I’m a lifelong atheist, but I mean no disrespect when I ask, “What would Jesus do?”
In the 1990s, conservative Christians -- often pointing fingers at Bill Clinton -- made a thing of asking this question in the name of Family Values. Funny, I haven’t heard that question asked lately.
I’m certainly no biblical scholar, but my understanding is that Jesus led poor people to believe they are worthy of lives of dignity, and that injustice must be challenged. It was a philosophy not of tribalism, but of Evangelicalism – live a moral life and spread the Good Word.
Now, a generation later, these same conservative leaders are defending to the end a lying, cheating, amoral crook as leader of their preferred political party.
We’ve recently heard the pious Vice President, the Attorney General, and congressional leaders openly encouraging tearing children away from desperate families fleeing horrors in their own countries. They advocate cutting public education and social services to fund the tax cuts that go to their donors, and they abet a venal and lawless boss, with Congress abdicating its check-and-balance mandate.
To rank-and-file supporters of the president and the party currently in power – those not greatly benefitting from tax cuts and suffering from spiking health care costs – you’ve been lied to. So I urge you to ask, is this what Jesus would do?
I’m Reed Scherer, and that’s my perspective.
