Was Jesus Socialist? Was Jesus Liberal? Part 2

Here, the Rebels Strike Back. 

See, in spite of consistently strong cultural & political clout, and establishment power in many leading nations, Leftists invariably see themselves as the Noble Rebels fighting against an oppressive, Evil Empire. It's not the marginalized, the black sheep, the misfits that are the problem, they would say, but society. Institutions. Organized religion. Social constructs. 

Rightists do great favors to reinforce this Rebel-Empire complex. They defend and rationalize the status quo. They oppose and impede the Left's ideas for progress and improvement. They pick up arms in a war that isn't always directly meant for them, vest themselves into the conflict and the war rages on. 

Sometimes it's real war, as leading forces on the left & right fought each other through proxy in Spain, with Hitler & Stalin sending support for their ideological sides into the civil war, essentially fighting each other. Sometimes it's political war, which can shed less blood but levy more destruction, can entail fewer explosions but concern greater struggles for power. 

Sometimes it's cultural war. 

Leftists aren't entirely wrong to see their side as the Rebels. However they can sometimes be wrong about fighting, rather than being, the Empire. 

And they find a kindred spirit, a brother-in-arms, even a Jedi Philosopher, in Christ Jesus. 

Is he? Is he really?? An ally in the social justice fight against oppression? Was he himself liberal? A socialist? "If he were alive today" (a dead giveaway phrase for humanist views that don't honestly believe Christ Has Risen indeed), would he be a leftist?

Well, they got a lot of reasons to convince themselves he would. They aren't entirely wrong. There are many striking similarities. 

I said before, I'm right wing. Grandmaster Fash. This isn't the sort of acknowledgement I'm inclined to give. It's the sort that compels me to deep and careful introspection and motivation to change. To soften my tone and lay down my political battle axe. 

But it's the truth. And careful study shows it's undeniable, so may I not make myself the fool by denying it. Let's dive in, there's plenty of material here. 

Harm Reduction

"I am willing. Be clean!"

The morality of preventing harm & human suffering is the distinguishing characteristic of the Left. It's not exclusive to the Left -- they care a little bit more, but they think they care a lot more. 

Not exclusive, but distinguishing. That is, it's the morality they care about the most, and it's what they perceive the Right to lack the most. 

Which may lead otherwise ambivalent people toward a Left worldview when exposed to compellingly simple care-based moral statements with otherwise limited information. 

The perception that the Right is heartless may lead the Left to inflate their sense of harm-reduction morality more than they might otherwise hold "naturally" (because the sins of your enemy are always the worst sins of all).

And it may undermine their potential to recognize and appreciate the social value & practicality of the three conservative moralities, Authority, Loyalty & Purity. 

So, it's distinguishing. 

It's distinguishing for Christ as well. 

Now summary descriptions of Christ's morality -- if they can avoid reduction into caricature -- are a Rorschach Test. What stands out, what is most important, well, it depends on who you ask. 

I don't want to rely on my own interpretation, so I counted Jesus' morality according to the 5 classic Moral Foundations categories. As I said in Part 1, I compiled over 200:

• Moral statements

• Moral actions

• Conspicuous absence of moral statements or actions

• Approval or reproach of other moral statements or actions

I merged shared passages (especially in the synoptic gospels but also John) into one instance. When passages were germane to multiple moral categories, I tallied each category. Here's what I gathered:

• Harm Reduction - 67 instances

• Authority & Respect - 34 instances

• Justice - 32 instances

• "Other" - 31 instances

• Loyalty - 20 instances

• Purity - 19 instances

Three important observations from this meta view. 

First, the volume of instances for a particular category does not indicate his endorsement for that particular category. What do I mean by that? We have numerous instances where Jesus chastises or speaks against other people's veneration of these purported morals. He of course is exceptionally well-known for condemning hypocrisy -- arguably a potential moral category all by itself, but taxonomically it's a subset of concern for honesty. Which in turn falls under the broader category of Loyalty, for reasons explained more here. 

