The good Samaritan has now become just another expression. Whenever there’s a news report and the story has anything about some one coming to some one’s aid or rescue the reporter most of the time will call the rescuer a good Samaritan. There’s a good chance that the reporter or even the reporter’s audience know the story of the good Samaritan or where the story came from. All they know is if you rescue someone then you can be called a good Samaritan. Many don’t know that the good Samaritan came from the Bible and that the person telling the story was Jesus. Sometimes it seems that today’s Christians just assume that the world knows the story and more important that the world understands it’s meaning. The sad part is that many in the church don’t really understand the story of the good Samaritan. If they did understand the meaning , it would change many of their attitudes and prejudices.
Why did Jesus tell the story of the Good Samaritan? Jesus was answering a question asked to him by a Jewish lawyer. His question was quite simple and Jesus answer still applies today. He asked: Who is my neighbor? It would appear to be a simple question followed by an equally simple answer. But Jesus didn’t give him a simple answer, no Jesus made him think about it and answer for himself. Instead of answering by saying something like your neighbor is someone who lives by you, thinks like you, dresses like you, looks like you, and most important votes like you. That is the right answer to the question, who is my neighbor isn’t it? No this is how Jesus answered who is my neighbor?
Luke 10 30-37
30. And Jesus, answering, said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 31. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. 33. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, 34. And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35. And on the next day, when he departed, he took out two denaril, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatever thou spendest more when I come again, I will repay thee. 36. Which, now, of these three thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among thieves? 37. And he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou like-wise.
So that’s the whole story of the Good Samaritan just 7 verses and it tells a simple story of two religious men a priest and a Levite who saw a injured man begging for help, but both refused to stop and help him. Then came by a Samaritan and helped the man. Not only did he bandaged him up he put him on his own donkey, which meant the Samaritan walked. He took him to an inn and took care of him through the night and if that wasn’t enough he gave his own money and paid the innkeeper to take care. But that wasn’t all, he promised the innkeeper that when he returned and he would return, if the innkeeper needed more money the Good Samaritan would pay him once again out of his own pocket. Everything seems to be simple nothing to disagree about here. But the question is Jesus story conservative or liberal?
When I was growing up my dad taught the young married Sunday School Class. It was a successful large group. We had cook outs with horse shoes and softball games, bible studies, Halloween parties (that was back when we didn’t know Halloween was evil). It was a close group that you could tell they all loved each other and had a deep love for Christ. Back in 1971 my Mom was once again sent to the sanatorium in Booneville Arkansas, she didn’t have tuberculosis, at that time we didn’t know the reason for Mama’s lung trouble, as she always called it. The class got together and took up an offering and put the money in a small blue plastic car, that was brought at a dime store. On the roof of the car was written Let’s give John gas money to go see Barbara. We kept that little car on our bookcase for years until it was so old the writing on the note was gone. We thought of what they did for us every time we saw that little car. But it’s another gift that the class gave daddy is my reason for writing about daddy’s Sunday School Class. On June 29 1975 the class presented daddy with a copy of Wycliffe Bible Commentary published by the Moody Press. Eighteen of them signed the book and wrote they brought it for daddy’s personal study. Daddy was really proud of it and when he took it to show the pastor he was told by the the pastor that members of the class asked him what was the best commentary to buy. The pastor said that the Wycliffe Bible Commentary was the best one to buy because it was a conservative Bible commentary and not one of those liberal commentaries that was full of “false teachings”. I was just 13 years old back then but I still remember what the pastor said and since then I’ve always looked out for those liberals and false teaching. Since this is the best conservative Bible commentary I’ll use it throughout this study to give the conservative version.
Maybe the best place to start on the story of the Good Samaritan is to explain who the Samaritans were and most important to the story is why did the Jews hate them so bitterly. Yes this is a story of hate and the Jews had an intense hatred towards the Samaritans. The Jews did not consider the Samaritans as true Jews because of the Samaritans intermarrying Gentiles. This was the main reason that Jews during Jesus time would give, but their problems with the Samaritans goes back centuries before Jesus came to Earth.
