Who would Jesus vote for?

This year’s voters’ guide in The Bollard asks the question, “Who would Jesus vote for?” It’s not as hard to answer as it seems. When one limits the questions to issues that were relevant in Jesus’ time and sticks to the accounts of his life in the Gospels, the answers are pretty clear.

We covered the gubernatorial race in this month’s print edition, and the guide to the U.S. Senate race between Democrat Shenna Bellows and incumbent Republican Susan Collins will be posted on thebollard.com in the coming days. If you’d like to apply Jesus’ politics to the races in your area, here are some guidelines.

The first thing to consider is the candidates’ policies regarding the poor. Jesus was crazy about poor people, and there were lots of them in first-century Judea, where income inequality was, in relative terms, almost as obscene as it is today. But as Reza Aslan emphasized in “Zealot,” his 2013 bestseller about the life and times of the historical Jesus, the Galilean peasant preacher proclaimed not only that the poor would become rich, but that the rich would be made poor.

That was a dangerous thing to say in Jesus’ day, and it’s still not a very popular political view, even among Democrats. Pretty much every modern American politician promises to help the poor make more money, but the Lord’s vote would go to those who couple that rhetoric with tax proposals that take a big bite out of the bank accounts of the wealthy. Closing corporate tax loopholes is just a start. Reverting to the income tax structure in place during World War II, when the fattest cats were on the hook for rates in excess of 90 percent — that’s what Jesus was talkin’ about.

The second thing: health care. Affordable health care is nice. Free health care is Godly. Jesus spent a lot of time dispensing just that to the lepers and the demon-possessed. Candidates who support a universal, single-payer system are most likely to earn Jesus’ vote. Throw in coverage for exorcisms and you’re a shoe-in.

Feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless and clothing the naked are all positions Jesus would dig. However, we must keep in mind Aslan’s point that this Jewish carpenter from Nazareth was keenly conscious of the ethnic, religious and political distinctions in Judean society, and made it clear on several occasions that he was there to help one group in particular: fellow Jews.

So Jesus’ positions on immigration issues may not be as liberal as modern liberals would expect. (Likewise his positions on foreign policy, especially concerning Israel.) Some of the most radical aspects of Jesus’ teaching — kicking the Romans out of the Holy Land, turning the dominant socioeconomic paradigm upside-down — were softened by followers in subsequent centuries who wanted Romans and the rich to convert to Christianity. But it’s still hard to imagine Jesus supporting politicians who would deny people food, clothing or shelter solely because their immigration paperwork isn’t in order.

As for a governor who expresses outrage that eight “unaccompanied alien children” are being fed and sheltered in Maine? Well, there’s a very hot place for leaders like him, and it definitely ain’t Jamaica.

I’m not saying the United States should be a Christian nation. The separation of church and state — blurry as it gets on our money, in our Pledge of Allegiance, during oaths of office, etc. — is crucial to ensuring religious freedom and a functioning democracy. But too many of those in elected office who claim to be Christian are doing too good a job ensuring that the kind of world Jesus wanted for us is not the world we live in.

Chris Busby

About Chris Busby

Chris Busby is editor and publisher of The Bollard, a monthly magazine about Portland. He writes a weekly column for the BDN.