Hippie Jesus is a trope that has been very frequently promoted in left-wing rhetoric, it is based on a false framing and mischaracterization of Jesus Christ as some left-wing icon. From claims that he was a socialist, immigrant or even homosexual. The trope generally comes either from left-wing atheists who try to use it as a means to counter-signal white evangelicals and “expose” their supposed hypocrisy but the tropes have also been promoted by liberal factions of mainline protestants, peace churches and Catholics. And some even outright promoting blatant heretical positions (Unitarianism, Antinomianism, Queer Theology, Progressive Christianity). These heretical ideals are often based on cherry picked pop culture verses like “Judge not lest ye be judged”, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”, “Turn the other cheek”, ect without actually reading the whole chapter to get the context.
It is very clear by looking at the attitudes that the Christian Left projects their own self-centered political views onto Christ and try to shoehorn them into a Christian moral worldview. For that reason Christians should push back against amoral pseudo-christian leftists and debunk their politically loaded false charges against Christ. Which is why I am writing this in order to debunk the various claims that have emerged from the hippie Jesus caricature.
To be clear I am against any form of politicization of Christ, whether people claim he’s liberal, socialist, conservative, ect. You can use Christian moral teachings to help guide your politics but you can never project your personal politics onto Christian morality.
Jesus was a socialist
This claim is a bit annoying to deal with because what’s actually meant by socialism here will vary by the person making the claim. Are we talking about European welfarism often mischaracterized as socialism? Are we talking about the socialist stage towards a classless, stateless communist society? Are we talking about collective ownership of the means of production? In any case Jesus Christ has never once advocated any policies related to any of those, and even the thought that Christ could be identified with man-made ideologies that he predates by nearly two thousand years is already laughable and enough to throw this claim out the window. As John 18:36 states “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
Christ did stand up for the poor and sick while being critical towards the rich and establishment. But that does not make him socialist let alone political, charity is a universal value. Many conservative christian ideas such as Catholic social teaching, Christian Democracy and Neo-Calvinism all favored forms of safety for the poor and even free marketeers believe in charity for the poor and sick through voluntary means.
Socialism on the other hand has not merely been about charity but has a history of violence and destruction including mass persecution of Christians. The Soviet Union’s gosateizm, the exhuming of nuns by Spanish communists, the Krnjeuša massacre, Mao’s cultural revolution, indeed socialism is one of the most anti-christian ideologies in practice.
Christian Socialists will often use Matthew 19, specifically the story of the young rich man, as an argument that rich people cannot enter heaven and that you must sell your possessions. However we are going to have to need to read the the story of the young rich man in its broader context. The young rich man asked Christ what good deeds he must do to achieve eternal life (19:16). When Christ gave him the commandments (19:17–19) the young rich man said he kept those and asked what he lacked (19:20) and it was then when Christ told him that if he wanted to be perfect (emphasis on perfect) he would sell all that he possessed and give it to the poor so he will have great treasures in heaven (19:20). The young man then left sorrowful (19:22) It was then when Christ said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God (19:24) The disciples then asked who then can be saved. (19:25) Christ answers that with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. (19:26).
What this means is that Christ never condemned rich people to hell, rather he challenged the arrogance of a young rich man who assumed he could enter heaven merely through his own good deeds and emphasized how impossible it is for any human to be sinless and achieve salvation on their own.
Jesus was an immigrant/refugee
With the refugee crisis we have seen a rise of NGOs and left-wing activists engage in human trafficking and the importing of economic migrants and anti-christian terrorists under the false guise of humanitarian action. And the pseudo-christian left once again feels compelled to use Christ for their propaganda. Claiming that Christ himself was an immigrant/refugee based on the fact that Christ was born in Bethlehem but Mary and Joseph fled with him to Egypt to escape Herod the Great and then later returned to Nazareth. However the argument here lies with the definition of refugee:
“a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster”
Egypt and Judea, the latter of which Nazareth and Bethlehem were located were both under the rule of the Roman Empire at the time. So Mary and Joseph were never forced to leave the country but merely moved to a different province, the fact that it was both under Roman territory was the reason they could move there. It would be like arguing that someone fleeing California and moving to Texas is an immigrant/refugee. It’s a nonsensical argument.
It should furthermore be noted that very few people have issues with accepting refugees genuinely seeking to escape persecution. But countries must balance that with security, border law and numbers. Leftists have already try to expand the definition of refugee to include economic migrants such as the ones in Mexico. Our completely open border attitude to accepting refugees has led to exploitation, security risks and cultural conflict. Simply saying that the bible tells us to be compassionate is therefor not applicable to such a complex issue.
