Jesus Wasn't a Conservative (but He Wasn't a Liberal Either) - Part 2.

Yesterday we looked at attempts by the German Christian movement to reinvent Jesus in order to support Nazi ideals, mainly by recasting him as a Gentile or a destroyer of Judaism. Today we will look at an influential theologian who fought against this movement.

Karl Barth  Wikimedia Commons

The Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968), in response to these attempts to redefine Jesus, emphasised Jesus’ Jewishness, writing:

“A Jew, an Israelite, a Hebrew, Jesus is the Christ – that is the bit of earthly history, which takes place on the way from Israel to the Greeks, that is, to the whole world. We cannot split Jesus Christ and seek to retain only one of the two components. Jesus Christ would not be what He is, were He not the Christ, the Commissioner who come out of Israel, who is the Jew Jesus.”[1]

For Barth, it was essential that Christ was Jewish because of his place in the Salvation history. God had made a covenant with the people of Israel that He would save them. In antiquity names and titles carried a significant weight and meaning; they expressed an idea, revelation. The name Jesus and Christos carry significant weight. Jesus, or Joshua, means “Jehovah helps” and Christos is the Greek translation of the Jewish messiah, the one who would save Israel. The fact that the Jewish people had survived into modern day times when so many others crumbled was the greatest testament to Barth of God’s faithfulness in His covenant. Israel was by no means faithful to God. The Old Testament constantly portrays them as screwing up and running away from the God who calls them. But by sending Jesus, Israel becomes an example of God’s grace. Barth writes:

Jesus Wasn't a Conservative (but He Wasn't a Liberal Either) - Part 1.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

It seems like there’s a bit of a battle over Jesus these days with each side wanting to claim him for themselves. The conservative Christians loudly proclaim that Jesus is a conservative; the liberals argue that Jesus is a liberal, and the Marxists argue that Jesus was a Marxist. In fact I hear these claims all the time. But I don’t think that we can rightly make those claims. Why? The obvious reason is that apply these modern political systems on a first century preacher from Palestine is quite anachronistic. Saying that Jesus was a Greenie makes about as much sense as saying that Alexander the Great was one too.

But with that out of the way, what’s to stop us from saying that Jesus represented a proto-political party? Could he have been a proto-21^st century conservative or liberal? However, I would caution against identifying Jesus as belonging to a particular political ideology. Why? Well we’re going to look at a rather extreme example from history.