is to say Jesus is a liberal. I said that on facebook and many mormons have to try to argue about it. I never responded back to them. I just like making the try to argue.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/2011 11:17PM by Admin.

In my previous church (Baptist), we had a whole series of Sunday School lessons on whether Jesus was a liberal. I was a political science major in college and I shared with the class that if you take away all the modern political connotations of liberal and conservative and went by the boiled down dictionary definitions of the two words (liberal = seeking change; conservative = wanting to preserve the status quo), then Jesus most definitely was a liberal. Needless to say, my answer did not go over well with some people, but some of our church leaders agreed with me.

is synonomous with government control.

jesus taught that we should "take care of" one another.

but he didn't preach - government has a duty to grow larger and reduce individual liberty in order to take care of people

I find the 'you liberals/you conservatives' dichotemy to be very divisive

Absolutely. This has polarized the U.S. to the point that nothing can get accomplished, A pity, since there are so many problems that need to be solved (and can, if there were any cooperation).

should be all give what we make to the government and it decide where we live and what we eat?

Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.

jesus was a Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> is synonomous with government control.
>
> jesus taught that we should "take care of" one
> another.

So...... you're saying that the Jesus figure was a libertarian magician......... sorta like Penn Jillete without the humour [I wonder who would fill the 'Teller' role?]

romans...

I beg to differ. “Modern-day liberalism” is not synonymous with “government control.” Words have meaning, and the only way people can communicate is if they use the same meanings for words. Radio talk-show entertainers have been using the “government control” definition so much that people are actually starting to believe them. They are not synonymous.

I entered the word “liberalism” into my Microsoft Word Thesaurus, and I came up with the following synonyms (this was today – in the ‘modern day’ time frame):

Tolerance
Broadmindedness
Open-mindedness
Moderation
Freethinking
Laissez-faire

Most – if not all – of these appear to be what Jesus is reported to have taught in the bible. Therefore, I agree with the first two posters: Jesus was a liberal.

liberals/freethinkers/democrats/whatever you want to call them
want government to force others at the point of a gun
to pay for what they believe in.

if a "liberal" is such a laissez faire free thinker, then they would agree that government should be limited to the same functions it had when the republic began right?

"government should be limited to the same functions it had when the republic began"

Oh, that government by white males only, for white males only?

on this board is truly frightening.
the racebaiting used to justify it is even worse

Putting your own definition on a word just because you feel like it doesn't make it true, even if you are jesus. That's why we have dictionaries. Look up 'liberal' (and 'freethinker' and 'democrat' for that matter), and you will not find: "want government to force others at the point of a gun to pay for what they believe in" That's the definition that the radio talk-show entertainers want to push. They apparently don't have or use dictionaries...

Frankly, you can't speak for them and you don't really know -- you've just made some rather large assumptions.

If you don't like government, that's fine, but lumping people under one name and assinging them "wants" and motivations is intellectually lazy.

up of so called "liberal"

votes for

no intellectual laziness required

If you believe the Biblical accounts, the first person He encountered at the start of His mission was the woman at the well, and the first people He appeared to after His resurrection were women.

A while back, a few people brought up Bart Ehrman in some other thread. I've read some of his stuff on the historical Jesus. If you take his point of view, Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher who taught that the age of God was coming within his life time. Because of that belief, he was not a fan of government at all. Why bother with a government if it won't even be around in a few years? So if you agree with Ehrman, Jesus was neither liberal nor conservative.

"Liberal" and "conservative" are not exclusively (nor necessarily) related to philosophies of government. You can be liberal or conservative in your personality, your outlook in life, or your behavior without having anything to do with any government.

Dr. Nick Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A while back, a few people brought up Bart Ehrman
> in some other thread. I've read some of his stuff
> on the historical Jesus. If you take his point of
> view, Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher who taught
> that the age of God was coming within his life
> time. Because of that belief, he was not a fan of
> government at all. Why bother with a government
> if it won't even be around in a few years? So if
> you agree with Ehrman, Jesus was neither liberal
> nor conservative.

I think Jesus was most likely an apocalyptic, but I don't see that it necessarily follows that he had no interest in politics. I suspect as a Jew of that time, that he probably didn't much care for the Romans who were oppressing his people and he didn't seem all that fond of the Jewish heirarchy. While we tend to make Jesus in or own image and while it is difficult to to know what someone who lived 2000 years ago and whop wrote nothing believed, I would say what we know points toward liberal.