Who is my neighbor was the question Jesus was answering in the story of the good Samaritan. According to Jesus who is your neighbor is totally up to the individual. There’s a choice in the answer of who is my neighbor not just through ?? The priest who came upon the injured man made a choice to be a neighbor to the man but the priest decided not to be the man’s neighbor, that was this “Man of God” choice. Then came the Levite, a leader in the church, a man as religious and being considered good by most people who without a doubt help the man, but he also made the choice not to stop and be a neighbor to the man. Then along comes by the Samaritan a man who was not welcomed to worship in the Temple at Jerusalem where the priest and Levite were both from. This division between the Jews and Samaritans is described by the Samaritan woman at the well. When Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for a drink at Jacob’s well she replies to Jesus in John 4:9, Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. then she says in verse 19 and 20: 19 The woman saith unto him, Sir I perceive that thou art a prophet. 20. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. And yet it’s a Samaritan who helps the man.
The story of the Good Samaritan is just 7 verses and it’s not complicated a man is attacked and robbed three people passed by two walked by on the other side of the road and did not stop to help, but one stopped and helped. How could there be more than one interpretation of such a simple story. That’s why I choose to use the Good Samaritan as the first chapter of my book, as you are about to find out there’s a huge difference between what a conservative believes compared to what liberal believes. Now it’s time to see how the conservative Wycliffe Bible Commentary has to say about the Good Samaritan. According to this conservative book the priest and Levite did absolutely nothing wrong, the book claims that the reason the priest and Levite did not stop and help was they thought the injured man was dead and the book says they did not want to “defile themselves” by touching a dead body. Are you serious? as one tennis player is famous for yelling. This commentary is now more than 50 years old and do conservatives still believe that the priest and Levite did nothing wrong? I ‘ve looked up what conservatives believe today on the internet, and it turns out today’s believes agree and now are even more extreme. One commentator on the internet claims that the Levite saw the priest far off in the distance, which doesn’t seem to be the best place to rob someone, since he saw the priest go to to the other side and past by the injured man so when he made to that place he just did what he saw the priest do. Another commentator claims that the injured man was a Jew and that it was Samaritans that robbed him, because that’s just what Samaritans did back in the day, and the Good Samaritan was one of the robbers who felt guilty and came back to help the man. Of coarse the money the Good Samaritan gave the innkeeper was not his own, rather it was the injured man’s money that the Good Samaritan stole from him. Why do conservatives come up with such crazy ideas? We have come to the difference between Conservatives and Liberals: Liberal believe that words of Jesus are 100% true and what Jesus said is exactly what he meant. On the other hand conservatives believe in what in politics know as “spin”. Jesus words are always up for interpretation and what Jesus words means to one person could be interpreted by another person completely different. Just like in the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus just doesn’t know how to tell a story right.
Conservatives believe that the priest and Levite didn’t know the difference between an injured man pleading for help and a dead body. Jesus said that the man was left half dead and stripped of his clothes. There’s something interesting about why they took the man clothes, first they took the man’s clothes because his clothes were much better then what they were wearing. There’s many passages of scripture that refers to fine raiment. Just like today, clothing has a lot to do with who you are. Everyone knew both the priest and a Levite by the clothes they were wearing. Second, since they took his clothes he was lying there naked, this means anyone could defintally tell if the injured man was circumcised because if he wasn’t that meant one thing, he was a gentile. And here’s something else Jesus says they left him half-dead not looking like he was dead totally silent. When the Priest saw him he passed on the other side of the road. That means the Priest had to see the man before he made it beside him. What got the priests’ attention could it be the injured man was yelling for help. That would go along with the description that Jesus gave, they stripped him and left him half-dead. But that brings up another question: what language was the man yelling for help? The priest and Levite answered that question when they passed the man on the other side of the road removing themselves as far as possible from him. There’s no doubt the man was not yelling in Hebrew or that he was uncircumcised. If the injured man did not look like them, did not speak like them, did not believe like them, did not vote like them, and most important did not have the same color of skin like them. Yes in Bible times there would had been people of serval races walking on the road to Jericho. The injured man could had been black or even worse than being black he could had been white. But wait wasn’t the priest and the Levite white? If you believe conservatives of coarse they were white, just like Jesus was a six foot two inch white man! I will go in detail in a forwarding chapter of what the Bible says about how God became flesh and what color that flesh was. Therefore, as Paul would say, if the injured man was white that meant he was the most hated persons by the Jews, it meant that white man was a Roman!! Well almost the most hated, nothing compares to the hatred the Jews had for the Samaritans. And yet it was the most hated Samaritan that Jesus uses as our example.
