The Bourgeois Christ

by Richard Dieterle

Conservative Christians seem to think that they have a champion in Jesus: Jesus has a position on drugs, Jesus has a position on abortion, Jesus loves the American flag, and wants to amend our constitution; he wants us to balance our budget, and yes, he wants a whole lot less taxing-and-spending on welfare so that we can increase our bomber fleet in His Name, amen. Jesus has become a hard working, middle class, gentleman (in the present day watered down sense of the term). It's hard to imagine this Jesus as anyone other than a well dressed businessman going about the normal acquisitive pursuits of American life. Since the work of Durkheim, it's hardly been an insight to say that we have recreated the divine in our own social image. Yet the conservative image represents a true revolution in its root sense, albeit a 180° turn, unlike the original Protestant ambition to return to the beginning. The Christ of the right stands in stark contrast with his own origins, a shadow projection of the now historically reified bourgeois (and con-servative) gentleman.

As long as we are being anachronistic, we should ask, Does Jesus belong on the right wing or on the left? Let's consider what the oldest gospel (Mark's) has Jesus say on one of the most central issues distinguishing the left from the right: public expenditures for the poor. In one of its stories, a rich man asks Jesus how he might inherit eternal life. After he hears the man confirm his devotion to the Ten Commandments, Jesus tells him, "There is one thing that you lack: go sell what you have and give [it] to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." (Mk 10:21) This saying expresses the economic thinking of Mark's gospel (euangelion, or "good news"): those who have the means are to give according to what they have, and those who are in need are to receive according to the degree of their destitution. This should have an oddly familiar ring to it, especially if we turn away from the right and consider the greatest left-wing "evangelist" of the modern world (Marx), who expresses much the same idea: "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need." This aphorism, by the way, is far superior in literary conception to the rather bland words that God inspired Mark to write. Here, then, is another difference that both Communists and Christians will find equally distressing: the position of Jesus on the issue of the distribution of wealth is somewhere far to the left of Karl Marx. Mark's Jesus doesn't merely hold that the rich should supply the wants of the needy as they are able, he believes that the rich should give everything they own to the poor; unfortunately, if you don't do this, your chances of eternal life are very seriously crimped: about as crimped as a camel squeezing through the eye of a needle. Furthermore, having given up all their belongings (save a few essentials), the true believers are enjoined to follow Jesus. And when they are on the Way, what are they to take? According to Mark (6:8 - 10): "He charged them to take nothing for their journey save only a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. And he said to them, 'Where you enter a house, remain there until you leave the place'." Such people are living completely off the dole. Ironically, Jesus wants the wealthy and devout to become what they hate most: destitute vagabonds.

And what about the dreaded taxes that conservatives would rather pocket themselves? The "good news" of the gospel, I'm afraid, is more of the same (forgive the anachronistic translation): "He knowing their hypocrisy said to them, 'Why put me to the test? Bring me a quarter, and let me look at it.' And they brought one. And he said to them, 'Whose likeness ... is this?' They said to him, 'Washington's.' Jesus said to them, 'Render unto Washington the things that are Washington's, and to God the things that are God's'." (Mk 12:15 - 17) Message: your soul and your devotion belong to God; your money belongs to them who coined it -- in other words, forget about anything at all materialistic. The Jesus of Mark is what we would now call a fanatic leftist. This hippy-like champion of utter destitution is a far cry from the bourgeois Christ of the Christian right. Compared to the Jesus of Mark, Karl Marx is a stuffy conservative given to half-way measures. Even though the gospel Jesus is probably a fictional or legendary character, it is pretty clear what he would have thought of the conservative agenda of his so-called "followers" in contemporary America.

And what would conservatives think of Jesus people? Fortunately, we are not left entirely to speculation. A few years ago there arose from the ever fertile soil of California a strange cult whose members seemed actually to practice the dictates of Jesus, save that they had one added proviso: they could not wear leather out of respect for the lives of animals. It was truly a wonder to see such living fossils in the modern age: they wore robes and sandals, and traveled extensively preaching the Word, all the while relying on charity for food and lodging. However, they were ill received in the Christian Midwest. One summer, I saw a group of them get on the bus I was riding. It was not long before a number of old white women began angrily excoriating them for their lack of virtue: although in their robes and shower slippers they looked as if they had just stepped out of the tub, they were by no means clean; their attire was deemed unfit for public viewing; they had no means of support, leading the lives of vagabonds; and worst of all, they were "weird." The debate soon escalated into a ferocious shouting match, and it was readily apparent that the Weirds had woven for this sect a fate of oblivion, a doom soon after realized. Truly, His kingdom is not of this world. Were Jesus to reappear as a preacher, most Americans would expect him to have "real" (= bourgeois) virtues: he would be clean, well kept, attired in shoes and respectable clothes, employed at a hard-working job, and possessed of a self-effacing compassion for the rich. And those engaged in the imitatio Christi using this bourgeois Jesus will of course be rewarded with eternal life in his heavenly kingdom.

What would conservatives think of this paradise? We have a pretty good idea of this too. In the ultra-conservative McCarthy era, many books were removed from library shelves for being too leftist. Among these was the Wizard of Oz series. It was never made entirely clear why this was done, but a quick look at Oz as portrayed in the author's sequels makes it clear enough. Oz was a largely classless society ruled by a kind of princess, where work was limited and everyone's needs were fulfilled. This sounded suspiciously like what our late Uncle Joe was touting as the final objective of the proletarian revolution. All utopias have a great deal in common: the utopias of Marx and of Mark's Jesus are certainly no exception. It seems more likely that Oz was modeled after heaven (where no one may enter except as a child), rather than the very similar world envisioned as the final evolution of the material forces of history. The confusion is understandable: Heaven is ruled by an absolute, all-powerful dictator who has the natural urge of all primates to be shown constant deference by everyone weaker than himself. However, his benevolence is patent: everyone will get what they need without work, and since the only rich people admitted will have been those who squeezed in through the eye of a needle, there will be no class distinctions (except for the vanguard of the Christian revolution: Jesus, his earthly family, angels, and saints). Heaven looks very much like something that would appeal to Marxist-Leninists; and therein lies the paradox: the reward of the Christian who tirelessly fights for the faith against the Communists will be eternal life in a regime that can scarcely be told apart from that of his mortal enemies. But, Good News! the Gospel truth is that most conservatives will not have to worry about going to that Commie heaven in the sky: it's reserved solely for bleeding hearted, leftist, do-gooders.

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