Christianity and the Manipulation of Power

I don’t remember the first time I heard Regan Youth’s “Jesus Was A Communist” (also titled “Jesus Was A Pacifist”), but I remember the impact it has had on me. On the song, Dave Rubinstein sings, over and over again for four verses, “Jesus was a communist/Jesus was a pacifist/Jesus was a communist/Jesus didn’t like the rich.” Reagan Youth pointed out the intersections between Christianity and politics that arose during the Moral Majority and its impact on society. “Jesus Was A Communist” addresses these intersections, pointing out the ways that individuals such as Jerry Falwell rejected Jimmy Carter, a Southern Baptist Christian, and embraced Ronald Reagan. In fact, Carter was, as the authors of the textbook America’s Providential History put it, “an example of a Christian whose mind was unrenewed by Scripture and thus reasoned and governed from a ‘humanistic’ worldview.”

While I do not adhere to labeling Jesus with a political ideology, especially since the political ideologies we have today did not exist during his lifetime, Regan Youth’s point bears noting, especially since they did not originate it. Lillian Smith details, in multiple works, the ways that Christianity distorts the words and teaching of Jesus, and how, even when faced with Jesus’ words and ideas, professing Christians deny them in preference of segregation, oppression, xenophobia, and hate.