The Leftists (Mis)Understanding of Jesus' Message

Strolling through the vast intellectual wasteland of the internet, I ran across a little gem that was a response to a Christian article explaining why he was opposed to gay marriage...

And irony of ironies, it is precisely the opposite of the message the Christian Savior tried to bring: that salvation is found only through love, through inclusion, through openness of mind and heart and spirit, through, ultimately, trust -- that this world, with all its difficulties and pain and imperfections, built through evolution, and including endless Others, is as it should be, as it was intended to be.

Just how many ways can one person be so wrong?  

Of course, there was more to the rant, but this really encapsulates the gist of it.

Let's start with the main point:  that the message the Christian Savior tried to bring is that salvation is found only through love, inclusion and openness of mind, heart and spirit.   Whoever wrote this drivel has obviously not read the Bible, but rather has relied on his or her liberal friends to describe what Christianity is all about.

The message Jesus brought is that Salvation can only be found through his sacrifice; his death and resurrection.  Jesus taught clearly that man was in a fallen state, and that in our sin, God's demand for justice required the penalty for sin, which Jesus paid through his death on the cross.  But even in forgiveness, there comes a response.  Jesus demanded of each person he touched to "go and sin no more".  This was his command to the woman caught in adultery, whom the crowd wanted to stone.  Jesus told the crowd, "He who is without sin should cast the first stone."  But the point wasn't that adultery was just fine and no one should judge the woman.  The point was that ALL of us have committed sins just as vile and wicked in God's eyes as adultery.  When no one was left, Jesus told the woman that he did not condemn her, but then told her to go and leave her life of sin.  

I suspect Jesus' response to the gay community today would be much as it was to those whom he walked among.  He would treat them with love and respect.  But at the same time, he would confront them with their sin.  And at some point, he would require them to make a decision:  Continue in your sin and lose your life (eternally, in hell) or repent, turn from your sin and follow Him.  

The idea of openness of mind can be found nowhere in the teachings of Jesus or in any of the writers of the Bible.  God's demand of all of humanity has always been to follow His commands, not to "find your own path" or to embrace whatever whim of political or social correctness comes along.   If anything, Jesus taught that openness of mind was a "broad path that leads to destruction."  His teachings described a "narrow path to Salvation".  

Inclusion is another liberal ideal that can be found nowhere among the teachings of Jesus.  Even when he ministered to the Samaritan woman at the well, he was not advocating inclusion.  Yes, the Samaritans were outcasts in His society, and yes, men generally did not speak to strange women, let alone ask them for a drink.  But Jesus' purpose was to teach the woman of her sin and to get her to turn from her sin and to follow God's commandments.  His purpose was not to embrace her with love, leave her in her sin, and let her continue her life unchanged.

Everywhere Jesus went, he changed lives.  He changed lives sometimes by showing love and compassion to the downtrodden, by healing the sick, and by living his life as an example.  But his life was a life of following the commandments of God, and he certainly taught that our response to his sacrifice of atonement was to be one of obedience, not one of disdain for God's moral code.