Jesus Christ was gay
Just….no.
Every now and then you’ll probably find some edgy shock article from Vice about speculating the sexuality of Jesus and it will be from some heretical fake bishop. While I do think that a lot of very conservative christians have focused way too much on the sin of homosexuality as opposed to other sinful behaviors that we all commit this poor attempt to justify homosexuality in biblical terms is complete nonsense.
The argument of Christ being homosexual revolves his celibacy. They argue that celibacy was frowned upon in Jewish society as it was expected that men would marry and father a family, some have argued his refusal to marry a woman is potential evidence for homosexuality, however this is extremely far reaching as it is shown in the bible that Christ had a very positive view on celibacy and often went against the Jewish customs of the time, so him being celibate in such a context is not unusual. Another argument revolves around the “disciple whom Jesus loved” which many speculate is the apostle John as the gospel John is the only one who mentions it. Some have claimed this is evidence that Jesus has a homosexual or even pederastic relationship however this is based on a false translation of love. The phrase love here is translated from the Greek Agape (ἀγάπη) which describes affection towards family or an activity entirely seperated from lust, this is in contrast to Eros (Ἔρως) which is sexual love. Think of the phrase “For God loved the world” in the case of agape for example
Within the context of Christian theology it is impossible for Christ to have been gay, for one homosexuality is stated to be a sin even in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 6:9). This verse uses a Greek word that Paul seems to have coined called arsenokoitai which is likely a neologism of arsen (man) and kotai (bed) which he likely derived from a Greek translation of Leviticus, so in context condemns homosexuality. And Christ is without sin.
Furthermore homosexuality was condemned by Jewish customs at the time yet during the trials against Christ they were completely unable to find any evidence or testimony that proved Christ broke any Jewish customs. (Matthew 26:59–60).
In general any discussion about Christ’s sexuality is rather futile since Christ is God and God is not going to go in a sexual relationship with his creation.
Jesus Christ associated with prostitutes
So let’s get things clear here first. There is a very clear difference between condemning sin but still forgiving sinners vs encouraging and being okay with sin. Christ is about the former, if you intentionally misinterpret God’s mercy as one of Christ being somehow a super tolerant pro-sex worker type you need to be excommunicated. So even if he associated with prostitutes that does not really imply anything other than what we already know, that Christ came to save the sinful.
But there’s also no evidence that he hung out with prostitutes. What people are talking about here is in reference to Mary Magdalene. But nowhere in the bible has it ever been confirmed that Mary was a prostitute. There was a case of a sinful woman washing Christ’s feet in Luke but it was never stated that she was a prostitute. It was Pope Gregory the Great who claimed the connection between the sinful woman and Mary and from there the idea that she was a prostitute came into being without any scriptural evidence, this claim was retracted by the 1960s but since then the framing of Mary as a prostitute has stuck.
Jesus Christ told us not to judge
This one is often used by left-wing christians whenever any other christian dares to call out sin. This is in reference to Matthew 7:1–3 and like pretty much any verse the left uses it’s always a single verse that ignores all the context. Matthew 7 is in fact filled with judgement, ordering us not to give that what is holy to the unholy “dogs” and “pigs” (Matthew 7:6, telling us how to recognize false prophets (7:15–16) and that’s just Matthew 7. The verse in a broader context simply says that if you yourself are a greater sinner than the one you call out for sin, then you are a hypocrite who should first fix himself before trying to call out others, but not being a hypocrite does not mean we can call out sin where it emerged, nor does any scholar accept that the verse has ever referred to condemning all forms of judgement.
“Jesus was a pacifist”
Once again a myth perpetuated by a pop culture verse without the proper context behind it, in this case it’s Luke 6:27–31 which tells us to love your enemy and to turn the other cheek. However this verse is in response to retaliation and revenge, like eye for an eye, and should not be interpreted as a call for pacifism and to never engage in self-defense.
Jesus tells his followers to buy a sword if they don’t have one (Luke 22:36), that a strong fully armed man guardian his palace is safe (Luke 11:21), he chased out men from a temple with a whip after they turned it into a market (John 2:13–16) and is described as a warrior during the end times (Revelation 19:11–21).
Conclusion:
Christ was a very unique person, even if you were to assume he was only a mortal historical figure. His views on the poor and sick, his forgiveness towards sin, his moral teachings were unheard of in such a period. But he is not the modern free loving hippie caricature the left tries to portray him as. He encourages his followers to take up arms, he condemns fornication, he tells us to not give that is holy to the undeserving, quite frankly the actual Christ would likely be condemned as bigoted in the 21st century. But it is a desperate attempt to shame Christians into their immoral worldview
