Reconciling

IN THE UNITED STATES it often seems that the msot fervant, zealous, devout Christians are also the most fervant, zealous, devout conservative Republicans, and worst of all, Trump supporters. It sometimes almost seems as if there is a societal marriage of sorts between fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity and political, economic, and social conservatism, and, especially now, between evangelical Christianity and the Trump movement, of which many of its members are idneed evangelicals. Social conservatism; limitations on various forms of pleasure, seems somewhat compatibale with the message of Jesus Christ, who preached devotion to God rather than to things of the flesh or material wealth. Aligning modern American political and economic conservatism with the basie, widely understood ideology espoused by Jesus is arguably a much more difficult, even impossible undertaking; that Christianity and conservatism are, in fact incompatible. Modern American conservatism embraces capitalism of the purest kind, with as little government involvement and regulation of it as possible. The wealthy become wealthy with God's approval. Jesus, however, in all his comments, was very obviously a hard core advocate for redistributing wealth, from the wealthy to the poor. He also famously told people to pay their taxes, and quit complaining about it. Taxing the ridh, redistirbuiting teh wealth by assistance for the poor are all liberal, progressive policies, not conservative. It seems quite a stretch of logic and imagination to construe that the teachings of Jesus are favorable to corporate capitalism, but not democratic socialism. He seems, in fact, to strongly encourage voluntary personal poverty. Or at least a mdoest standard lf living. For the walthy to enter into heaven, Jesus warns, is essentially impossible. The Bible says nothing about many of our most controversial political issues of today, including climate change, racism, economic equality and inequality, and abortion. We must extrapolate, trying to match the general intent of Jesus's teachings with our modern circumstances. Somehow, intuitively, one is impelled to sense that nurturing the child in the womb unto its birth day and beyond seems much more in the spirit of Jesus than willfully aborting a fetus. The solution to the abortion issue is neither liberal nor conservative politics, but rather, safe, effective, accessible contraception. Ultimately, all our global concerns have solutions, and the Christian message can be a worthy guide in decision making. Ignoring or distorting this message in pursuit of personal gain and for personal convenience can result in abominations and harmful contradictions such as "Christian conservatism".