{"id":7673,"date":"2018-01-29T12:50:43","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T20:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=7673"},"modified":"2018-01-29T12:50:56","modified_gmt":"2018-01-29T20:50:56","slug":"jesus-proto-communist-jewish-hobo-criticized-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/01\/29\/jesus-proto-communist-jewish-hobo-criticized-rich\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus Was a Proto-Communist Jewish Hobo Who Criticized the Rich"},"content":{"rendered":"
January 29, 2018<\/a>\u00a0(johnlaurits.com)<\/div>\n
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\"How<\/p>\n

The fact that\u00a0white evangelical and born-again Christians act as one of the cornerstones for failed beverage-retailer Donald Trump\u2019s base of supporters is somehow unsurprising and, at the same time, cartoonishly odd. It is unsurprising because the right half of the neoliberal-capitalist binary cycle is often branded as a revival of allegedly\u00a0traditional<\/em>\u00a0Christian values, while the \u201cleft\u201d half is branded as a Unitarian or \u2018spiritual but not religious\u2019 counter-punch to save all of the helpless minorities. Rinse and repeat every 4 \u2013 8 years. The strange part is that Trump could objectively be described as the living, breathing incarnation of the\u00a0antithesis<\/em>\u00a0to everything Jesus advocated and died for. Jesus \u2014 the anointed one,\u00a0Issa<\/em>,\u00a0Yeshuah<\/em>,\u00a0HaMeshiach<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 you know, that guy whose ideas are supposed to be the basis of Christianity?<\/p>\n

Jesus of Nazareth vs. \u2018Christian\u2019 Political Views:
\nWhat Would Jesus Do (to Immigrants, Muslims, & Poor People)?<\/em><\/h2>\n

\u201cIn a Trump administration,\u00a0our Christian heritage will be cherished, protected, defended, like you\u2019ve never seen before.<\/strong>\u00a0Believe me. I believe it. And you believe it. And you know it\u2026\u201d
\n\u2014 former bankruptcy applicant, Donald Trump<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to gospel accounts, Jesus was a homeless Jew who openly associated with sex-workers and social outcasts as he walked the Levant spreading a mystical and frankly proto-communist interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures.\u00a0\u200b<\/a>After three years of teaching controversial ideas that upset Judea\u2019s priestly class, he was accused of fomenting rebellion and executed by European Imperialist forces at the age of 33 in Roman-occupied\u00a0Syria Palaestina<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 Family Was Dirt-Poor & Sometimes Homeless<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cTeenage mothers [shouldn\u2019t] get public assistance unless they jump through some pretty small hoops. Making them live in group homes makes sense\u201d
\n\u2014 Trump<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jesus was literally born in a trough used to feed livestock in a barn because his mother \u2014 an unmarried woman named Mary \u2014 and her partner, Joseph, had no place to sleep. His family was homeless and, as any reasonable person would guess, the experience of poverty informed Jesus\u2019 worldview quite a bit. On more than one occasion, Jesus flat-out told rich people to sell all of their stuff and hand out the proceeds to the poor. Many of his most well-known sayings are pretty savage critique of the wealthy:<\/p>\n

\u201cBlessed\u00a0are you who are poor<\/strong>, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. [\u2026]\u00a0But\u00a0woe to you who are rich<\/strong>, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry\u201d -Jesus, Luke 6:21, 24-25<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God\u201d -Jesus, Mark 10:24-25<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Who Would Jesus Kick Off Welfare?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cThe point is, you can never be too greedy\u201d
\n\u2014 Trump<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Communist<\/a><\/p>\n

GOP congressmen Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) are pushing\u00a0a bill to cut 20% of funding for food stamps<\/strong><\/a>, claiming Trump seemed \u201centhusiastic\u201d about the idea in a recent meeting. In other news, congress adopted a\u00a010-year budget resolution in October<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0outlining $800 billion in cuts to non-military spending, which the\u00a0Urban Institute estimates would deprive\u00a028 million households of $1,230<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0in yearly public childcare, housing, and food assistance. (And in case you thought this post would let democrats off the hook, make no mistake \u2014 despite any false tears, Schumer and his brood of vipers will go along with it\u00a0as they always do<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

