The Christian right has successfully promoted its ideology; will the left do better after dropping 'socialist' from its name?
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, not saying: "Blessed are the rich, because your wealth trickles down and everyone's a winner.
"Blessed are those who are full, because that means you're not scrounging off the rest off us.
"Blessed are you who are laughing now, because you're obviously hardworking, responsible, decent people."
It would be reductive and misleading simply to describe Jesus as a leftie. And Marko Attila Hoare wrote earlier this week of the dangers in ascribing a particular view to a particular political wing. But it's safe to say that, in terms of the left's usual causes célèbres, Jesus does pretty well: nonviolence, support for outcasts and outsiders, the redistribution of power and wealth in favour of the powerless and poor, forgiveness, taxation, reconciliation, figs.
Yet, there's such a thing as the Christian right. Moreover, you've heard of it. You probably haven't heard of the Christian left, however, and you probably had no idea that the Christian Socialist Movement existed. And now you know it exists, here's something else: it won't exist next week. It's changing its name to Christians on the Left.
Yes, just as senior Labour figures are learning how to utter the word without retching, the CSM is ditching the "socialist". There is evidently a fear that it has deterred potential supporters. But what if the problem isn't the word socialist? What if the problem is the word Christian?
Many who might sympathise with the teachings of Jesus would scarper from anything Christian. Often, they'd have good reason to. It can mean judgmentalism, ludicrous doctrine and bad parties. Worse, it can mean bigotry, violence and terrible parties. The Christian right – embodied in the UK by groups like Christian Concern – has been so successful at promoting its ideology that you may well think Christians care only about what jewellery they're not allowed to wear, what days they're forced to work, and gay men having big, gay sex. Christians have often done a great job of killing people who disagree with them, too, which doesn't really help.
Probably the kindest thing one can day about "Christian" is that it's meaningless. It somehow describes the beliefs of both the Westboro Baptist church and Desmond Tutu. It's barely even biblical, appearing only twice in the New Testament (and one of those times merely tells where it was first said). Jesus didn't use it ever.
In any case, it seems that Jesus cared less about what people believe than what they do. The sheep and goats are separated on account of their actions, not their beliefs. The man who said "no" but did God's will was favoured over his brother, who said and did the opposite, and so on. Those who thought God was happy with them were brought up short, and told that actually God was happier with the people they saw as sinners. Labels weren't his thing.
There's undoubtedly a need for the leftwing followers of Jesus to have a louder voice, if only to present an increasingly (and understandably) uninterested public with a fuller picture of the faith. And I wish Christians on the left well; their very existence may make some onlookers re-evaluate the faith. But for leftwing Christians to bring about the change they want in the world, they will need to work with people who aren't Christian, and people who hate religion but who share their aims – and who would far sooner be called socialist rather than Christian.
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