Introduction :

This page assumes that the reader knows what we mean when we use the terms "liberal" vs. "conservative"  - which is not the case, if you have not yet read  www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/liberals.html.  If you proceed without reading those pages, you may only imagine that you understand what you are reading here, because these are terms which mean very, very different things to different people.

"Conservative" Christian preachers promote belief in a very stern God whose partiality to some people in this world is such that he instructs them to kill - not just fighting men -, but women and babies as well, in order to give their lands and communities to his favored people.  Such preachers believe that passages like the ones we highlight at WhatkindofGod.org represent the "Word of God".  We believe that Jesus of Nazareth knew God better than most, and we can't imagine him identifying with a God who would say, as Hosea claims that he did (Ch. 13:16) : "Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up." 
        "Conservative" Christian preachers promote the belief that what is important to God is what "little people" think and do privately.  The more "private" their thoughts and actions, the more interested these preachers seem to be.  We Liberals, on the other hand, believe that Jesus and many of the other great prophets of the Bible were not nearly as interested in private matters and in people's "private parts" as with public matters.  The four gospels largely ignore the thirty or so years of Jesus' own private life and concentrate on the three years of his public life. They either relate his public statements or relate the constant battle that Jesus was engaged in from the very moment that he opened his mouth to challenge the people of great wealth and power of his day, and to proclaim "good news for the poor", until the moment that these people had him executed in order to close that mouth and have his message suppressed.  (Actually, if you believe Matthew, the first chapters of the first gospel tell us that King Herod viewed Jesus as a political threat even before Jesus was born!)
        Although Jesus of Nazareth showed little interest or concern about most mundane issues and about sexuality, today's "Christian Conservatives" claim to speak for Christ on the basis of what they imagine Jesus would say about such matters.  Since Jesus hasn't said much for almost 2000 years, these self-proclaimed spokesmen for Jesus treat him like an inanimate object, a puppet in effect, and they claim to know the answers for all kinds of "What would Jesus do or say?" questions.  That is why, in the absence of any proof to support their views, Christian Conservatives were so sure in years past that

• Jesus disapproved of playing cards, drinking any and all alcoholic beverages, dancing, singing, wearing bathing suits, viewing motion pictures,
• Jesus didn't want pianos and organs in churches,  because Conservatives assumed these musical instrument - then used mainly in saloons and brothels - had been created by the devil.
• Jesus also disapproved of indulging in ice cream treats on Sundays ( which is why this popular Sunday treat had to have its name changed ever so slightly to "sundae" ).
• Jesus disapproved of masturbation and homosexuality.
• Jesus disapproved of family planning ( birth-control ) and abortion, (but NOT slavery, or segregation because good Conservative bible-scholars could find passages with which to defend those practices ) !

We "Liberals Like Christ", on the other hand, base our beliefs about Jesus on what the Gospels tell us that Jesus actually said about God, about himself, and about what he and/or God expects of us, his followers.  We invite those "Conservatives" who really want to conserve the teaching of Jesus, to reflect on precisely what Jesus taught and how he illustrated the true meaning of his words by his actions. 

Here is the way Jesus defined his mission :

And Jesus described himself in similar words to his own cousin, John "the Baptist" :

{Matthew 11: 2-5}  

" When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?"
      Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them."

Ever since the so-called "conversion" of the pagan Emperor Constantine, in 312 A.D. however, Christianity has been embraced by the rich and the powerful.  But as part of the bargain, Christ's "Good News to the poor" has been twisted to mean that the brokenhearted, the captives and, the downtrodden need to wait for "the next life" for relief.  And anyone who proclaims what Jesus taught has been made out to be a troublemaker, a "rabble-rouser", a "heretic" or, more recently, a "Communist".

This teaching of Jesus is very liberal :

{ Matthew 22:36-40 } 

"This is the first and greatest commandment:  'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.'
        The second most important is similar:   'Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.'
        All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets stem from these two laws and are fulfilled if you obey them.  Keep only these and you will find that you are obeying all the others."

        History has shown that despite the apparent simplicity of these commandments, loving one's neighbor isn't as simple or as easy as it sounds.