When Jesus finished the story of the Good Samaritan, he asks the Jewish lawyer who between these three was a neighbor to the injured man. The answer to that question would seem to be quite simple, yet the Jewish lawyer, standing in the Temple, couldn’t bring himself to admit that a Samaritan did right while two Jewish leaders of the faith did not. He could only reply the one who showed mercy on him, without saying it was the hated Samaritan.
How does the story of the Good Samaritan apply to us today? I’ll take a simple example kind of similar: Let’s say you’re driving down a lonely two-lane highway on the side of the road is an abandoned car a little further down is a black man walking in the 100-degree heat beside the highway carrying a small gas can. Would a neighbor pull over to the side of the highway, no worries about a head on collision on the untraveled highway and keep going saying maybe the next driver will stop and help him. It’s just not that simple you can say, if I stop then I’ll have to drive to the next gas station which could be 20 miles away and then I’ll have to drive him back the 20 miles and after that I’ll have to then drive the 20 miles I’ve already drove for the third time, I don’t have the time to do that and what about all that gas I’m burning? He’s not going to pay me for that and by the way he looks I’ll have to end up paying for his gas too. If I did stop, I would tell him to put the gas can in the trunk and while you’re at it you get in the trunk as well.
Now would be a good time to discuss just how much the Good Smartian really did for the man. In verse 34 Jesus describes all he did. Jesus says the first thing he did unlike the priest and Levite, was he saw him and had compassion on him. When the Good Smartian saw he didn’t see a man that didn’t look like him, didn’t talk like him, didn’t vote like him, no! When the Good Smartian saw him he didn’t see like the priest or Levite saw those their eyes filled with hatred for people different from them, when the Good Smartian saw the man, he could imagine seeing himself lying there, helpless it need for someone to help him. That’s what true compassion for someone is, the ability to see yourself in the same situation. The priest and Levite had no compassion because they just couldn’t imagine themselves helpless.
How much did the Jews really hated the Smartian people? When Jesus is done telling the story of the Good Smartian Jesus asks the Jewish lawyer which of these three was a neighbor to the man? The Jewish lawyer did not reply it was the Smartian who was the man’s neighbor, instead he said it was the one who showed mercy. The answer from Jewish lawyer tells why the priest and Levite passed on the other side of road.
After the Jewish lawyer answered Jesus with the one who showed mercy Jesus says five very important words: Go and do thou likewise. These words are not a suggestion of Jesus they are known as one of the commands of Jesus. When Jesus says If you love me keep my commandments, this is one of the commandments that Jesus meant. Jesus had a lot of his own commandments, for example Love one another which was a commandment that the priest or Levite cared not to follow. To see the injured man moaning or even asking for help and passing him by on the other side of the road, going as far as possible away from him, is not an example of loving one another. The whole story of The Good Smartian begins with a command. It’s sometime referred as the greatest commandment: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. that is how the lawyer answered Jesus in Luke 10:27; Jesus said that this was the right answer, then the lawyer asked what turns out to be a great question, he asks and who is my neighbor? Is everyone my neighbor or just the people who live by me? Your neighbor can’t be someone living in another country, could it? The Good Smartian lived in Samaria, the priest and Levite would consider another country. And are poor people your neighbors? That’s what we’re going to look at next.
It seems to me the biggest difference between a conservative and a liberal is what they believe about money, the difference between rich and poor. A lot of this study will deal with the whole idea of money, who deserves money, and most of all does Jesus want Christians to be rich. If a person is poor does that mean that the poor are poor because of their lack of ambition or is it Jesus just does not like the poor. It seems that is what conservatives believe.
The best example of how conservatives believe about helping the poor is to go all the way back to the late 70s and the Carter administration. There’s a quote from Jimmy Carter that best describes what I’m talking about: ” If you don’t want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying that you want a country based on Christian Values, because you don’t!!” Was the injured man in the story of the Good Smartian rich or poor? At the time that the priest, Levite, and Good Smartian encountered him, he had nothing Jesus said they stripped him of his raiment, leaving him naked with no possessions, just imagine no possessions! But they stole his clothes, it could be the clothes he was wearing were very fine silk, or at least whatever he was wearing it was better than what the thieves were wearing. Or the man may have only appeared to be rich to the thieves and they stripped him and almost beat him to death because they were mad. We’ll never know but could it be that Jesus was making a point here that the experts on the internet never thought of. Suppose Jesus put the victim in this story totally helpless without anything including clothes, and all he had was hope, that someone would show mercy on him. Imagine that could be the reason the priest and Levite passed him on the other side. They didn’t see how helping this man that they did not know, could do anything for them, except creating a great inconvenience for each of them. Besides they were busy, in a hurry, they had a whole mass of people to take care anyway they didn’t have the time to help just one man they were taking care of God’s business! That’s the question what is God’s business? Is it God’s business to take care of those who cannot take care of their selves? Is that really the whole point of the story of the Good Smartian?
