (Reed, J. L. Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re-examination of the Evidence p.58) but a series of twelve tribal judges governed Israel as "a loose confederation [with] no central government [except] in times of crisis, [when] the people would have been led by ad hoc chieftains, known as judges (shoftim)"(Kitchen, K. A. (2003)) and in this way, "recalling a time before the people of Israel decided to be like other nations and have a king, rejecting God's direct rule" (Meggitt (2015) p.24).

This explains why the "kingdom" is described solely as the kingdom of "God" by Jesus in the gospel accounts, rather than the kingdom of 'Jesus', or 'David' or any other human being.

As Peter Marshall rightly observes, Jesus consistently “held political authority up to derision [by] demystifying and mocking the power it claimed." To quote Professor Brian pounds in a recent 2019 thesis:

"Jesus does seem to subvert Roman power structures by declaring that his followers are not to “lord over” others as Gentile rulers do but rather that the one who desires to be great should become servant or slave of all (Mark 10:42-44).

Even more politically pointed is Jesus' contrast of John the Baptist's ascetic lifestyle with those who live in palaces (Matthew 11:7-10; Luke 7:24-27). The singular reference to a man clothed “in soft robes” is likely Antipas himself and the subsequent plural reference to those who live in royal palaces may well refer to his extended family and entourage

Even more politically pointed is Jesus' contrast of John the Baptist's ascetic lifestyle with those who live in palaces (Matthew 11:7-10; Luke 7:24-27). The singular reference to a man clothed “in soft robes” is likely Antipas himself and the subsequent plural reference to those who live in royal palaces may well refer to his extended family and entourage." (Pounds, B. p.122)​

With all that being said, Jesus also held some arguably 'socially conservative' beliefs such as his almost blanket opposition to divorce and his ethical perfectionism - which in the Sermon on the Mount actually went beyond the Torah in some respects, in terms of rigor (i.e. bringing in a 'psychological dimension').

So, I'd personally opine that Jesus would have been on the "far left" today but also with perhaps a few socially conservative (definitely not economically conservative!) positions.

 

[Secret Chief]

Liberal and conservative are obviously not the only two options.

 

[Valjean]

Liberal and conservative are obviously not the only two options.

"Power to the proletariat?" "We have nothing to loose but our chains?"

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

I think he'd be considered a moderate who supported socialism.

 

[Valjean]

I think he'd be considered a moderate who supported socialism.

The Romans and conservative Jews didn't consider him a moderate.