This teaching of Jesus is very liberal :

While so-called "Christian Conservatives" are fond of saying : "Charity begins at home,"   that is about as far from the teaching of Jesus and the Bible as one can get.  In his "preview of the Last Judgement", Jesus spells out what he means by "loving" one's neighbor, what it entails, and in the process, he makes it clear that loving neighbors who are hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, sick, imprisoned, or otherwise afflicted is what matters to him, not loving those in, or close to, our own families, neighborhoods, or country - which as he points out elsewhere everyone does naturally.-

{ Matthew 25: 31-46 }

"When I, the Messiah, shall come in glory, and all the angels with me, then I shall sit upon my throne of glory.  And all the nations shall be gathered before me.  And I will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and place the sheep at my right hand, and the goats at my left.
Then I, the King, shall say to those at my right, "Come, blessed of my Father, into the Kingdom prepared for you from the founding of the world.   For I was hungry and you fed me;  I was thirsty and you gave me water;   I was a stranger and you invited me into your homes;   naked and you clothed me;   sick and in prison, and you visited me."
      Then these righteous ones will reply,  "Sir, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you?  Or thirsty and give you anything to drink?  Or a stranger, and help you?  Or naked, and clothe you?  When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?"  And I, the King, will tell them,  "When you did it to these my brothers you were doing it to me!"
      Then I will turn to those on my left and say,   "Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons.  For I was hungry and you wouldn't feed me;   thirsty, and you wouldn't give me anything to drink;   a stranger, and you refused me hospitality;   naked, and you wouldn't clothe me;   sick, and in prison,  and you didn't visit me."
      Then they will reply,  "Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison,  and not help you?"
      And I will answer,  "When you refused to help the least of these my brothers, you were refusing help to me."  And they shall go away into eternal punishment;   but the righteous into everlasting life."

The conservative commentary below on this important passage of the Gospels is an excellent example of the way Compassionate Conservatives often rationalize their fundamental disagreement with the liberal teaching of Jesus :

All of the following teaching of Jesus is very liberal :         "When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and his disciples came to him.  Then he began to speak, and he taught them, saying:
	"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.       Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,  for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who went before you."

Conservatives sometimes quote "Blessed are the poor in spirit" to poor people as reason for them not to seek relief from their poverty (at the expense of those more prosperous than themselves).  But if Jesus considered poverty itself to be desirable, why would he have urged those afflicted with wealth to share that 'affliction' with those not so afflicted?  Isn't it much more likely that when Jesus said "Blessed are the poor in spirit", he meant blessed are those who are content with a minimum of material possessions, in contrast to those who are never content with what they have, but are always trying to accumulate more and more, and fighting every effort made to tax them for the benefit of the poor and the needy?
        We offer still other great insights about "blessings" in our separate www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/about/blessings.html page.

        In another of his powerful parables, God sends the man "blessed with riches" (in the eyes of Conservatives) to hell, while God sends the poor "loser", Lazarus, to heaven, ( just because the one was rich in this life, and the other was poor!)

{ Luke 16 : 19-31}  

Is this parable relevant only to rich vs. poor individuals?  Or does it relate to the rich Christian nations vs. the many extremely poor nations of this world?  What if God cares enough about the multitude of poor people in this world to hold us "Christians" with vastly more wealth than the rest of world responsible for our neglect of those unlucky enough to have been born on the "other side of the tracks" ?

        Note that despite the remarkable similarity between Jesus' parable about the rich man and Charles Dickens' parable about Scrooge, Dickens is far more optimistic about the prospects for the repentance and salvation of the rich than is Jesus.  In contrast to Scrooge, whom Dickens portrays as being moved by the  ghostly apparitions to repentance and redemption, the Gospel holds out no such hope for its wealthy villains.  On the contrary, the Gospel insists : "If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, ( which the rich man admits is true of his five brothers ), they won't listen even though someone rises from the dead."

When Jesus was asked to clarify what the second of the two great commandments was all about, he explained in one of his the most important parables, that action speaks louder than words, and that GOD is not fooled by professions of faith, nor by what may appear lack of faith.  What GOD appreciates and expects in people is a good heart which moves one to "love others as one does oneself", and to "do unto others what one would have others do unto them".  Jesus went out of his way, in his "Parable of the Good Samaritan" to point out that GOD often finds what he is looking for, not in churchy people who hold the right "beliefs", but in "non-believers" who do the right "works".
        Whoever called this the parable of "the Good Samaritan", may have missed the point, because Jesus didn't just highlight the genuineness of the one non-believer.   He contrasted that charitable behavior to the phoniness of the two religious leaders.  Why not refer to this as "the parable of the Faithless Churchmen"?