Perhaps the greatest difference between conservatives and liberals is what they believe about the poor. I’m referring to what conservatives call welfare. First, from what I’ve seen on Face Book posts and other conversations conservatives do not have a clue how “welfare” works or for that matter they really don’t know what “welfare” is all about. But that doesn’t stop any one of them from considering themselves experts on the subject. One of the quotes from the TV program Criminal Minds, the episode involved a killer targeting the homeless, here’s the quote: “Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well warmed, and well fed”. That was a quote from a man named Herman Melville who wrote a little book entitled Moby Dick. It can also describe most of the people that go to my church, they think they are most definably experts on the poor and no doubt about it they know everything every detail about welfare.
I know these people at church quit well, they’re not any different from other conservatives anywhere in the country. I know them so well I can even tell how some of them will live the last few months or years before they die. I know how that sounds, but let me explain what I’m talking about.
In the later years of my dad’s life, he changed careers, went back to college at the age of 47 and became a nurse. Daddy worked at a nursing home for over 15 years, as a nurse and for his last few years there he was the social director and still worked as a nurse on weekends. As the social director, one of his duties was basically to make sure the nursing home got paid. I know that don’t sound very good, and I’m sure his job description wouldn’t explain it that way, but yeah that was part of his job. I will give an example. It’s that time when there’s nothing left to do but to put Uncle Joe in the nursing home. Yes, Uncle Joe is moving really, really, slow now. But the family believes he want last much longer and Uncle Joe worked hard all his long life and although Uncle Joe always said he would never end up in a nursing home there was no other choice than to put him the nursing home. Turns out Uncle Joe was really conservative and when the time came to get Medicare, Uncle Joe refused to get on Medicare, because just like a lot of conservatives like Daddy dealt with, Uncle Joe considered Medicare to be the same as Welfare, besides Uncle Joe owned a hotel, really it was more like a bed & breakfast, he had plenty of money to last the rest of his life without relying on anything from the government. (I think this maybe is sounding very familiar to some). So, without any other options, daddy placed Uncle Joe in on what is termed private pay. No problem the family said Uncle Joe had no problem paying the two hundred and something dollars a day, seven days a week, and besides it really won’t matter much poor Uncle Joe is not long for this world anyway. So that two months the family was kind of counting on, before you realized it, there we are four years later, Uncle Joe is still in the nursing home, but the family is long gone. Over the last four years things changed Uncle Joe hotel, The Shady Rest Hotel, was hit with hard times, it was really going downhill for years but when Sam’s son started Drucker’s Hotel and Casino that was the tragic end to The Shady Rest Hotel. All of Uncle Joe’s assets are now gone, his savings are gone and four years of taking two hundred and something dollars out of his bank account every day for four years emptied all his money. That left Daddy with only one choice, he took Uncle Joe off of private pay and applied him for Medicaid. You remember how Uncle Joe thought Medicare was welfare. No Uncle Joe was wrong Medicare is not welfare, but Medicaid is welfare. So there’s Uncle Joe left in the nursing home alone the family is long gone Uncle Joe stills loves to talk all those lazy people on welfare and the evil liberals, until one day Uncle Joe dies and his only possession he left behind was his Trump Won flag. But Uncle Joe is far from the only one, there are hundred of thousands, if not millions of people in the U.S. who are in the same predicament, they are just as arrogant and self-righteous as ever, but they will live the end of their lives dependent on public money, welfare.
After working over 15 years at the nursing home, Daddy went to work for a company named The Area Agencey on Aging. Daddy’s new job was to visit people in about a four-county area that were on government programs and make reports on each person making sure that whatever program they were on was working as it should. For instance, there’s a program where a wheelchair bound client (that’s what they were referred as) could receive a wheelchair ramp. A crew would build the ramp and Daddy’s job was not to inspect the construction of the ramp, someone else did that, Daddy’s job was to ensure the client could use the wheelchair ramp. That just one example of a government program there are many more all helping people who cannot help their selves. The conservatives I’m sure would complain saying that new wheelchair ramp built to government standers, just doubled the value of a shack wasting our tax dollars. Did the Good Smartian waste his two days of pay on the injured man?