I didn't say that he had no interest in politics, just that he was neither liberal nor conservative. Jesus preached an message of the coming Kingdom of God, and that his followers should begin living the life as it would be in th Kingdom. Since God is obviously the head of his Kingdom, th long term plans of princes and emporerors matter little.
As for the Romans, unjust suffering is a key part in understanding th apocalyptic mindset. The Roman oppression was an example of how God had given control of this world to Evil. The Evil powers, or sons of darkness, were running amuck all because God had allowed them to do so. Those who suffered expected to be vindicated in th coming new age which Jesus was proclaiming was at hand. Jusus obviously did not like the Romans, but not because he wanted a free and independent Israel, but because they were aligned with the forces of Evil.
And just to play the Devil's advocate, I'll counter a liberal Jesus with a conservative one. Jesus taught a return to the original intent of the Law of Moses, not a new understanding of it. If anything, the Pharisees were the liberal ones since their approach to reading an interpreting the Law was to apply it to everyday life. They did so by adapting the old views of the Law to modern circumstance.

Dr. Nick Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I didn't say that he had no interest in politics,
> just that he was neither liberal nor conservative.
> Jesus preached an message of the coming Kingdom
> of God, and that his followers should begin living
> the life as it would be in th Kingdom. Since God
> is obviously the head of his Kingdom, th long term
> plans of princes and emporerors matter little.
> As for the Romans, unjust suffering is a key
> part in understanding th apocalyptic mindset. The
> Roman oppression was an example of how God had
> given control of this world to Evil. The Evil
> powers, or sons of darkness, were running amuck

I guess we are not using the same definitions. Jesus wanted change from the staus quo and he wanted people to help each other. To me that is being liberal. Other people have different definitions. I am only guessing, but i don't see Jesus as saying the poor should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and the rest of us shouldn't worry about it.That seems to be the attitude of m any conservatives.
> all because God had allowed them to do so. Those
> who suffered expected to be vindicated in th
> coming new age which Jesus was proclaiming was at
> hand. Jusus obviously did not like the Romans,
> but not because he wanted a free and independent
> Israel, but because they were aligned with the
> forces of Evil.
> And just to play the Devil's advocate, I'll
> counter a liberal Jesus with a conservative one.
> Jesus taught a return to the original intent of
> the Law of Moses, not a new understanding of it.
> If anything, the Pharisees were the liberal ones
> since their approach to reading an interpreting
> the Law was to apply it to everyday life. They
> did so by adapting the old views of the Law to
> modern circumstance.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2011 12:26AM by bona dea.

Yes.

To be liberal is to see a problem and help resolve it

To be conservative is to see a problem and you ignore it and demand that no one do anything lest your comfort and safety are jeopardised.


And when someone does to something, please make sure you persecute them to teach other well forward thinkers to stay put!

Pharisees Yesterday, Today & Forever...How is that for Morgdom Slogan?

to be liberal in modern america is to see a problem and demand that the federal government fix it

whether or not it is within that government's power to do so

He was and is VERY liberal.

Goodness, just plain annoying!

that so called "conservatives" give more to charity each year outside of tithes

those mean bastards

I've done that too, and it really gets a rise out of Mormons. They just can't stay quiet about it. They must say something ridiculous or explode.

Liberal and conservative are modern terms. We cannot apply them to a person who lived two thousand years ago in a very different culture and situation.

But there are political views expressed in the Bible - New Testament. The Apocalypse tells how God will strike down the oppressive Roman empire, and that's just one example.

American-centric.

The poster called Jesus should perhaps travel a bit more...

In the UK, a liberal is someone who is not too strict or condemning.

In France, where I live, a liberal is a free-market capitalist... and a conservative is a fundamentalist Catholic.

What American conservatives call a conservative appears to me to be more libertarian (often with a large side-dish of bigotry...).

But there is a fundamental difference between the US and the rest of the world (particularly Europe):

Many Americans (especially conservatives) see democracy as a line of defense against overweening government.

Elsewhere, we see it as a way of restricting the power of the rich... as embodied by conservatives.

Just my 2 euro-cents ;=)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2011 07:11AM by Soft Machine.

republic

liberal is a term that is used by mass media in america when discussing government control proponents

your statements don't change the fact that in America the two are synonomous

48erhater Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> is to say Jesus is a liberal. I said that on
> facebook and many mormons have to try to argue
> about it. I never responded back to them. I just
> like making the try to argue.


The irony here is killing me. LOL. Good post.

Hil-freaking-larious!

I can't see the mormon people as being liberal or conservative until they start to think for themselves. When the leaders tell them what to think, read and watch they are pretty much like sheep. As for Jesus, I think he was middle of the road. Some of his ideas were liberal and some were conservative. That's the way I think too, and it's probably the way most thinking people are. I don't want to be labeled as either one.

Arguably, particularly if you use the Ehrman analysis, Jesus would more accurately be considered a radical than a liberal. I imagine that would piss off them off as well, as that term is also used pejoratively by Americans with a limited understanding of political theory.

Another good way to piss of mormons is to tell them that their scriptures detail God's desire to have everyone live in benevolent socialism "with all things in common" and then suggest they vote for Democrats to fulfill gawd's wishes. See D$C United Order, BOM righteousness after JC visited, etc. for examples of the morgs belief that capitalism is not divinely inspired.

It's just one more thing they can not reconcile with reality.