{ Luke 10 : 25-37 }  

"One day an expert on Moses' laws came to test Jesus' orthodoxy by asking him this question: "Teacher, what does a man need to do to live forever in heaven?"  Jesus replied, "What does Moses' law say about it?"  "It says," he replied, "that you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.   And you must love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself."  "Right!" Jesus told him.  "Do this and you shall live!"
      But, wanting to justify himself, the man asked, "Which neighbors must I love?"   And Jesus replied with an illustration:
        "A Jew going on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho was attacked by bandits.  They stripped him of his clothes and money, and beat him up and left him lying half dead beside the road.  By chance a priest came along; and when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by.  A temple-assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but then went on.

* The Jewish leaders showed just how much they despised heretical Samaritans when they used that name to insult Jesus in { John 8:48 } :The Jews answered him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?"

But a despised Samaritan^* came along, and when he saw him, he felt deep pity.  Kneeling beside him the Samaritan soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them.  Then he put the man on his donkey and walked along beside him till they came to an inn, where he nursed him through the night.  The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins and told him to take care of the man.  "If his bill runs higher than that,"  he said,  "I'll pay the difference the next time I am here."
        "Now which of these three," Jesus asked, "would you say was a neighbor to the bandit's victim?"   The man replied, "The one who showed him some pity."   Then Jesus said, "Yes, now go and do the same."

One of the best ways to see how far fundamentalist ideas are from the teaching of Jesus is to compare their idea of what is "fundamental" to what Jesus considered fundamental or crucial. And that is what we do in great depth at our challenge.html page.

Sometimes, it takes an artist, rather than a scholar to get a point across.

Although the following liberal teaching was actually preached by John the Baptist, there's no doubting the reason they were quoted in the Gospels, which were written to record the views and example of Jesus of Nazareth:

Luke 3:11-14  

In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise."
        Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you."
        Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."

These "Christians" knew their bible

Christopher Columbus was enormously impressed by the indigenous people he found in "the New World" :
        "They are very simple and honest and exceedingly liberal with all they have; none of them refusing anything he may possess when he is asked for it, but, on the contrary, inviting us to ask them. They exhibit great love toward all others in preference to themselves.  They also give objects of great value for trifles, and content themselves with very little or nothing in return . . .  I did not find, as some of us had expected, any cannibals among them, but, on the contrary, men of great deference and kindness."

"They are the best people in the world, and above all the gentlest.  They are without knowledge of what is evil, nor do they murder or steal.  They love their neighbors as themselves and they have the sweetest talk in the world and are always laughing."  "They are a very loving people and without covetousness," Columbus wrote.  "And I declare to your Highness that there is not a better country nor better people in the world than these."
        See much more detail on the contrast between the goodness of the "pagan savages" of the New World and the wickedness of the "Christian discovers" of the Old World at www.JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/AmericanHolocaust/amholocaust-2.html.

See much more about the behavior of the "Christians" who brought salvation to the pagan natives of the "New World", at
www.JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/AmericanHolocaust/amholocaust-4.html.
        If I were a betting man, I would put my money on the pagans having a better chance of being at the eternal judge's right hand on judgment day than Christopher Columbus and those who honor him.

The Christianity of "the Bible-Belt"

The most Conservative part of our country is the so-called "Bible Belt".  These conservative Christians have proven time and time again by their actions that the only people they want to have in "their neighborhoods", in their schools, and in their social gatherings are those who look, sound and act like themselves.  They even object to people who are unlike themselves from being allowed to immigrate into "their country", a country which they stole from its native Americans, and made what it is today with the unpaid labor of millions of Africans whom they forced to migrate here from foreign lands.
        It is no accident that the so-called "Bible Belt" is where, for centuries, human slavery of dark-skinned people was practiced and defended to the death.  Even after they had thrown away thousands of their youth on a senseless and immoral civil war, the Christian Conservatives of that time and place didn't repent.  Instead even some of their clergy engaged in Ku Klux Klan terrorism and cruel segregation to keep their former slaves as close to slavery as they could.  For all their talk of the Bible, whenever they are forced to choose between Conservatism and Christianity, these people are more likely to hold onto the tenets of Conservatism than those of Christ.  Their great-grandparents enslaved the "darkies".  Their parents segregated and terrorized them.  And now that today's Republican party is proving itself so much better than today's Democratic Party at keeping blacks in their place, they are switching to the party that is doing the best job of restricting civil rights and affirmative action, and of resegregating America's grade schools and high schools through "education vouchers" and the like.  It is just as absurd for today's Republican Party to claim to be "the party of Christ", as it is for it to claim to be "the party of Lincoln".
        Yet these people don't just think of themselves Christian, but as the only true Christians in this country, if not the world.  If you think that's an exaggeration, then you need to read www.JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/BibleBeltChristianity.html.