But the 34 instances speaking about (or against) Authority & Respect does not mean those are more important to Christ than Justice. 

Second, Christ truly transcends the Moral Foundations model. The "Other" category includes 20 instances that speak to -- for lack of a better distillation -- multipluralism vs status quo. Lest you think this lends conveniently to political clashes over multiculturalism today, the instances are roughly split between endorsing & chastising. That may seem confusing or contradictory, only because of my taxonomy which paid no attention to endorsement. 

I won't get into it now, but this split here reflects the subtle distinction between compassion for outsiders & chastising ethnic in-grouping, and forsaking your devotion to the One True God for a pluralistic, relativistic humanist morality. A point salient for other discussions about Christ & politics for another time. 

The other 11 miscellaneous instances defy all categorization. So he of course defies political categorization. Which is why my answer to the Big Question is neither. This exercise is far from moot, however. There is so much insight to be gained just from the study. 

(And BTW, I use the ostensibly redundant 'multipluralism' above rather than 'multiculturalism,' as the latter speaks more directly to ethnic dignity and matters of assimilation & segregation -- which indeed are occasionally relevant in Christ's ministry & the Gospels, with the Good Samaritan along with several other examples. However, the way Jesus expounds on morals in this category is often more germane to religious-philosophical devotion & performative legalistic practice, rather than on ethnicity. I'll speak more to this at another time.)

Third, and most germane to this chapter of our study, Jesus cared A LOT about harm reduction.  We have almost double the 2nd category (Authority & Respect, which as I stated definitely is not comprised of full endorsement). 

This is significant. It's the largest plurality of his moral focus. And likewise, it's the primary focus of most progressives and socialists. 

But I must qualify the quantification of his preoccupation with harm reduction. I'm counting here the two primary manifestations of his miracles: healing and feeding people. Though he clearly cares about harm reduction, we don't get to 67 instances (at least half of which entail duplicate passages about the same event, or there would be over 150) without those miracles. 

Are those miracles moral statements? At minimum they reflect moral conviction. We must recognize that they're theologically & symbolically significant. They weren't performed exclusively for the simple humanist myopic focus of harm reduction for living people here on earth. He didn't eliminate all suffering or make life perfect. 

Here on earth. 

Not only did he not eliminate suffering through all the ages, but not even all suffering on earth in the time of his earthly ministry, or even all suffering in Israel. 

For many people, this fact is tremendously challenging to their faith. What's the point of miracles, if not to help people and end suffering? What's the point of coming at all, if not to end all suffering? Many conclude from this that God's not real, or Christ was just a man. 

Yet Jesus himself even spoke to this. 

This truly underscores that comfort in this life is not the point. It's not the priority. Why make humans at all, that aren't already holy and perfect and eternal? Because perfect created beings don't love you back because they love you. It has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the machinations of being a perfect created being, created for love. That's not a fulfilling or rewarding relationship. 

So free will is necessary, and faith a necessary conduit to the pursuit of that profound relationship of love, else God's glory overpowers our will. 

But countless theologians have already touched on that. I bring it up here because, harm reduction isn't the point. 

If the Son of God came and healed a few thousand people and fed a few thousand people in 1st Century Provincia Iudæa, and that's it, he's either a spectacular failure, or harm reduction isn't the primary objective. 

"My kingdom is not of this world," He says. And so he's more concerned with eternal things than righting every wrong here on earth. 

Now, that doesn't mean Jesus doesn't care about harm reduction. He does. Most of his imperative statements focus on it. So he doesn't just care about it. He expressly tells us to act on it. 

So that aligns with a progressive morality. 

Aligning with progressive practice? Now that's another matter. From a study in a psychology academic journal (that happens to find that conservatives are happier, and explores why):

"Of those surveyed, those who live in conservative households donated an average of $3,255 to charities outside of places of worship during the past year. By comparison, moderate households donated $2,926 and liberal households donated $1,879."

For Jesus, the point of charity was more about helping people than about devotion to God. Devotion to God was truly paramount for Jesus, indisputably. But the Pharisees corrupted devotion to God to the point of harming one's parents in direct violation of God's commandment. He is always cognizant of our hearts, our motives. 

