Dialogue 1 DIVIDE "As you indicate yourself, it's difficult to fit everyone into either one or the other, yet you're claiming that Jesus Christ would fit squarely into one side of the current political divide." There are two divides in this country. On the one hand, you have the conventional divide between liberals and conservatives which is the divide I believe you are referring to. On the other, there is the divide between those who seek to destroy democracy and those who would defend it. The first divide has been largely subsumed by the second, due to the fact that at this point in our history, the vast majority of those who are on the side of democracy and freedom are the relatively liberal members of the Democratic Party, while the vast majority of those who wish to replace democracy with a racist autocracy are those who identify as conservatives and Republicans, 77% of whom believe (or who actually don't care but claim to believe) that Donald Trump won the election. In my opinion, anybody who thinks either God or Jesus is on the side of Donald Trump and those who support him, is doing the work, consciously or unconsciously of the devil. With regard to the conventional divide, I will say this… I do not and did not claim that every position taken by Jesus if he were physically alive in the world today, would fall within the liberal gamut or for that matter, that he would place himself on the extreme pole of any one of them. But those I mention, protecting ourselves and our fellow citizens by adhering to the guidance of medical experts during the pandemic; healthcare for all, a fair and decent living wage, uprooting systemic racism, immigrant and LGBT rights, because they are in line with the core humanity and compassion that informed his teaching, are issues to which Jesus I am convinced, would lend his voice, passion and commitment. So yes, I absolutely believe that with regard to the positions I have cited, Jesus would favor one side of the conventional political divide over the other because these positions manifest in a 21st century way, the timeless teachings and values put forth by the man who called us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, and to be our brother's keeper. If one agrees that the essence of Jesuses message is love, love of God, love of neighbor, love of your brother, love even of your enemy (who you may nevertheless differ with and protest against!). Love of the beggar, the prostitute, the tax collector - love even of those who nailed him to the cross (whom he purportedly asked his Father to forgive), it is hard to understand how they would not agree he would be on the side of those who want to extend that love through the political means which, because of the vast changes which have occurred since the time that Jesus lived, are available now in ways they were not in 1st Century Palestine. It is hard to see how using the vehicle of government to care for the sick, government intervening to ensure the police apply force in a non-racist manner, government accepting persecuted refugees seeking asylum rather then turning them away, government defending the right of gay as well as straight people to marry in a time when it is feasible that Government may actually do such things, are not positions Jesus would support. It is hard to see how a 21st century Jesus living in a 21st century America would not protest against immigrants who enter “illegally” having their children torn from their arms and locked in cages. Rome was an occupying military power, not a freely elected government. In those earlier, benighted circumstances, one obviously would not expect or demand that government do for its subjects what an American government supposedly of, by and for the people might potentially do for its citizens or voters. If Jesus were alive today he would be bringing his message to a very different world, confronting a very different political situation, one that I believe he would zealously take advantage of. While QAnon supporting Donald Trump may want to be Cesar, while his supporters may prefer a totalitarian style of government more akin to Roman autocracy, this is still America and America, at least for the moment is still a democratic state. To say that Jesus, were he physically alive today would apply the same tactics or strategy in pursuing his mission to bring more love into the world, that he would operate as if he were still dealing with the Roman "wolf," is to lock him into a time warp he would never accept and where he doesn't belong. Superimposing the past onto the present is no more appropriate than superimposing the present onto the past. If Jesus were physically alive in the modern era, he would not be a museum piece stuck inside a glass case. He would be in the moment, taking into account the vastly different political and cultural conditions, the vastly different possibilities, freedoms and opportunities which define life in the 21st century. He would be a conscious, engaged, aware man of today and the kind of man he would be is clear from what we know about the man he was. It is also clear to me, as someone who cultivates a relationship with him through the mystical agency of the dream, that he would be with the marchers, the protesters, the mask wearers and yes, the "terrorists" who are pulling down monuments both literal and figurative to cruelty, greed and hate…