And while\u00a0Trump\u2019s budget proposes large cuts to food stamps and welfare<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0due to his belief that\u00a0welfare is \u201cmorally offensive\u201d and \u201crobs people of the chance to improve,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0Jesus seemed to think not feeding people who were hungry was pretty uncool. In fact, he straight-up insisted on feeding people:<\/p>\n

\u201cSell your possessions and give to the poor<\/strong>\u201d -Jesus, Luke 12:33<\/p>\n

\u201cGive to everyone who begs from you<\/strong>; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again [\u2026] If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good,\u00a0and lend, expecting nothing in return<\/strong>\u201d -Jesus, Luke 6:30, 34-35<\/p>\n

\u201c[Jesus] brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;\u00a0he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty<\/strong>\u201d -Luke 1:52-53<\/p>\n

\u201cGive to the one who asks you<\/strong>, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you\u201d -Jesus, Matthew 5:42<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What Would Jesus Do to Immigrants & Muslims?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re bringing drugs. They\u2019re bringing crime. They\u2019re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people\u201d
\n-Trump<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jesus\u2019\u00a0Parable of the Good Samaritan<\/em>\u00a0is often misinterpreted.\u00a0Though \u201cgood Samaritan\u201d is often used to label helpful strangers, helping others was not the point of the story \u2014 the point was that treating immigrants and folks with different religious or cultural backgrounds as outsiders is a stupid and crappy thing to do. For those who are unfamiliar with the parable, it tells the story of a\u00a0guy who is robbed and left for dead on the highway. A priest and a Levite \u2014 who both enjoyed a high status in Judean society \u2014 pass by and leave him bleeding in the ditch. Then, a Samaritan shows up who cleans the guy\u2019s wounds, hoists him onto a camel, and takes him to a nearby bed and breakfast where the Samaritan pays for his room and the parable ends.<\/p>\n

The context here is crucial \u2014 in first-century Judea, folks had a lot of racist nonsense stuffed between their ears and\u00a0Samaritans were depicted as an inferior race<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0whose religion was defiled by foreign ideas. This racism was strong in the wealthy and priestly classes, which is why it was pretty intense that Jesus told this parable to\u00a0a professional expert in Hebrew religious law<\/em>. When Jesus mentioned the Torah\u2019s commandment to\u00a0love your neighbor as yourself,<\/em>\u00a0the expert asked, \u201cBut\u00a0who\u00a0<\/em>counts as a neighbor?\u201d And this is the context in which Jesus throws down his parable.<\/p>\n

\"yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7<\/a><\/p>\n

A \u201cChristian\u201d Nation?<\/em><\/h2>\n

Would Jesus have approved of banning Muslims from entering the country? How about the idea of killing their families to win the war on terror? And would he have joined in the chant to \u201cbuild that wall\u201d or shrugged off the suggestion that Latinx immigrants are likely to be rapists and drug-dealers? These are important questions and, in a sense, they transcend the framework of religion or non-religion. Jesus wouldn\u2019t have been a republican \u2014 and while we\u2019re on the subject, he sure as hell wouldn\u2019t be a democrat either. No \u2014 Jesus would sooner be the pauper sleeping in a stairwell downtown and \u2014 if any non-negligible number of politicians were Christians \u2014 you\u2019d think there\u2019d be less of a debate in congress over whether we ought to feed him or not\u2026<\/p>\n

In solidarity,
\nJohn Laurits<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 29, 2018\u00a0(johnlaurits.com) The fact that\u00a0white evangelical and born-again Christians act as one of the cornerstones for failed beverage-retailer Donald Trump\u2019s base of supporters is somehow unsurprising and, at the same time, cartoonishly odd. It is unsurprising because the right half of the neoliberal-capitalist binary cycle is often branded as… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7673"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7673"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7675,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7673\/revisions\/7675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}