It often seems to me, when among my Christian fellows at church, that I am in the minority with my liberal political leanings, especially when it comes to social issues. I’ve always wondered why. I can understand that the sobriety and personal responsibility required by the New Testament—not to mention the strict adherance to law required by the Old—could give rise to the focus on personal responsibility and tougher criminal penalties advocated by conservative social thinking. However, the sayings and activities of Jesus—who also features prominently in the New Testament—have always seemed to me to mesh much better with liberal social thought than conservative. At least, with his concern for the poor, the widow, the orphan, the sick, and the alien, I always imagined that if Jesus ever got onto the city council he’d have to be considered a liberal.
Here’s a cartoon that attempts to draw a line between Jesus’ social teachings and the methods of many of today’s rich and powerful (who are not necessarily synonymous with the present conservative leadership in our nation, but come on) by reimagining Jesus as a proponent of their ideas.
I realize that I’m intermingling politics, economics, and public policy under the heading of “conservative,” and that it’s an oversimplification to say that any given conservative leader of our day would exhibit the worst aspects of the “greedy corporate conservative” stereotype. But again, come on.