Book Review: "The Political Teachings of Jesus" by Tod Lindberg (2007)

Christianity Organized religion is taking more of a beating than usual these days, with the non-fiction best seller list dominated by atheistic screeds (see here and here) and the Catholic church in particular having a rough past couple of weeks with the molestation settlement in LA on top of the Pope's most recent controversy. In addition, you have the usual secularists who blame Christians for everything from the war on terror to the 2000 election ("stolen", of course) to madmen firing guns outside of abortion clinics and all things in between, especially as we enter another election season in the United States. However, it's easy to focus on dogma and/or the foibles and errors of humanity while sidelining the spiritual teachings of Jesus himself as articulated in the Gospels.

In Canada, these teachings have been used to implicitly justify political programs from the far left to the new right, not to mention the brokerage Liberal party and their poorer cousins in the former Progressive Conservative party, leading to Prime Ministers who were uniformly if nominally Catholic from the period of 1968-2006 uninterrupted (except for Kim Campbell and her summer job back in 1993). Never easy to grasp at the best of times, I picked up this book wanting to make sense of it all as a former altar boy, libertarian-leaning yet practicing, and unfortunately, I found it of of little practical value, as it combines theology, political thought and philosophy - three of the dullest disciplines known to man - with not a lot outside of the abstract on offer.

That said, what I did take from this book was of some use. Boiled down, way down, the author suggests that there are three things which basically underline Christ's teachings. First is the Golden Rule - treat others as you would have them treat you. Second is the primacy of faith in God above all other things - this is how it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man, not just any rich man but one who puts the pursuit of those riches above devotion to God, to enter Heaven. Finally, the concept of free will, whereby any charity or good works that are compulsed, either by institutions, guilt or some other misguided sense of duty, isn't authentic. In fact, we were created with the full power to choose our own destinies and through those choices one will find the way to the afterlife. Jesus himself reflected humanity's God-given free will by choosing to die on the Cross when He could very well have prevented the whole thing from happening by virtue of the fact that He was God made man - if you choose to believe it, of course.

Still, that doesn't take away from the fact that I kept thinking that this book could have been so much better if it was just a tad more down to earth, but it did clarify and develop my thinking on the subject a little bit.

Overall rating: 4/10