Leftism is a religion unto itself. While a person might casually identify themselves as a “Leftist Christian” or a “Leftist Jew”, if the values of Leftism constantly overrule the tenets of the religious denomination, then is the person truly any longer a Christian or Jew respectively?
It’s thus always amusing to see a person on the Left tell the rest of us how Jesus would view a modern situation. Such is the case with Time magazine’s Erika Christakis, with her latest column entitled “Is Paul Ryan’s Budget ‘Un-Christian’?” :
As near as we can tell, Jesus would advocate a tax rate somewhere between 50% (in the vein of “If you have two coats, give one to the man who has none”) and 100% (if you want to get into heaven, be poor). Mostly, he suggested giving all your money up for the benefit of others. And Jesus made no distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor; his love and generosity applied to all.
Some beg to differ with Ms. Christakis.
Jesus directs us to give to the needy. He does not direct us to enact laws to tax others in order to provide for the needy.
He also never said to give all of your riches to Rome.
Seems like quite a few are trying to claim Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) as their own. Said Zimbabwe’s Marxist President Robert Mugabe: “The teachings of Jesus Christ and Karl Marx are the same.”
If Jesus was a divine healer, he could have healed everybody in the country, not just those that showed up in front of him. He could ahve provided bread for everyone, not just those that came to his sermons. He answered this problem by telling us that the poor would be with us always, and that if the sick and ill could not take the effort to come to him, why should he heal them?
If Leftism is like a religion then it’s more like fascist Islamism than Christianity. It would be more appropriate for Christakis to interpret Allah.
Of course, destroying the economy would be great for the poor. That’s probably what Jesus would have wanted. Stupid, stupid Erika Snuffaluffagus. Women shouldn’t vote. There’s too many like her. (BTW I wonder what car she drives?)
Erika also conveniently forgets the “Render unto Caesar” passage, which demonstrated that Jesus’ purpose wasn’t to interfere with matters of the state such as taxation. So she’s wrong in her assumptions that Jesus would advocate a specific tax rate.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-9
Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.
and
2 Thessalonians 3:10
For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
Further proof of how far time has moved to the far left and away from any kind of quality thought.
“How did Lefty become an expert on Jesus?”
The same way he becomes an expert on any other subject – he makes stuff up – then calls it esoteric research which refutes common knowledge then he pronounces this new revised “knowledge?” to be so correct that to disagree with it is criminal denial. Then he gets his network of politically connected buddies to support his made up story and tells you there is “expert consensus” of his revisionist crap and then he pressures government to punish anyone who disagrees with him.
It’s a pattern. It’s genetic with Lefty. He has this “expert gene” in common with Mao, Castro, Stalin, Hitler and every other despot who revised history for political conformity.
@Catoclysmos – I’m not sure a fuller reading of the whole section of the 12th chapter of the Gospel of Mark really says what you want it to say about rendering unto Caesar…
“13And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words. 14And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? 15Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it. 16And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar’s. 17And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him.”
I’m just a simple man and not a Biblical scholar, but it seems to me that Jesus would be in favor of us sending ALL of our currency back to Washington. What we owe God can’t be put in a bank, and what we owe the government isn’t any of God’s business – which kind of undermines Christakis’ point.
Gal 1:9 As we said before [at our second visit], and say I now again, If any man preach a gospel unto you beside, or than, that ye received [from us], let him be accursed.
The Greek word, translated ‘accursed’, is anathema and means a (religious) ban or (concretely) excommunicated (thing or person): – accursed, anathema.
I guess follow leftist interpretations if you want to be accursed.
Btw, in Old Testament times the church was the government, and a tithe of 10% was all that was required. Even that was to be freely given.
@Catoclysmos – I’m not sure a fuller reading of the whole section of the 12th chapter of the Gospel of Mark really says what you want it to say about rendering unto Caesar…
“13And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words. 14And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? 15Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it. 16And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar’s. 17And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him.”
I’m just a simple man and not a Biblical scholar, but it seems to me that Jesus would have no objection to us sending ALL of our currency back to Washington. What we owe God can’t be put in a bank, and what we owe the government isn’t any of God’s business – which kind of undermines Christakis’ point.
I think Christ believed in charity, not the wholesale redistribution of wealth.
Apologies for the double post. Tried to cancel after I hit post so that I could edit it and it obviously didn’t work.
One of my favourite parables is this one:
Give a man a fish and he will have food for the day. Teach a man to fish, he has food for a lifetime.
Apparently it doesn’t come from the bible but is a Chinese proverb. Either way, I wish that more folks on the Left would heed its advice. Furthermore, Leftists are completely incapable of seeing what damages their endless “social programs” do to a large swath of society.
I am NOT suggesting that all social programs be gotten away with but, for those capable of working, any social program that doesn’t follow the principle of a “hand up, rather than a hand out” should be eliminated.
Mark 2:13-17
13 He went out again beside the sea; and all the crowd gathered about him, and he taught them. 14 And as he passed on, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. 15 And as he sat at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were sitting with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many who followed him. 16 And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus’s response to the Pharisees query is hardly a ringing endorsement of the tax collecting profession whose hallmarks at the time were synonymous with greed and extortion.
Curiously, for Ms. Christakis she seems to overlook the case of the reformed tax collector Zacchaeus. Tax collectors were hated by many of their fellow Jews, who saw them as traitors for working for the oppressive Roman Empire.
Luke 19:1-10
‘When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” He hurried, came down, and received him joyfully. When they saw it, they all murmured, saying, “He has gone in to lodge with a man who is a sinner.”
Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. If I have WRONGFULLY EXACTED anything of anyone, I restore four times as much.”
What Zacchaeus is doing is restoring that which he WRONGFULLY EXACTED in the first place. This is hardly an endorsement for a 50% tax rate!! Ms Christakis’s misread and misrepresentation of the gospel accounts woefully miss the target by a country kilometer.
Zacchaeus is merely giving back what should not have been taken in the first place!
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
“When Did Leftists Become Experts on ‘Jesus’?”
When they watched 500,000 Christians show up at Chick-fil-A on Wednesday, then watched 500 paid Dem agitators show up on Friday. That’s exactly when they all Googled the Bible and started digging soundbytes out of for their columns and TV speeches.
Because that’s when they really, finally figured out just how horribly outnumbered they really are.
“*If Jesus was a divine healer, he could have healed everybody in the country, not just those that showed up in front of him. He could ahve provided bread for everyone, not just those that came to his sermons.”
~Old country Boy
If God had wanted a welfare Utopia he wouldn’t have turfed Adam and Eve out of the Garden in the first place.
*the miracles that Jesus did were not an end in themselves, they were done to authenicate that he was sent from God just as Moses and the prophets did
I’m no biblical scholar but rather a student of martial matters.
In times past, castles and fortified cities closed their gates at sunset…..not to be reopened before dawn.
So was Jerusalem….and like most such fortifications had a small easily defended “sally port”. It was called “the eye of a needle” it only permitted one man to pass….but a camel could shuffle through on it’s knees.
Hence: “A rich man can no more enter the kingdom of heaven than a camel pass through the eye of a needle.”
It’s about humility rather than net worth.
It is not about becoming an expert on religion. She knows the Christian right generally supports the GOP and she is being dishonest on purpose to further the leftist cause. It is about winning at any cost pure and simple. Lies are the least of the socialist and communist atrocities.
AndyN
I’m no biblical scholar either 🙂
I think you and I are making the same point. In the opening to her article, Ericka makes the claim that Jesus believed in a tax rate of at least 50%. I was pointing out that Jesus was unconcerned with such matters. But yes, it would also mean he wouldn’t object to it if the state did set it at that rate.
Whoops. Forgot the capital “H” in “He”.
I’m stranded 3/4 way through the Old Testament so am not up on Jesus, having never read the bible (being a lapsed Catholic of a certain age).
However, the brilliant austro-libertarian economist Gary North has done a 20 volume (!) treatise on Economics and the Bible. I haven’t read it, but I’m guessing he didn’t think of Jesus as a re-distributionist Marxist.
WHY oh WHY is it so hard for some people to understand that coerced charity is not, in fact, charity; that true charity is strictly voluntary and is given out of love for a vetted recipient; that The State kills the charitable impulse in many people; that the recipient of voluntary charity usually feels some moral obligation to better his life as the quid pro quo for such voluntary charity.
Jesus said “Give all your money away to the poor,” but he said that to ONE PERSON, as specific advice for that person.
It beyond absurd to say Jesus would approve of a 50% tax rate!
Remember when he lashed out at the temple for taking the poor widow’s last penny? The widow’s mite?
Jesus would scorn today’s Democrats because he was a conservative Jew, a group that today’s Democrats would label “ultra extremist.”
sasquatch
True but he also said right after when his Disciples cried “who than can get to Heaven”
That with God all things where possible. Its a thing I Cherish about Joshua. He had a sense of humor, sometimes challenging to test others for different reasons.
Greg @ 11:09
You could have extended one of yours to 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12. It speaks to Leftists, users, OWSers and many in the welfare class. (I recognize that there are a small number on welfare who really do need it)
I’ve always thought the point of charity was that you made the donations voluntarily, out of your desire to help and do good.
So I wonder when the Nancy Pelosi’s and Maxine Water’s of the world get hauled up on Judgement Day, and have to respond, after all their political “achievements” are dismissed, to the question “What did you personally do to help others?” just exactly what they’re going to say. “I paid my taxes”?
As I say to the lefties in my life when they talk about over population but yet mysteriously are still alive: lead by example or STFU.
The day this woman gives all of her $ and worldly possessions away I will give her ideas some thought.
These are the same people who think they know everything about Islam, Christianity and modern finance and politics.
Oh to see their faces when they realise they don’t!
Jesus saves, Moses invests. (but not in Facebook)
sasquatch, many martial men in the past and today voluntarily helped and still do help their less fortunate neighbours. We need the physician to heal and the soldier to defend.
Acts 10:1 Now there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort,
2 a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually.
3 About the ninth hour of the day he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had just come in and said to him, “Cornelius!”
4 And fixing his gaze on him and being much alarmed, he said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God.
Cornelius gave alms to the poor and did this willingly. We do not know what level of centurion he was, but he had a household, so he must have had a high rank status in the cohort he was attached to. A centurion could have been the commander of an 80 man century, commander of a cohort or the assistant to the commander of a cohort, and even the high rank Prefect, who was the 2IC of a Legion.
I have a friend who claims Jesus was a treehugger. I have a friend who claims Jesus was a socialist. I have a friend who claims Jesus was a peacenik.
It’s been a long time since my Methodist Sunday school days, and I do not claim to be Christian – but I believe Jesus was trying to teach each of us to live better, and that happens when we care for others.
“Jesus said love one another. He didn’t say love the whole world.” ― Mother Teresa