"Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’

Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

I have always loved how simply Jesus spells it out.

As a kid, I always felt it was so implausible that the Jews would kill Jesus. Yes he claims to be God, which is a no-no, but how can a message of peace and love be so divisive? As an adult, I've come to realize that it's divisive to people who are angry and filled with hate, to people who hate peace and love. The Pharisees of 30CE are the exact same as most Christians today. If you walked in to some Trump country Baptist church today and flipped over the collection plates and told everyone there they were going to hell because the want to deport immigrants instead of help them, you'd be shot for sure.

You never know when some lunatic will come along with a sadistic choice.

You know, I'm something of a saint myself

Unfortunately they’re doing their best to burn the rest of us in this life.

In the end, every last one of them burns.

If there was a just god, they would all burn. But if there was a just god, they wouldn't get to be billionaires in the first place. Billionaires aren't worried about hell or the afterlife because most of them know deep down that there will be no repercussions for their unethical behavior.

Truth.

Also, the predominant image of fire in the Bible is that of purification (not punishment). So the idea is that billionaires (or other such sinners) will not be simply burned away, but will be confronted with what their wealth hoarding has caused. They will have to endure the pain of being rid of their sinfulness in order come out on the other side. So there are no billionaires in Paradise in the sense that every person who is a billionaire in this life will one day be ridden of their wealth in order to enter said Paradise.

This is precisely the image Jesus uses when He speaks of the “eye of the needle.” Tradition holds that this phrase is in reference to a small gate that required a camel (or other pack animal) laden with goods to be unencumbered in order to pass through. The rich must let go of their wealth in order to enter God’s kingdom in the same way because that wealth is like dross to them.

Pretty sure that is Willem Dafoe from The Last Temptation of Christ.

And yeah, it has Buddy Christ energy.

Ready for that

Also worth noting that the US is not and never has been a "Christian nation." Not only did the Founding Fathers specifically separate church and state for that reason, but they also didn't declare a national religion and enshrined religious freedom as well for that same reason. Plus, half of them were agnostic or atheists. Anybody who says we're a "Christian nation" is just using religion as an excuse for bigotry.

If God truly exists, he more so loves the atheist who questions the world around him than the Christian who blindly follows.

-Thomas Jefferson

Yeah, it's the fruit of almost a century of anti-communist propaganda.

I was raised conservative Christian and I lost my faith in university. You're 100% right but I sometimes feel a strong urge to "convert" back but only practice the cool parts. Like I'd one-up christians and quote Jesus' most socialist verses at them. Maybe start a Facebook page about how the NT has been corrupted in this modern day, conspiracy-theorist style, but the hidden message is just Marxism.

I feel like somebody out there has embodied that, and I'd like to give them space to reclaim the word Christian for themself at least.

no such thing as a “Christian”

Huh?

Another socialist Christian a little more recent than Jesus: you might remember Dr. King. Christianity deserves much more criticism and this is an absolutely correct criticism towards most people who profess to be Christians.

But speaking so absolutely usually means you're wrong. There are plenty of Christians who actually follow Christ and are working to make the world better.

This is a reminder there is no such thing as a “Christian” just people who pretend to be so they have an excuse to act unchristian like towards anyone they envy.

I swear they need to change the name of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy to "No True Christian"

Yup. The great issue with capitalism, is that it wasn't formally designed to enrich society as a whole. It merely is an upgraded iteration of feudalism. You can give a pig a top hat and monocle, but it is still a pig.

We will need a new Constitution, one built to acknowledge that Economics is power. The framers addressed politics and violence, but overlooked the fundamental impact that money has on society. Floors and ceilings on wealth should be implemented, so that the likes of Musk or Trump cannot exist.

This is a lot of mental gymnastics going on here. Reading John 6:10 and Mark 12:13 as "Jesus wouldn't agree with Marx because Marx is of this world and Jesus is only about heaven" is a hell of a leap.

Your analysis would come off slightly less disingenuous if not for the fact that you're a very active poster in the conservative groups and not once have you raised any objection to the religious right being neck-deep in the running of the country. Seems like "don't co-opt Jesus to push your politics" only applies to leftists in your world.

This has got to be one of the most disturbing posts I've seen in a while. You're actively warping the Bible and trying to bend it to fit your narrative. You constantly leap to conclusions that are at best farfetched, or downright blasphemous...

John 6:15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

This comes in the followup of the feeding of the 5000. The crowd, amazed at his power, looks to Jesus as a national savior - someone who will overthrow the Romans and restore Israel's power. Jesus shows very clearly that he does NOT want to seize worldly power - his mission is to change people's minds and hearts. Literally, his is an ideological mission, the opposite of what you wrote.

Mark 12:17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” And they were amazed at him.

Jesus doesn’t say politics don’t matter. He masterfully draws a line between what are worldly concerns, and divine allegiance. Paying taxes doesn’t threaten your relationship with God, but confusing political loyalty with spiritual devotion can.

It pains me how the core of Jesus' message here is being missed: in Genesis, we are told that humans bear the image of God. What Jesus is saying is that the coin has Caesar’s image - give it to him. But WE bear God’s image - so we should give ourselves to God. The Pharisees and the Herodians understood this, and were amazed, and yet somehow the best we can do nowadays is to completely miss the beauty and the meaning in his message, and instead mistake it for "Jesus doesn't do politics".

John 15:19 “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”

Again, you disregard the context and you're try to make it sound like Jesus is arguing that him and his followers are not involved in the affairs of this world, when the very opposite is true. Jesus is speaking to his followers just before his arrest, so he is preparing them to face the persecution and hardships that are to come. They are very much a part of this world, and they want to change it - because of that, they will suffer greatly. What Jesus is telling them is to not compromise their values for the sake of fitting in; to be faithful even when they are criticized or mocked; that they are not without a tribe, but instead they are part of a very different one.

Matthew 6:9, 10 “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’”

Again you keep pushing your narrative that Jesus is talking about something other than human ideology, when your very quote says the opposite: "[Father's] will be done, on earth as it is in heaven". What this prayer says is we want Jesus' teaching to shape the world, and our lives, right now. This isn't some abstract wishful thinking, this is a pledge that we will work so that God's will be done through us, now, everyday, in the real world.

Please, spend some time reflecting on the context of the words and why they were spoken. If you pull them out of context and mishmash them in the way you want, then sure, they may have come from the Bible, but they're are no longer God's word - they are your own, so don't misattribute them to Jesus.