Matthew Dowd, who worked for the Bush administration as a campaign adviser, made some statements that, in general, conscientious Christian people would probably find troublesome.  Acknowledging that many people have their differences of opinion, such as not believing in the God of the Bible, it is worth asking how they manage to identify as Christian, as well as wondering if Dowd in particular has done his due diligence when studying the Gospel.

First, the offending statement in full:

The entire message of the gospels of the Easter holidays was love one another. And I have said this before, and I'll say it again: If Jesus Christ was alive today, He would be called a groomer, He would be called woke, and He would be called a socialist if He was alive today.

First, his usage of the phrase "if Jesus Christ was alive today ..."

This is something that makes no sense to me as a conventional Christian.  If you believe in the Gospel, then you will recall that Christ was crucified, died on the cross, was entombed, and then on the third day rose again.  Notice that Christ's death was temporary, commonly referred to as Him conquering death.  That is to say, if you believe in the Gospel narrative, then it makes sense that you would be aware that your acceptance of Christ as Savior includes that He rose from death.  This was the first red flag.

Next, Dowd's claim about Christ being called a groomer.  Gorovsky Law, which specializes in helping those who survive sexual assault, states that the American Bar Association defines grooming as "a preparatory process in which a perpetrator gradually gains a person's or organization's trust with the intent to be sexually abusive."

So I would say his interpretation of Christ is severely outside what orthodox Christians believe.  They would not call Christ a groomer because Christ did not gain anyone's trust with the intent of abusing him, and only a severe misreading of the Gospel would ever conclude this.  I will grant Matthew Dowd only one thing: he probably thought he was being more clever than he was in recalling Christ's words of Matthew 19:14: "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven."  Dowd probably meant that Christ's insistence on treating children with love and respect would have earned Him derision and suspicion in the eyes of His adversaries and that they would slander Him as a groomer.

The rest of Dowd's statement is a common line for how we should support certain policies because they are positions he believes Christ would advocate: "He would be called woke, and He would be called a socialist."  These lines have been used for many years as excuses for Christian support for socialist policies and woke ideologies.  The first claim mainly concerns the passages in Acts chapters 2–5, most specifically 2:44-45: "And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need."

Now, there are clearly those who believe in the former positions and those who do not.  I do not wish to debate that here.  I simply am pointing out that what Dowd claimed, using his own logic, is that Christ would have gained the trust of individuals, in particular children, in order to sexually abuse them just as He would advocate for an economic system that seeks to redress grievances through a controlled economy because it is the right thing to do.  If he meant something else, he did not say it.

Breason Jacak is a pen name.

Image: Library of Congress.