Do you think Jesus would have been a Republican or a Democrat?

Panelist 1: My take on Jesus is he would be both.

Panelist 2: No, he wouldn’t. He’d be an independent. He would be a cafeteria politician.

Panelist 1: Well, first of all he wouldn’t be a politician.

Eric Metaxas: No, he would be an itinerant rabbi. By the way, he actually was an itinerant rabbi. I think we can move on.

Panelist 2: Whoa, whoa, well tell us how you really feel about our answers.

Eric Metaxas: No I couldn’t possibly, because this is being recorded.

__________

Eric Metaxas, commenting on the issue of Jesus’s political affiliations (or lack thereof) during a recent panel discussion.

Well, I guess that’s settled. My attitude towards the question is precisely that of Metaxas. In fact, his answer is probably a sentence too long. Jesus was an itinerant rabbi.

A red flag reading “INTELLECTUALLY BANKRUPT” should shoot up in your mind anytime an interlocutor cites a first century carpenter to defend his twenty-first century political ideology. It’s a sham trump card for them, first; and second – if the assertion is being made by a Christian – it’s a painfully unflattering and parochial association for the divine. During the most grim period of the Civil War, a beleaguered Abraham Lincoln was asked whether he believed God was on the Union’s side. Lincoln responded with typical prudence, putting the question to rest in one sentence, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is whether we are on God’s side, for God is always right.”

And while we’re at it, can we also stop equating the other guys with Hitler. That’s almost as idiotic.

Watch Metaxas in this short clip: