Christian leaders respond to claim of Jesus as ACT supporter

On March 18, during a press conference about local government elections, ACT leader David Seymour joked that Jesus would get the party’s endorsement if he ran for the mayoralty in Auckland or Wellington.

Asked whether he thought Jesus would endorse ACT, Seymour said he “very well might”, adding that Jesus believes each person has inherent dignity and thus “the underlying teachings of Jesus and the ACT Party overlap”.

Jesus “may very well support ACT” given the alignment of belief in treating people “with universal human rights”, Seymour said.

But Christian leaders spoken to by The New Zealand Herald didn’t concur with the idea of Jesus being an ACT supporter.

Dr Andrew Picard, who teaches in public and political theology at Hoani Tapu (St John’s Theological College) in Auckland, says Seymour’s characterisation of Jesus “[going] around speaking an apolitical message about the universal equal rights of all people” isn’t the full picture.

“This might have been provocative to the hierarchies of the Roman empire, but it was too innocuous to get you killed,” Dr Picard explained.

“In the context of the Roman occupation of his homeland, Jesus instead spoke about good news for the poor, liberation for the oppressed, release for captives, and God’s preferential concern for the poor and marginalised. He not only spoke it, he embodied it.”

Rev. Frank Ritchie, a Newstalk ZB broadcaster and media chaplain who leads Wesleyan Methodist church Commoners in Hamilton, said that Jesus probably wouldn’t take too much interest in participating in worldly politics.

“I think Jesus would be taking more notice of the homeless, he’d be out there in communities meeting people, healing people – that’s where he’d be investing his time and energy,” he said.

Jesus does care about politics, Rev. Ritchie said, but in a different way from the partisan battles of today.

Archbishop Justin Duckworth, Primate of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia, made a similar point.

“I guess it’s not really about whether Jesus, the God of the whole universe, would give his allegiance to ACT or indeed any political party – or leader, for that matter,” he said.

“But rather (it’s) whether we are giving our allegiance to Jesus, the one whose manifesto is that ‘the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news to the poor, recovery of sight for the blind, and liberty for the oppressed’,” he said, quoting Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Luke.

FULL STORY

Would Jesus vote for Act? Church leaders respond to David Seymour – NZ Herald