Who Is Right-Wing Jesus?

Although I provided a shorter explanation previously of Right-Wing Jesus, some of you may have skipped past it to get to his really pithy Gospel message. Hahahaha. Sorry, couldn’t resist a self-promo.

So who is Right-Wing Jesus? Simple. He’s the Jesus conservatives hold dear in their innermost core. It’s His Gospel they listen to and not the Good News of Traditional Jesus, who, after all, is far too long-haired radical for their tastes.

Every leftist/liberal/progressive worth her/his salt knows that a great many die-hard conservatives are closely aligned with evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity. The disconnect with that alignment is that those same conservatives hold values and principles that are at direct cross-purposes with mainstream Christianity, such as supporting the torture of accused Muslim terrorists and first-strike warfare as well as adulation of the rich and powerful as favored by God and a striking delight in cutting the WIC Program and school meals for poor children; in this context I have to force myself to not dwell on how much conservatives detest the food stamp program.

The question that occurred to me several years ago was a simple one: how could that be? How could conservatives claim to be strong Christians and hold such remarkably un-Christlike beliefs and values? The answer came to me a week or so ago: the religious beliefs/values conservatives hold dear are primarily those that confirm their ideology. In social psychology that's known as confirmation bias and is also, in my mind at least, combined with more than a little rationalization and cognitive dissonance. In other words, conservatives pick and choose their religion from the Bible to meet and support their ideological preferences. The rest of the New Testament they pay little heed to or interpret it in ways that provide foundation for their values.

To illustrate that very real disconnect between conservatism and Christianity I invented Right-Wing Jesus, who obligingly spouts the amoral garbage conservatives need to believe to maintain their ideology AND their peculiar kind of Christianity.

As a result, you’ll never hear Right-Wing Jesus saying such nonsense as: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Here’s another quote from Traditional Jesus that would never come out of the mouth of Right-Wing Jesus or those of conservatives: “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God. Indeed, 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.”

Here’s a clue as to why the Gospel of Right-Wing Jesus is so important for liberals/progressives/leftists. Once you understand Right-Wing Jesus, you’ll better understand what motivates conservatives, no matter what they claim to be in terms of organized religion.

All you have to do now is sit back and relax and let Right-Wing Jesus lay it out for you in simple, easy to understand values that are held deeply by American conservatives. After all, those conservatives believe in Right-Wing Jesus with all their hearts and souls and model their lives and cast their votes according His Gospel. Thus, by understanding the Gospel of Right-Wing Jesus you can better understand American conservatives and their drive to eliminate progressives as an effective voting bloc.

Equality-Inequality-Poverty-Moral Virtue-Gayness from the Gospel According to Right-Wing Jesus

Amen, amen I say unto you, equality is best sought through exercise of the free market, not through government laws, regulations, or programs that restrict those who are in superior positions or who have superior talents.

Hear my words, o ye men of God, inequality is the natural order of things. Human beings, in terms of innate talents and personal attributes, are inherently unequal and a social hierarchy is a natural consequence of that inequality.

The poor will always be among you, but the righteous know that poverty is caused by negative individual personality traits and character defects—including laziness, poorly developed intellectual ability, complaisance, and the lack of competitiveness, frugality, self-discipline, responsibility, and self-reliance, etc.—not by the so-called structural socioeconomic conditions imagined by liberals.

O you men of God, ignore the sophistry of the liberal Pharisees who created social safety net programs like Medicaid, Food Stamps, and WIC to reward godless people who refuse to work. Repeal or reductions of those programs that protect low-income families against catastrophe stem not from misguided hostility but godly fiscal responsibility in policing fraud and ensuring efficiency (meaning removing all the lazy work shirkers who had previously been eligible).

Hear ye o people of God, race-based affirmative action and the women's rights movement are agents of the devil himself that foster prejudice by undermining equality and by denying opportunities to those who are equally or more qualified to serve the Lord and the government. Those misbegotten programs created by liberal Pharisees do a great deal more harm than good by generating anger and resentment against the particular communities they pretend to serve and actually promote the very disharmony they supposedly are called upon to alleviate.

Medicaid is welfare for the undeserving and irresponsible. The best way to cut down on the innate fraud of that system is to force adults on Medicaid to work, require enrollees to get tested for illegal drugs, cap the length of time people can stay on the program, and limit the number of people who can be on the program at once. Millions of lazy, undeserving work shirkers stay on Medicaid when they are no longer eligible.

Chaste, spiritually minded, and religious people are favored by the Lord God and are morally superior to those weak-kneed, back sliding sinners who are not.

Hear ye o people of God, a powerful centralized government threatens the individual, family, and private institutions and seeks uniformity and absolute compliance on the part of weak-willed citizens. Government, by its very nature, is inefficient, incompetent, wasteful, power hungry, and morally corrupt.

