Saturday, January 14, 2017

In His Steps

Just a brief thought that popped into my head recently.  Compare this:
"We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated," [Donald Trump] said.
With this:
At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants..."
This is, I think, a fair comparison, because Jesus was at odds with the educated, respectable elements of his society: the priests, the scribes (which means literate men), Torah scholars.  His first followers were also "unlettered."  The apostle Paul, whom most liberal Christians hate while drawing on his doctrines, was unusual among early Christians in this respect. This pattern continued for a long time in early Christendom.  Yet the same liberals who tout Jesus as if he were one of them nowadays are utterly contemptuous of the kind of people Jesus appealed to.

It shouldn't be necessary to point it out, but unfortunately it probably is: to say this is not to endorse Trump.  If anything, the similarity counts against Jesus.  And the reactions of many educated liberals to Trump's victory have certainly shown the limitations of being well educated.