Tod Lindberg, editor of Policy Review, is author of The Political Teachings of Jesus. Lindberg recently talked to National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez about Jesus and 2008.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Why Jesus? Wouldn’t the political teachings of Paris Hilton be a better seller?

Tod Lindberg: The political teachings of Paris Hilton are kind of the problem: Live for personal pleasure, pursue the acclaim of the crowd. People don’t need a book to tell them to do that; it comes naturally. What Jesus had to say about how to live in the world, unmatched before or since in both profundity and influence, describes how to build a society on different and better principles.

We need to try to better understand what Jesus had to say for its own sake, as well as to fulfill the second part of the injunction Jesus embraces for inheriting eternal life: Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. The Sermon on the Mount and the parables are, among other things, an elaboration on what it means to love your neighbor. I wanted to try to draw out the social and political implications of his elaboration on that theme.

Lopez: What’s the political message of Jesus Christ? Can you see it on Hardball any given night?

Lindberg: Jesus knew how to play hardball. Ask the moneychangers at the Temple.

His political message is that a community of goodwill, in which people treat one another the way they themselves would like to be treated — in accordance with the Golden Rule — is in principle within human reach. People who hunger and thirst for righteousness, Jesus says in the Beatitudes, will be satisfied. Acting in accordance with his teachings, they have the power and freedom to find righteousness for themselves by recognizing and acting on the same yearning in others.

Jesus proposes a social or political order based not on the rule of the strong and the deference of the weak, but on the principle of equality in freedom. People create such a community whenever someone reaches out in neighborliness or brotherhood and is answered in kind.

The this-worldly advantages of living in such a community exceed the advantage even the strongest earthly king can enjoy. And people understand this, or at least they can once they start taking in the message of Jesus. That points to a circle of neighborliness or brotherhood that is expanding outward by voluntary consent even to those who once were enemies. In principle, it’s universal. True, people being who they are, there’s reason to be skeptical about the universal this-worldly extension of this community of goodwill. But Jesus says it’s worthwhile to keep trying to reach out.

Lopez: Jesus was a progressive? I thought Jesus was a conservative and Santa a lib?

Lindberg: We need to take a step back from the political categories of 21st-century America. Look at the world in which Jesus lived: the Roman occupation, the court of Herod, the Temple elite, the fantastic wealth of some amid the abject poverty of others, the tribal and ethnic conflict, slavery as routine practice, women as the property of husbands, the sick banished, unwanted infants exposed. Now, along comes Jesus to say: This is not acceptable. The world doesn’t have to be like this, nor should it. Modern conservatives are conserving such principles as that all people are created equal and that they have certain inalienable rights such as life and liberty. These principles trace back to the teaching of Jesus. And at the time Jesus propounded them, they were fundamentally at odds with the status quo and designed to improve on it.

Lopez: What is it about Jesus and law that we need to know?

Lindberg: That Jesus took the law very seriously, beginning but not ending with the statement in the Sermon on the Mount about coming not to abolish the law, but to fulfill. Jesus’s message about the improvement of this-worldly human affairs begins with a world of law, not a state of nature or anarchy. That should give pause to those who want to see Jesus simply as a revolutionary. You can’t necessarily overturn the old order all at once and expect to implement the more refined moral order Jesus was describing and promoting. I’ve explained the sense in which I think it’s right to see Jesus as a progressive; this is the sense in which we need to see Jesus as a conservative. It should perhaps come as no surprise that Jesus’s perspective tends to be a little broader and more encompassing than ours.

Lopez: If every political hand were to pick up a Bible, where should he go and why?

Lindberg: Well, I know the political hands are busy these days, so I won’t make them read the whole Sermon on the Mount. Try the parable of the vineyard workers. On one hand, it is about the indivisibility of salvation; on the other, it is an exquisite this-worldy depiction of the poison of resentment, which works its way into politics all the time.

Lopez: What can we learn about debating from His debates with the Pharisees?

Lindberg: Don’t get into a debate with Jesus. You will lose. Then Jesus will welcome you anyway, provided only that you understand why you lost and reform yourself accordingly. You should take this offer.

Lopez: Why is Jesus “most concerned with the effect of divorce on the woman”?

Lindberg: The divorce law of the time, it will come as no surprise, was very tough on women and not so tough on men. Jesus set out to discourage men from acting by the letter of the law but actually in accordance with their worst impulses. It was a nudge in the direction of encouraging people to understand that the Golden Rule is not a guys-only thing.

Lopez: What might Jesus have to say about President Bush’s contention that the desire for freedom is written on every human heart?

Lindberg: Interesting that you should ask. I’ve been meaning to write an essay on the subject. Would you like it for National Review?

Lopez: Let’s talk.

Is there a parable that might help bring peace to the Democratic party?

Lindberg: Probably the prodigal son, a parable that is not only about the young man who took his inheritance and blew it on booze and women, then came home to ask his father to take him back as a mere servant, but also and even especially about his older brother. Older brother is really, truly, deeply upset that dad is throwing a big party to welcome back his wayward sib. Older brother doesn’t want to go. Wants to know where’s his party, all the years he was being a good boy. Jesus doesn’t say how it turns out, whether the older brother goes to the party or not.

Eventually, Democrats are going to have a nominee. The question is whether the losers will embrace the winners by coming home, and whether the winners will welcome them or give themselves over to resentment (yes, resentment again, just like the vineyard workers)

Lopez: What might Jesus say about Reverend Wright?

Lindberg: Lindberg would say he was appalled. Jesus, however, would want Lindberg to make sure Lindberg took note of the log in Lindberg’s own eye before looking at the speck in his brother’s eye. Lindberg would then want to argue that the speck in Brother Wright’s eye is the size of a log, but would have to concede that Jesus makes a pretty good point.

Lopez: Mike Huckabee?

Lindberg: Lindberg would say “uncle.”

Lopez: Does Jesus have a winning strategy for John McCain?

Lindberg: Not just for McCain: If you want to build something to last, make sure it has a secure foundation. As far as this world is concerned, that foundation would be the political teachings of Jesus.

Lopez: Can politicians work miracles?

Lindberg: Not without Help.