Hear my words ye men of God, homosexuality is an unnatural abomination, a lifestyle choice people freely make; those who practice it commit inherently repugnant and evil acts. Homosexual acts are as immoral as incest and bestiality. Know ye that same sex unions are a direct threat to marriage and the family.

Local governance is godly only if the local jurisdiction is conservative. If it’s not conservative, conservative politicians who control the state legislature must revoke whatever local regulations have been passed to help the undeserving and irresponsible poor, like higher minimum wage laws.

As ordained by godly men, women of childbearing age and older are obliged to cover their bodies entirely, no matter if they claim that dress makes them uncomfortable and hot. For it is written that no woman should salaciously tempt innocent men with their disgusting, slutty, and all but irresistible exposed flesh.

Let us pray, you people of God, for conservatives who “put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of [their] lives.” And thank you, Brother Donald, for that inspiration.

------------------------

Can I get a chorus of loud AMENS brothers and sisters to that good news of the gospel according to Right-Wing Jesus?

Right-Wing Jesus Quotes the Old Testament

Proverbs 1, 13: All kinds of precious wealth shall we gain; we shall fill our houses with booty.

Proverbs 3, 5-6: Trust wholeheartedly in the Lord, put no faith in your own perception; in every course you take, have him in mind: He will see that your paths are smooth.

Proverbs 3, 9-10: Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your produce; then will your barns be filled with grain and your vats will overflow with new wine.

Proverbs 5, 23: Wicked men will die from lack of discipline; through the greatness of their folly they will be lost.

Proverbs 8, 27-31: When the Lord established the heavens I was there, when He marked out the vault over the face of the deep; when He made firm the skies above, when He fixed fast the foundations of the earth; when He set the sea its limit so that the waters should not transgress His command; then I was beside Him as His craftsman and I was His delight day by day, playing before Him all the while, playing on the surface of His earth; and I found delight in the sons of man.

Proverbs 10, 3-4: The Lord permits not the just to go hungry but the cravings of the wicked He thwarts. The slack hand brings poverty, but the hand of the diligent enriches.

Proverbs 10, 22: It is the Lord’s blessing that brings wealth, and no effort can substitute for it.

Proverbs 12, 11: He who tills his own land has food in plenty, but he who follows idle pursuits is a fool.

Proverbs 12, 27: The slothful man catches not his prey but the wealth of the diligent man is great.

Proverbs 13, 4: The soul of the sluggard craves in vain but the diligent soul is amply satisfied.

Proverbs 13, 8: A man’s riches serve as ransom for his life but the poor man heeds no rebuke.

Proverbs 14, 20: Even by his neighbors the poor man is hated but the friends of the rich are many.

Proverbs 19, 6-7: Many curry favor with the noble, all are friends of the man with something to give. All the poor man’s brothers hate him; how much more do his friends shun him.

Proverbs 19, 10: Luxury is not befitting a fool; much less should a slave rule over princes.

Leviticus 24, 19-21: Anyone who injures their neighbor shall receive the same in return. Limb for limb, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The same injury that a man gives another shall be inflicted on him in return. Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a human being is to be put to death.

The Gospel according to Right-Wing Jesus 02

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, behold the five inspired essentials no man should live without: Faith, Family, Friends, Flag, and Firearms. Let no man tell you differently under pain of the loss of life eternal.”

“Amen, amen, it is deeply Christian to go to the judges citing religious faith to avoid paying for female employees’ contraception.”

“Protecting the standing of the most dominant conservative political party is among the greatest moral values. In very close elections, even seemingly small effects can have great consequences and the anti-Christ, atheist Democrats could get elected.”

“Right-Wing Jesus loves everybody but He won’t make decorated cookies or wedding cakes for queer couples because He believes in one man, one woman marriages are the only ones approved by the Father in Heaven. Thus, all ungodly people who choose queer lifestyles should abandon their abominable perversions.”

“The rich became rich by hard work alone, so they deserve what they have and are beloved by God. The undeserving poor got where they are because they have neither grit nor merit.”

“The rich are rich because of their sterling character and piety. Poor people are poor because they make bad choices, lack initiative and responsibility, or because they don’t have the right qualities, such as intelligence, determination, and fortitude, not because the system is flawed or unfair. Structural inequality is a dangerous myth that all followers of Right-Wing Jesus must reject.”

“For conservatives, being born into wealth and upper-socio-economic class status is a sure sign of God’s favor and of their righteousness before Right-Wing Jesus. The power and strength that come from that status combined with being conservative are signs that in the battle between evil collectivism and godly individualism that defines the human race; there is no question God is on the side of the righteous.”

“Conservativism is a stamp of Christian fidelity; those anointed ones thus blessed are invited to pass directly into the Kingdom of God.”

“Any form of economic redistribution from the hard working upper income to the undeserving and irresponsible low income is anathema to RWJ and intolerable to the Kingdom of God.”