Was Jesus the Worst Teacher Ever?

If Christian nationalists are correct and the Christian religion is about being patriotic, armed, anti-abortion and heterosexual, why didn’t Jesus directly teach about any of that?

The answer many Christian Nationalists give to that question is “Jesus didn’t talk about a lot of important things but that doesn’t make them right.” That is very true but it also completely dodges the real question: which is, “How can Christian Nationalists claim to speak for Jesus when their social positions are based almost entirely on things he didn’t say?”

How did Christians Nationalism degenerate from “turn the other cheek” to “stand your ground’? How did Jesus’ call to share the world get replaced by a mindless and heartlessness commitment to free markets? How did Jesus’ call to care for our one human family get replaced with calls to preemptively bomb other nations and to turn the needy sojourner away from our borders?

Jesus never said in order to be married you need to get approval from the church. He never linked marriage with getting a license from the state. Jesus never approved a hierarchy of clergy. Jesus never signed off on any of the creeds that would be developed centuries later. If anything, Jesus rejected the religion of dogma and hierarchy in favor of a life of simplicity, humility, forgiveness and sharing.

When a rich young ruler asked Jesus what to do to inherit eternal life, Jesus didn’t mention baptism, confession of sins, or any of the atonement theories of Paul. He told the young man to share his possessions with the poor. Think about that for a moment. Jesus parable of the good Samaritan is a teaching story about pious religious people getting it wrong and a merciful outsider getting it right.

Doesn’t the story of the good Samaritan imply one doesn’t need to be a sectarian Christian to live the kind of life Jesus described? In fact, the lesson seems to be that a merciful Atheist is actually much closer to the teachings of Jesus than a orthodox but judgmental Christian.

If Christian Nationalism is correct and the essence of Christianity consists in things Jesus never mentioned, then Jesus would have to be the worst teacher of all time. If we assume Jesus WASN’T a bad teacher, then we must also assume he did not come to teach people to be moralists, religious nationalists nor sectarian Christians.