Following Rick Warren’s apparently ill-judged tweet suggesting that Jesus was a political centrist, a host of conservative pundits rounded on the Saddleback pastor, forcing him to eventually delete the offending tweet.
Given that so much of the condemnation of Warren came from the political right, can we assume that Jesus was in fact a conservative?
Both left and right, understandably want to claim Jesus Christ as a supporter. Witness the recent fight, also via tweet, between US Vice President JD Vance and former British MP, Rory Stewart, about how to interpret Jesus’ command to “love thy neighbour” in the context of mass immigration.
Unsurprisingly, it’s not actually possible to confine the Son of God into one of the pre-packaged boxes of early 21st century politics. A brief look through scripture suggests that Jesus could be taken to align with all of the different points of the political compass at different times.
Jesus the liberal
John 8:10-11: “When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.”
Here we see Jesus being “soft on crime”. He could quite easily choose to be the “law and order” candidate, but instead he opts for forgiveness, although he does add that he does not approve of her behaviour and encourages her to change her ways.
Jesus the conservative
Matthew 5:17-18 “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
In these verses Jesus appears very conservative. He has not come to change the old ways, in fact he has come to fulfil them. In other verses Jesus urges his followers to obey the teachings of the pharisees, although not to copy their hypocritical behaviour. He has not come to upend the social order.
Jesus the revolutionary
John 2:15-16 says, “And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.”
Now we see Jesus really taking the fight to the authorities. He’s not happy with how the ordinary believers are being treated and ripped off by the temple authorities. In the end, it’s the threat that he poses to the ruling authorities in the temple that leads to the plot to kill him.
Jesus the reactionary
Matthew 19:8, “He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.”
In this case upholding the established law is not enough for Jesus. He actually harks back to the Garden of Eden and essentially says humanity should go back to that.
Conclusion
Jesus was not concerned with politics in any major way. “My kingdom is not of this world” is what he said before Pilate. It is most unwise to claim Jesus is or would be a supporter of this or that political party or cause. Ultimately Jesus was concerned with God’s kingdom, whether found in the past, in Eden, or in the future, in the restored city of God shown in Revelation.
It is by that standard that we must try to make our own decisions about how to proceed in the world we live in.
