Althouse: "Let me teach you about love, Jesus — tough love!... You need a sustainable pro-business model."

March 16, 2017

"Let me teach you about love, Jesus — tough love!... You need a sustainable pro-business model."

"And you need to give people freedom, Jesus, the freedom to suffer misery and poverty."

So said "Pious Paul of Ryan" in a conversation with Jesus, as imagined by Nicholas Kristof in the NYT.

ADDED: For comparison, here's Dostoyevsky's "Grand Inquisitor."

32 comments:

M Jordan said...: "He who does not work shall not eat." Apostle Paul

Soft Christianity has had the last fifty years and it's about to collapse just like gauzy liberalism. Maybe it is time for some tough love.; 3/16/17, 9:07 AM
W.B. Picklesworth said...: Christianity is way more liberal than liberals and way more conservative than conservatives. Why, it's almost it's very own thing!

I'd sooner get chemotherapy from a plumber than theological input from the New York Times.

Cast down the idol of politics. It is a petty little god.; 3/16/17, 9:11 AM
DanTheMan said...: Jesus said the poor will always be with us. The NYT knows better.; 3/16/17, 9:16 AM
Darcy said...: I love when non-believers use Jesus just like this! Edifying, ain't it?; 3/16/17, 9:21 AM
MikeR said...: It is not my fault that you cannot understand any point of view besides your own.; 3/16/17, 9:25 AM
Sam L. said...: I have no interest in Kristof's imaginings.; 3/16/17, 9:32 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: I love where Jesus says Render unto Caesar all responsibility to care for the poor.

That alone proves that what Jesus would do is vote Democrat.; 3/16/17, 9:38 AM
Jim said...: If there is one thing I've learned from the pro-abortion crowd, it is that your religious opinion has no place in discussion of public policy. Oh, unless you are the anti-death penalty, health care is a right, or livable wage; then religion is the default go to reference.; 3/16/17, 9:57 AM
Jupiter said...: The NYT does not want me to read the earnest scribblings of Mr. Kristof, because I have not paid for the privilege. I certainly would not wish to steal nonsense from a dying old Gray Lady. You'll just have to read it for me and tell me what it says.; 3/16/17, 9:58 AM
Jupiter said...: But now about Dostoeyevsky -- wasn't he Russian?; 3/16/17, 9:59 AM
Chris N said...: Bring back Mark Bittman's summer squash of Social Justice!; 3/16/17, 10:00 AM
Michael K said...: Kristof's smarmy version of Christianity kept my interest for about four sentences.; 3/16/17, 10:03 AM
ga6 said...: they deserve each other..; 3/16/17, 10:03 AM
Oso Negro said...: I will never understand why people who feel compelled to "help" the poor can't simply do it with their own fucking money and leave mine alone.; 3/16/17, 10:13 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: When it comes to the poor, I ask myself what would Jesus do.

Jesus, being God, has within his ability to instantly end all poverty, illness, and hunger. He chooses not to.

I'm walking in His footsteps, carefully stepping over the poor, ill, and hungry.; 3/16/17, 10:24 AM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: Hilarious when Lefties try to shame people with a Christianity that the Left despises. Interesting though that they never invoke Islam. Can't imagine why.; 3/16/17, 10:25 AM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: Holy fuck I love when Leftists lecture me on what Christians should believe and/or how Christians should vote. It's my favorite thing, nearly.

Hey Nick, what would Jesus say about your actual sacrament, abortion? He'd love it, I bet.

Asshole.; 3/16/17, 10:36 AM
Bill said...: Kristof is less credible than usual here.; 3/16/17, 10:43 AM
MD Greene said...: I'm getting a little tired of preachy zealots battling imaginary paper tigers (here Paul Ryan) that they have made up out of whole cloth. Better to say what you believe, and let other people speak for themselves.

My understanding of Jesus differs fundamentally from that of the NYT editorial staff. The Good Samaritan, for example, is good because he PERSONALLY comes to the aid of the stranger in need.

From Matthew: "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.... Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Jesus never said the path to virtue involved paying a lot of taxes and outsourcing the human responsibility of caring for others to government bureaucrats.; 3/16/17, 10:45 AM
Wince said...: "Let me teach you about love, Jesus — tough love!... You need a sustainable pro-business model."

I can't tell: was Kristof's article about the NYT paywall?; 3/16/17, 11:01 AM
BN said...: Kristoff v. Dostoyevsky? Not fair.

Oh, I see what you did there.

Also see Kipling's "The Gods of the Copybook Headings".; 3/16/17, 11:02 AM
Sigivald said...: That tells me far more about Kristoff than Ryan.; 3/16/17, 11:31 AM
Hunter said...: "The magic sky fairy and his son the Easter zombie that you believe in are not real, FYI."

"But let me explain to you what government policies they would demand you support."

"No I haven't, why would I want to read a boring self-contradictory fantasy work written by Bronze Age goat herders?"; 3/16/17, 11:40 AM
n.n said...: Redistributive change and affordable are congruent, but not equivalent. Perhaps if the NYT would recognize the dignity of individuals, not classes, and the intrinsic value of human life, not the profit from colorful clumps of cells, they may one day appreciate the distinction.; 3/16/17, 12:13 PM
Yancey Ward said...: I am as non-religious as it is possible to be, and I cringe when I read tripe like this from Kristof. It fucking embarrasses me.; 3/16/17, 12:50 PM
traditionalguy said...: Jesus as Marxist is strong these days. And we have the sudden new Jesuit playing the role of a Pope Dope calling himself Frances that has taken over to order the Catholics into an endorsement of Global Governance. Global Governance Saves...from global warming. What more do you need?

The world requires One New Religion to legitimize its one new World Government, and Francis has put his Pope's hat into the ring to do this dirty job.; 3/16/17, 1:06 PM
sean said...: Wow, if there's one thing I don't read, it's columns by unbelievers telling me what Jesus thinks. (I don't usually read columns by believers on that topic either, because I know what Jesus thinks just as well as anyone else, so I don't learn anything from that sort of column.); 3/16/17, 2:53 PM
Martin said...: Socialism* = Christianity - God + the State

* or whatever "liberals" are willing to call their utopia; 3/16/17, 2:55 PM
JaimeRoberto said...: I thought one of the tenets of Christianity was free will, and free will means that you might screw things up. Trying to control people's lives with god-like power seems to be go against free will.; 3/16/17, 5:25 PM
DavidD said...: Progressives are all about the separation of Church and State until they want to use the Bible to justify their political views.; 3/16/17, 10:31 PM
hombre said...: Kristof is a distinguished columnist who was born into the progressive circle jerk and, despite his travels, never left it. His biblical analysis stinks of it.

I don't like Ryan or his proposal, but I like even less Kristof's cynical use of Jesus and the Bible to make his point.; 3/17/17, 1:41 AM
jg said...: small potatoes next to theodicy
and this insufferable kristof thinks he's blowing minds; 3/18/17, 2:16 PM