it’s nothing new for a radical atheist to read jesus and draw revolutionary conclusions from christian history. but there’s still so much we can extract from the figure of jesus—so many insights waiting to be uncovered. so really, what does reading jesus today have to teach us?
the world is a mess, and no one’s handing out easy fixes. wars grind on, inequality festers, and the planet’s coughing up warnings we’re too busy to heed. in times like these, you’d think religion would be the last place to look for answers—too tangled up in dogma, too stained by history’s bloodbaths. yet, there’s a stubborn thread in the christian tradition, particularly in the new testament, that refuses to be dismissed. it’s not the sanctimonious hum of church organs or the self-righteous swagger of culture warriors. it’s a raw, unsettling call to stand with the wretched of the earth—the poor, the outcast, the ones the world sweeps under the rug. this isn’t a plea to get spiritual or start praying; it’s a challenge to see how an ancient text might speak to those fighting for a less brutal world, offering a vision of justice that’s as radical now as it was then.
the new testament isn’t a self-help manual or a policy paper. it’s a story of failure and hope, centered on a figure who upends every expectation of power. jesus, a nobody from nowhere, doesn’t ride in with armies or manifestos. he’s a drifter, surrounded by society’s rejects, preaching a kingdom where the last are first and the mighty get humbled. this isn’t the stuff of stained-glass windows; it’s a provocation, a middle finger to the systems that crush the vulnerable. for those on the left—socialists, anarchists, or just anyone sick of the status quo—this should resonate. not because it’s divine truth, but because it’s a blueprint for imagining a world where power isn’t hoarded and dignity isn’t a luxury.
a kingdom for the nobodies
a carpenter’s son, born in a stable, not a palace. no credentials, no wealth, just a knack for pissing off the right people. jesus doesn’t cozy up to the elite or pitch trickle-down salvation. he’s out there with the lepers, the sex workers, the tax collectors—people the respectable would rather forget. his message? god’s on their side, not the side of the priests or the landlords. the kingdom he talks about isn’t some afterlife getaway; it’s a here-and-now upheaval, where the poor eat first and the rich choke on their greed. this is why he ends up dead, nailed to a cross by an empire that didn’t take kindly to rabble-rousers.
this vision clashes with the atheism of folks like dawkins and hitchens—call them “Ditchkins” for short like Terry Eagleton does.—who see religion as a delusion for suckers. they’re not wrong about the horrors religion’s been used to justify: crusades, witch hunts, you name it. but they’re tossing out the baby with the bathwater. the new testament’s god isn’t a cosmic puppetmaster, rigging the universe like some overpaid ceo. as thinkers like aquinas framed it, god’s not a “thing” you can pin down with a microscope. he’s the reason there’s anything at all, a love that spills over into existence for no reason other than joy. ditchkins wants to debate god like he’s a bad science experiment, but that’s missing the point. this theology isn’t about explaining gravity; it’s about why the world’s worth fighting for, even when it’s falling apart.
what’s political here is the insistence on the nobodies. the new testament doesn’t split faith from action—it demands you feed the hungry, shelter the stranger, and call out the powerful. jesus doesn’t just pray for the poor; he tells the rich to give it all away or get lost. this isn’t charity; it’s a restructuring of who gets to matter. for anyone who’s ever marched for justice or raged at a world where billionaires thrive while kids starve, this should hit home. it’s not about signing up for sunday school. it’s about recognizing a call to flip the tables of a system that’s rigged against the weak.
the cost of hope
here’s the rub: this vision isn’t cheap. it’s not about tweaking the system or hoping tech bros will save us with their next app. the new testament’s hope is forged in failure, in the shadow of a cross where love and justice get you killed. it’s what i’d call tragic humanism—not the cheery kind that thinks progress is inevitable, but one that stares down the worst of us and still bets on transformation. ditchkins would call this gloom and doom, but they’re wrong. it’s not despair; it’s defiance. the world’s a slaughterhouse, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. change starts with letting go—of ego, of privilege, of the lie that we’re all just out for ourselves.
this is where the gospel parts ways with the myth of progress. ditchkins buys into the idea that science and reason will march us into a shiny future, but history’s not that tidy. every step forward—abolition, suffrage, labor rights—came from struggle, not inevitability. the new testament knows this. its hero doesn’t win; he dies, and his followers are left to pick up the pieces. yet, somehow, that death plants a seed. it’s not about miracles; it’s about the stubborn belief that even the worst defeats can’t kill the possibility of something better. for radicals, this should sound familiar. every lost strike, every crushed movement, carries the same lesson: keep going, because the fight’s not over.
the cost is real, though. jesus talks about giving up everything—your wealth, your safety, even your life. not because suffering’s noble, but because a world where everyone’s free demands sacrifice. think of the guerilla fighter who leaves their family to battle a dictatorship, not because they hate their kids, but because they want a world where those kids can live free. it’s not masochism; it’s strategy. the new testament calls this martyrdom, not in the sense of blowing yourself up, but of living and dying for something bigger than you. ditchkins scoffs at this, but they’re missing the point. you don’t have to believe in heaven to see the power of staking your life on a cause.
a call to the left
so why should the left care about a 2,000-year-old carpenter? not because he’s the son of god, but because his story’s a mirror for our own. the new testament’s obsession with the wretched of the earth—those the world calls trash—is a challenge to anyone who claims to fight for justice. it asks: who are you standing with? the comfortable, or the ones getting crushed? it’s a gut check for a left that’s sometimes too quick to chase intellectual purity or viral moments instead of the slow, messy work of building solidarity.
this isn’t about converting to christianity or dusting off your grandma’s bible. it’s about mining a tradition for insights that speak to our moment. the new testament’s vision of a world turned upside down, where the poor lead and the powerful kneel, isn’t dogma—it’s a dare. it dares us to imagine a politics that’s not just about winning elections or tweaking markets, but about rewriting the rules of who gets to be human. in a world where borders tighten and bombs fall, where the rich get richer while the rest scrape by, that dare’s worth taking seriously.
ditchkins would rather burn the whole thing down, and sure, religion’s got plenty to answer for. but dismissing it wholesale means missing a voice that’s been shouting for the underdog longer than any manifesto. the left’s not so flush with ideas that it can afford to ignore one that’s been battle-tested for centuries. the new testament’s not a playbook; it’s a spark. it says the wretched of the earth aren’t just victims—they’re the ones who’ll build what comes next. that’s not faith in a deity; it’s faith in us.
reference:
eagleton, terry. reason, faith, and revolution: reflections on the god debate. new haven: yale university press, 2009.
