Christian nationalists want a Christian nation—unless it means providing health care to the sick or funding food assistance for the hungry or raising the minimum wage for the poor. It seems like they want to base our laws on the Bible until they read the words of Jesus. —James Talarico, Texas Democratic candidate for Senate
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Jesus ain’t nice. Just when you think Jesus loves and forgives everybody, it turns out he doesn’t. He has an inflexible ethical standard. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been baptized or sanctified, you’re still in the dock. On trial.
According to Matthew 25, if you mistreat anyone—for example, don’t provide water to a thirsty person or shelter for a stranger—you’re going to hell. Not just for a long time. Forever.
On those counts, my liberal friends consider the current administration guilty. They are the unrighteous goats on Jesus’s left hand while my friends (and I) are the righteous sheep on his right, also according to Matthew 25.
It’s black and white. It’s pass or fail. No curve.
But if you take Jesus literally, we’re all going to hell. I mean, who hasn’t fallen short of his standard? Have you always been kind in every single situation to every single person? Of course not. So if we take Jesus literally, we’re all going to hell. And that’s why I suggest we not take Jesus literally.
None of us is a goat or a sheep. We’re hybrids.
I generally dislike self-proclaimed Christian politicians—people such as JD Vance, Mike Johnson, and Lauren Boebert, who glibly quote the Bible.
But I do like James Talarico. He’s my kind of Christian. He says things like this:
Jesus liberates, Christian nationalism controls. Jesus saves, Christian nationalism kills. There is no love of God without love of neighbor.
Talarico reads Jesus the way I read Jesus. But still, with all due respect to Talarico, I don’t want the Bible or Jesus governing our nation.
Jesus meant this!
No, he meant this!!
No, he didn’t!!!
The United States was founded on the separation of church and state, on natural rights, reason, and common sense accessible to all, not on supernatural revelation accessible to believers only. The Constitution can be amended. The Bible can’t.
Thank God we are not a Christian nation.
Many progressive Christians—based on Matthew 25—denounce the Trump administration for mistreating the impoverished, the hungry, the thirsty, the refugee, the sick, and the imprisoned. And rightfully so! But then those same Christians blithely assume that they do not mistreat such people.
Not so fast, my friends. Jesus also said: Why do you see the sliver in another’s eye and neglect the log protruding from yours.
Darn. That ain’t nice!
