Jesus Never Charged a Co-pay: the Left is Using Religion to Sell Liberalism

To any liberal reading the above headline, the first thought may be, “Conservatives have been doing that for years.”

They may well be true.

Religion, for those who ascribe to it, is a motivating factor in life outside the church; politics is no exception.

Within this paradigm of religion fueling passion for legislative change, meet North Carolina pastor and political leader (always a potent combo) Reverend William Barber.

To Barber, he isn’t liberal; he’s just, you know, really really cool. As he recently told The Guardian:

“There is no religious left and religious right…There is only a moral center. And the scripture is very clear about where you have to be to be in the moral center – you have to be on the side of the poor, the working, the sick, the immigrant.”

That sounds like the talking points of a Democrat.

The Guardian points out:

“The Poor People’s Campaign, a revival of Martin Luther King’s final effort to unite poor Americans across racial lines, last week brought together activists from several faiths, the Women’s March, the labor movement and other liberal organizations to launch 40 days of civil disobedience and protest against inequality, racism, ecological devastation and militarism.”

How is a far Left group a revival of Martin Luther King’s efforts? Additionally, it’s interesting that, according to Barber — and The Guardian — the need to unify people across racial lines is not matched by the need to unite them across partisan lines. Unless they’re blaming them for the ills of society, the Left seem to all but forget the Right exists. Want to solve a problem? There is only one people: liberal people.

And as one of those fixers of America’s ills, here is Barber, at the 2016 Democratic National Convention:

Don’t mistake the Reverend for a traditionalist. According to him, many age-old interpretations of the Bible aren’t just wrong; they’re shamefully preposterous takeaways:

“Barber, a co-chair of the campaign, says some conservative faith leaders have ‘cynically’ interpreted the Bible’s teachings to demonize homosexuality, abortion, scientific facts and other religions. They are guilty, he says, of ‘theological malpractice’ and ‘modern-day heresy.’”

So to interpret the Bible as saying homosexuality is wrong, due to the fact that it says homosexuality is wrong, is Biblical heresy? I’m just trying to understand.

Absolutely, insists Pastor Bill.

“’They say so much about the issues where the Bible says so little,’ Barber said, repeating a refrain he often deploys to criticize the religious right. ‘But they speak so little about the issues where the Bible says so much.’”

And the thing it speaks “so much” about, apparently, is socialized healthcare. To be clear, in modern times, that’s where everyone pays an exorbitant amount for healthcare, yet they pay it through taxes so they don’t think about it. Ta-da!

To Barber, it’s just magically free:

“Jesus set up free healthcare clinics everywhere he went. He healed everybody and never charged a leper a co-pay.”

Hmmm… Well, did Jesus have overhead? Did he have medical school loans to repay? A mortgage?

Religion is an adherence to faith. As explained in the King James Version,  “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

In the real world, things cost time, money, and effort; nothing is free. And the seen evidence of the unworkable nature of liberalism is around us and behind us, in history.

Hopefully, whatever one’s religious views, we can all learn lessons from history’s leftist failures. Otherwise, we’re doomed to repeat them. Because, despite Reverend William Barber’s message, we aren’t Jesus.

Do you think the Bible endorses one political philosophy over another? Please let me know in the Comments.

In a related story, check out my coverage of The View’s take on the plight of black people under Trump.

And please — by all means, follow Alex Parker on Twitter.

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