So giving legalistically doesn't cut it. Genuine compassion for others is clearly very important for Jesus. He implores us to do more, to give more, to serve more. He healed, and healed, and fed, and healed. It's a cornerstone of his ministry, and it's the distinguishing characteristic of the Left. 

But again, right-wingers care, too. They don't care quite as much, but they indisputably act on it more. 

So why don't conservatives care about harm reduction as much as progressives? 

It may be that they recognize that there is value in suffering, as it instigates growth and perspective. It may be that they recognize that unconditional or mandated giving, or excessive giving, can harm more than help, as it instigates codependency and demotivates the beneficiaries, as well as precluding growth opportunities. 

But it may just be that conservatives actually do care just as much. Arguably by acting on Jesus' words more and giving to charity more, it may be that they actually care more. The elevated moralization of harm reduction found in Jon Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory may just be professed, but not held with conviction. 

Many right-wing critics have summarized especially about the more radical & communistic Left, that they think they love the poor but actually just hate the rich. The juxtaposition of elevated moralization of harm reduction with underwhelming charitable giving lends credence to the accusation. So, a similar critique may be, that they think they love the poor but actually just perceive anemic compassion on the right and subsequently heighten their moralization self-righteously. 

"I don't know how to explain you should care about other people," is a common angst from a progressive political perspective. Yet progressives don't understand their opponents as well as their opponents understand them. They don't see how venerating the moralities below work to reduce harm. 

We're going to explore how they do, but first, let's wrap up Harm Reduction with a look at how it contributes to peace. 

Peace

Peace is not a recognized moral category in MFT. When searching the world's religions and cultures, it seems maybe it should be. As the Semitic root S-L-M, it underlies everything from "peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility," in Hebrew, to the very name of the Islamic faith (though Islam actually means surrender (as you surrender your will to Allah) rather than peace in the sense of, the absence of conflict between people). The pursuit of inner peace is a central concept in most religions. 

And yet, Christ makes few statements about peace, and several don't particularly venerate peace. Point in fact, it's a bit more than just not venerating:

On the other hand, in the Beatitudes, he says "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God." So what's happening here? What's his stance on peace, and how does that reflect on the political morality of Jesus? 

The distillation is, Jesus rejects compromise of your morals & principles. But he embraces compromise of your interests in a dispute.

When he brings division rather than peace, that's merely a reflection of the fact that people will not all fully agree. Not all will accept what he has to offer. Some will reject his words. For Christians, making peace with adversaries is not worth compromising where you stand in Christ. It's not worth sacrificing or forsaking the values you live by.

When moral compromise is on the table, making peace at any cost does not result in peace, but rather, subjugation.

It goes without saying that subjugation is not peace. Yet evidently this is not clear to all. One common -- though by no means majority -- behavior on the left as a result of a heightened sense for harm reduction -- combined with the weak embrace of authority, respect and loyalty -- is multiculturalism. Germane in the sense of, compromising or forsaking one's cultural values in the interests of welcoming an ostensibly foreign value set (foreign whether geographically or just purely in terms of values).

Jesus loves the outsider, make no mistake. The outsider, the overlooked, the rejected, the forsaken.

He does NOT forsake his devotion to the One True God, in order to love them. Nor does he reject The Law, but fulfill.

So once again, Christ is kindred, with leftist morality, in that he loves -- cherishes -- the outsider. A tacit rejection of rightist excesses which "shrink the moral circle," as Haidt says.

But if anyone can make a case that Jesus is leftist, he ain't that kind of leftist. The kind that forsakes and even turns against their own cultural mores to ensure the alien a comfortable seat at the table without the need to accommodate their hosts.

And in case it's not clear, Christ ain't rightist here, either. He doesn't compromise who he is, what his values are. But he also absolutely does not reject or forsake foreigners. Even when they don't share his culture's values.

Are you starting to see the political & moral transcendence of Christ???

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Part 3 coming soon