These are examples of what conservatives call welfare, but welfare is not their only excuse to refuse Jesus’s command to Go and do likewise, there’s another phrase that conservative’s and all Republicans agree on, but it’s nothing new. I can describe what’s worse than welfare in just one statement made a long time ago by President Jimmy Carter: ” Many fervent Pro-Life activists do not extend their concern to the baby who is born, and are least likely to support benevolent programs they consider to be “Socialist”.” Oh yes conservative’s and Republicans favorite word Socialist. Every conservative knows almost everything about Socialist, you might even say they know as much a Socialist as they do about welfare. First off in a true Socialists country they could care less about a poor elderly person getting a wheelchair ramp.
Several years ago, I was watching Larry King Live, his guest was Jimmy Carter. Larry asked Jimmy Carter on his record on abortion when he was president and Jimmy Carter replied I asked what the main reason for abortions was in America? It was determined that the main reason women had abortions was the sad fact that they believed they could not afford to have another child. Jimmy Carter explained that the best way to reduce the number of abortions was to help the mothers of these children provide for their children, so the Carter administration implemented a new program, WIC: Women, Infants, Children. The WIC program has one purpose: to feed the hungry, women with children up to the age of five. Because of the conservatives the WIC program was set up from the start that no one “take advantage” of the conservative’s money. Women were given a book of vouchers that listed everything that WIC would accept. Here’s how it worked in the real world. A woman along with her two or three small children would go to a grocery store and when they went to the checkout now here where’s it’s different from everyone else. There were only certain lanes that would accept WIC, this served the same purpose as it was when I went to school. Every morning the teacher would call each of us to pay for our lunch, the kids who were on government free lunches were shamed every morning. The same thing with women on WIC yes the conservatives were say, if we have to give you free food, we will shame you first. The woman with her children in toll would finally make it to the WIC checkout, usually register one, the cashier would take the voucher book and check off all the items one by one. And this always happens especially if your in a hurry and the WIC woman is in front of you, the cashier will say no this is the wrong brand or no this is the wrong size package, this happens all the time because WIC or the food company changes what is accepted and it changes every month. But imagine if you can behind the WIC woman that is taking so much time to checkout that behind the lady behind her is getting very annoyed. But who is this woman behind her that’s in such a hurry? She’s the local First Baptist’s pastor’s wife, who is very involved in her church, she teaches the Womens Sunday Class, sings in the choir, is the WMU director and most of all she is proudly pro-life, attends pro-life rallies always the one holding up the sign that says Abortion is Murder! But today she is in a big hurry she has a lot of important church business to get done. What are her thoughts as she’s being delayed from her important schedule? What is she thinking to herself as she is looking (more accurate word may be as she is judging) the WIC woman? Look at this girl so young to have three children, although she was the same age when her children were these ages, but just look at her trying to raise three children all alone and it’s obvious just by looking the three children do have the same father! And then the pastor’s wife says to herself, well if she doesn’t have the money to raise her children then she shouldn’t have had them in the first place! She should had waited until God found the perfect man for her and after they were married and they could afford to have children then they should start a family. I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in, to think for a moment what the pastor’s wife is really thinking. She’s not the only one with these belief that thou shalt not have children unless thou can “afford to have children”. Money not something like “faith” should be the deciding factor to start a family.
