James Talarico vs Ken Paxton for the US Senate has a larger content: The gospel of Jesus Christ. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are on trial in Texas.
Paxton has the same individual gospel interpretation as all the Baptists and other evangelicals in Texas. Talarico comes closer to the social gospel. Walter Rauschenbusch (born Oct. 4, 1861, Rochester, N.Y., U.S.—died July 25, 1918, Rochester) was a clergyman and theology professor who led the Social Gospel movement in the United States.
Perhaps Luke has the best explanation of the politics of Jesus. With a close reading of Luke’s Gospel, I will show Jesus had a radical social ethics and so should his followers.
The problem: Failure to admit Jesus was a radical person. MAGA evangelicals hawk a half-gospel of heaven with little concern for the bodily, physical, material and fleshly needs of humanity.
Evangelical Churches Insist Jesus Is Not the Norm
Here the excuses evangelicals offer for not embracing Jesus as a radical social reformer:
1. An interim ethic because the world was ending soon. No need for Jesus to have an earthly practical ethic.
2. Jesus was a simple rural rabbi.
3. Jesus was a minority with no power.
4. Jesus dealt only with spiritual matters and not social matters. That makes the miracles irrelevant if this is true. All the healings. The feeding of the 5,000.
5. Jesus not giving an example. His earthly life not important. He came to die on the cross for our sins and be raised again to pay for our sins. The rest is unimportant.
6. Jesus is all about individual salvation and not social salvation. Franklin Graham and the sinner’s prayer is all one needs. The poor, the hungry, the sick – not our problem.
7. What “we believe” matters more than “what we do.” Belief not practice.