Jesus vs. Mammon is very liberal teaching

The following is just a cursory version of what we present in greater detail at www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/about/challenge.html.
        While Jesus warned that it was "almost impossible" for the "haves" who ignore the "have nots" of this world to be saved, "Christian Conservative" preachers have gained the enthusiastic and generous support of the rich and the powerful by teaching the very opposite of what Christ taught - which is why the rich and the powerful are only too happy to give the "Religious Right" all the money they need to endlessly and loudly promote their bastardized version of Christianity over the air waves, the internet, and in print, and at election time to distribute 70 million copies of their "Christian Voter Guides" - which while deceitfully claiming to be "non-partisan" - is part and parcel of the Republican Party's propaganda machine.

{ Matthew 19:16, 21-26 }
      Someone came to Jesus with this question: "Good Master, what must I do to have eternal life? 
        [ Jesus told him that he must begin by obeying the ten commandments. But, then...]

Without walking away, many "Christians" in developed countries of our day who are "filthy rich" (when compared either to the billions of poor people in our world today or to this so-called rich man of Jesus' time) just tune out this teaching of Jesus, and pretend to follow Christ without actually embracing this crucial teaching of his.

. . .  Then Jesus said to his disciples, "It is almost impossible for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of Heaven.  I say it again - it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God!  When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?"   And Jesus replied, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible."

{ Luke 16:13-15}  

" No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and wealth."  The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.  So he said to them,  "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God."

For Jesus, as for many other great prophets of the Bible, the pursuit of riches and the pursuit of salvation are so incompatible  that one cannot choose one without turning away from the other.  And the more riches one possesses the harder it is to choose salvation, because it requires the repudiation of those riches.  Any true follower of Christ who sees today's "Religious Right" inviting the wealthy to come into their churches, to bring all their money in with them, to share it generously - not with the poor, but - with the churches and their clergy, knows that there is something very wrong with this picture.  When they see people claiming to be "men of God" sharing the hopes and dreams of the Republican Party of reducing or eliminating services for the poor, so as to lower taxes on the well-to-do,   true Christians (and Jews) recognize that this so-called "Christian Coalition" is no marriage made in heaven, but an unholy alliance, designed to advance not GOD's cause but the G.O.P.'s.
      The multi-millionaire founder and president of the "Christian Coalition" Pat Robertson, who also owns the 700 Club and the "Christian Broadcasting Network", wasn't a particularly religious Baptist until he met a Dutch "mystic" named Cornelius Vanderbreggen, who taught him that a man of God can be rich. "God is generous, not stingy," Vangerbreggan told Robertson, as they dined at an elegant hotel. "He wants you to have the best."
      Given the choice between the Gospel according to Jesus and the Gospel according to Robertson and Vanderbreggan, Conservatives don't hesitate to embrace the one that tells them they are saved just the way they are, no matter how wealthy they are, or how much misery they are able to ignore in the world around them.
        That certainly wasn't the way those closest to Jesus understood his teaching.  (according to the Acts of the Apostles, Ch.2 , 44 :)  "All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need."

{ Luke 14:33-35}  

"So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.  Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away.  Let anyone with ears to hear listen!"

{Luke 12:15-21}

And he said to them,   "Take care!   Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."   Then he told them a parable:   "The land of a rich man produced abundantly.  And he thought to himself,  'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?'   Then he said, 'I will do this:  I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I will say to my soul,  'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.'
      But God said to him,  'You fool!  This very night your life is being demanded of you.   And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'   So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."  "Yes, every man is a fool who gets rich on earth but not in heaven.  Sell what you have and give to those in eed.  This will fatten your purses in heaven!   And the purses of heaven have no rips or holes in them.  Your treasures there will never disappear; no thief can steal them; no moth can destroy them.  Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be."