Pigeonholing Jesus

One of the more annoying things that people do is associating things with certain political ideologies.  Yes, I know I am bouncing off of this week’s South Park episode, but hey, we can’t always draw inspiration from nothing.  Anyhow, there are often times when I find myself confused when people analyze a literary work or movie in a manner that I don’t see.  It’s not that it isn’t there, as I could just be less sophisticated than most, but just that I don’t see it.

But sometimes I think people read way too much into a story as it’s being told rather than accept the story for what it is.  The same can be said of people and no one has been wrongly pigeonholed more than Jesus, the Son of God.  For the past 2000 years or so, people have interpreted Jesus’s teachings, actions, and sacrifice as something more than what they really are.

I believe that the Left is the current group who perpetrates this stupidity the most these days.  Not that conservatives and even some libertarians haven’t done so themselves, just that I hear it more from liberal-minded individuals than I do conservatives.  My own father-in-law told my wife that if Jesus were here today, he’d be a Democrat.  That’s about as logical as whacking yourself on the head to remove a brain tumor.

I’m not saying that Jesus Himself would be a conservative or a libertarian if He was here today.  I highly doubt He would have taken any side in the American political system or even bothered to encourage people to vote.  While this may seem like speculation, I know this based on His own actions and behaviors as recounted in the Gospels.

Jesus was around in a very transitory period in Rome.  The Republic had just been demolished a few decades earlier (I believe He was born during the reign of the first Roman emperor, if I’m not mistaken), and within the Israelite lands, there was a lot of unrest.  You see, the Israelites wanted to establish their own great nation again and there were many factions seeking to overthrown Roman rule.  It’s widely believed that Barabbas, the man who was released in place of Jesus, may have been a fanatic himself whose crime of murder was related to anti-Roman activities, though I don’t think the Bible supports this necessarily.

When Jesus started his ministry, He did so unconcerned with the current political climate and without too much concern for Roman authority.  He lived, taught, and acted in a manner that was to be timeless so that all of us could understand and relate to Him better.  The point is that Jesus Himself was apolitical and never took sides with any political faction in His day.

Now, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t take up sides and push for our own political agendas when it comes to the arena of politics.  I personally would chose liberty over tyranny, freedom over government control any day.  But I think Jesus Himself wouldn’t care either way.  And that’s a great mistake that so many people make when trying to apply Jesus to their own political leanings.  It is foolish and downright wrong to do so.

So while I think we should have reasonable debates in politics, attempting to pigeonhole Jesus into your own personal ideology is wrong and downright prideful.  Do so at your own risk.