Today gone are the voucher books replaced by what appears at first glance to be a credit card. Just the other day I was checking out at Wal Mart and at the register beside me was woman with three children obvious having trouble checking out. The Wal Mart associates, there were three of them by now, took all of the woman’s groceries to the next checkout and begun to check her out all over again. I said to the guy checking out my purchases, are you having problems with WIC again? And he rolled his eyes and said we have nothing but problems with WIC! What would the pastor’s wife think if she behind this woman? Would she think the woman was paying with food stamps, which would be welfare, or would she recognize in was WIC then it would be socialism? I think it would be confusing being a conservative, trying to be keep everything straight on which category to put things in just where there’s an excuse not to help someone. Besides that, the whole point of the Good Samaritan is religious people making up excuses not to help others. This whole idea of socialism is nothing more than a very poor excuse not to follow Jesus’ command to go and do thou likewise, there are not any verses, no not one, that gives followers of Jesus an excuse to deliberately disobey a direct command of Jesus. Jesus never said, if you love me, keep my commandments, unless thou thinkest my commandments are socialist, then fight my commandments with all thine hearts. In the conservative’s opposition to Jimmy Carter’s WIC program, they are really saying: the baby’s hungry and we gave no food-Welfare!! the baby’s thirsty, we gave no drink; Welfare! the baby’s naked, we clothed it not: giving that poor baby diapers would be socialism!!! The baby’s sick, and we will not minister to it: socialism!! worse than socialism ministering to the sick would be Obamacare!! The baby is a stranger, we refused to take him in: Immagration Laws!!!! Did I just mention Obamacare? If conservatives hate Women Infants Children, they literally cannot stand Obamacare. Of course, there is that verse in the conservative translation of the Bible where Jesus says: Thou shalt not let a black man tellest thee what to do. Truth be told that’s the biggest problem conservatives have with Obamacare. This also explains the conservative view of the meaning of the Good Smartian, the priest saw the man gasping for help on the side of the road, but the priest passed by on the other side saying to himself “I can’t help him, that would be welfare”. Likewise, when the Levite came by, he passed on the other side saying to himself “I can’t help him, that would be socialism”. Conservatives would be quick to point out that following Christ and his commands is not what the government should do. Somehow Conservatives believe that the government is separate from their beliefs and this belief separates from doing right by its own people. This is the first major question I have for conservatives. If conservatives are Republicans and claim to believe as Republicans, then they must explain away what the founder of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, the fact that the United States of America is government of the people, by the people, for the people. How can they explain away that this government of the people, for the people, by the people can literally pass by the people that this government is made of, and leave them on the side of the road, when there is no excuse whatsoever not to help them? Their reply I am sure, would be to say that the Bible teaches against socialism, well OK what scripture are they referring to? Where exactly is it written that you should leave someone beside the road?
Normally when someone writes a book, before the first chapter the author writes a preface. The reason behind writing a preface is to explain to the reader why and what is the purpose of the book they’re about to read. I didn’t write a preface because first I don’t think many people actually read a preface, and besides I think the best place to put a purpose in mine book is right here, at the end of the first chapter because this is the best place to put it and putting it at the end of the first chapter most people will read it.
I graduated high school in the election year, 1980. I was 18 years old in the spring that year, which meant that I could vote in the presidential election of 1980. The candidates that year was the incumbent President Jimmy Carter, a democrat, running against the republican Ronald Reagon. I didn’t really pay attention to politics when I was in high school. There was no such thing as social media nor cable news, all I knew was to listen to others. It seems everyone at church was against Jimmy Carter, I don’t really know why they were so much against Jimmy Carter, they must have good reasons for turning so against him, after all it just four years ago that these same church people were happy to have a man that was unashamed to call himself born-again Christian. I remember back when Jimmy Carter was running for president, on the cover of Time magazine was Jimmy Carter with the caption- What does it mean to be born-again? Oh, people at church were so happy that “the world” wanted to know how to become born-again. But just 4 years later they changed their minds, Jerry Falwell started the “moral majority”, they then changed their minds and believed that God didn’t want a born-again Chirstian to be our president. I now know why they were so upset, in Jimmy Carter’s first term he would on occasion visit Plains Georgia and if it was on a Sunday, he (Jimmy Carter the President of The United States) would teach his old Sunday School class. There’s no wonder why the conservatives were so upset, God made Sundays where the president could play golf! So, when election day came around in November of 1980, I went to my polling place, which happened to be my old elementary school, and I placed my first presidential vote for Ronald Reagon, I didn’t know any better! The church people all said that Jesus is a republican and Jesus is a conservative. The problem here is that I was raised a Southern Baptist and from what I learned growing up a Southern Baptist, all beliefs are to be based totally on scripture, if you don’t have the scripture to back up what your beliefs, then your belief does not come from God. The belief that Jesus is a conservative and your most important belief is your “God Given” second amendment rights. That is why I’m writing this book, I don’t believe that Jesus is in any way a conservative and your second amendment right is Not God Given. Jesus once told a rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor, how in any way is that being a conservative? Yes I’ll have a chapter devoted to the rich young ruler and what Jesus had to say about the rich. And what Jesus said about the rich is in no way whatsoever conservative. So I’m writing this book to answer the question: Is Jesus a conservative or is he a liberal?