{"id":9465,"date":"2012-09-17T10:08:48","date_gmt":"2012-09-17T14:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=9465"},"modified":"2012-09-17T10:08:48","modified_gmt":"2012-09-17T14:08:48","slug":"christ-of-jerusalem-lost-the-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/09\/christ-of-jerusalem-lost-the-election.html","title":{"rendered":"Christ of Jerusalem Lost the Election"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The\u00a0New York Times<\/em> has an article today<\/a> about the tendency of candidates in Brazil to adopt creative and at times outlandish pseudonyms. From that article<\/a> I learned that \u201cChrist of Jerusalem\u201d lost an election back in 2008, while Batman and a couple of James Bonds are currently on various ballots.<\/p>\n

The appearance of a \u201cChrist\u201d on the ballot got me thinking. There are plenty of people who say that their true allegiance is to Jesus, and they will even make T-shirts, badges, and bumper stickers which say things like \u201cJesus for President.\u201d Here are a couple of examples:<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

What needs to be remembered by contemporary Christians is not only that Jesus is not literally running for office today, but that \u201crunning for office\u201d might be a useful analogy for what Jesus did \u2013 and didn\u2019t do \u2013 in the first century. The evidence suggests that he didn\u2019t garner enough popular support so that, had it been a matter of elections, Jesus would have been the successful candidate.<\/p>\n

I suspect that most people who talk about \u201cvoting for Jesus\u201d really don\u2019t have a clear sense of who Jesus<\/a> was as a\u00a0historical\u00a0figure and what he stood for. Jesus is an icon for them, who stands for their own cherished values.<\/p>\n

If they really had to deal with the actual historical figure of Jesus as a candidate, without the benefit of hindsight but as a person confronting them with his claims and statements as Jesus did in his time, I suspect that a significant number of Christians would not vote for him. And I think that would be true across the political and economic spectrum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What do readers think?<\/p>\n

Let me close with one last example. I have to say that I find this banner striking \u2013 it seems as though whoever made it didn\u2019t click that \u201cson of man\u201d is one of the ways that Jesus is referred to in the New Testament\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0New York Times has an article today about the tendency of candidates in Brazil to adopt creative and at times outlandish pseudonyms. From that article I learned that \u201cChrist of Jerusalem\u201d lost an election back in 2008, while Batman and a couple of James Bonds are currently on various ballots. The appearance of a \u201cChrist\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131,11,39,42,67],"tags":[1360,1531,1543,1828,1835,1848,2999,5669,5677,9479,9480],"class_list":["post-9465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity-religion","category-christology","category-historical-jesus","category-humor","category-new-testament-bible","tag-brazil","tag-campaign","tag-candidates","tag-christ","tag-christian","tag-christians","tag-elections","tag-jerusalem","tag-jesus","tag-president","tag-presidential"],"yoast_head":"\nChrist of Jerusalem Lost the Election<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The\u00a0New York Times has an article today about the tendency of candidates in Brazil to adopt creative and at times outlandish pseudonyms. 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