Hi, everybody. (Hi, Dr. Nick!)

I’d like to thank Kevin for letting me join the Street. It is indeed an honor, a privilege, and a chance for me to screw up in front of a new group of people. (In time, you’ll come to think of my typos and eccentric spelling as part of my charm, hopefully.)

Since today is my first day, you may have some questions, such as, “Who the hell is she?” and “Why should we care what she says?”

I have no answer to those queries. However, I do have answers to almost any other thing you might be wondering about. Of course, they’re not my answers, they are the answers of Professor Theophilus, the Dear Abby/Socrates of Boundless, the Focus on the Family publication for college-aged Christians.

In real life, Prof Theo is actually Professor J. Budziszewski, “the author of more than half a dozen books, most recently How to Stay Christian in College. He teaches government and philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin.”

So, he must indeed be a sage with the answers to all of life’s great problems.

Take for example his reply to a young woman who has been dating a “great guy who regularly attends church” who has recommitted himself to Christ. Her problem is that her friends don’t like him because he is divorced (because he was “emotionally unfaithful” to his ex-wife). The woman asks, “But if I can’t believe God has changed his life, what does that say about my belief in the power of God?”

Reply

My dear, here is how to know whether the man has really changed. If he stops dating you and returns to the wife and daughter whom he has betrayed, then he has. If he doesn’t, he hasn’t.

This isn’t about whether he’s a great guy, because whatever greatness there may be in him is pledged to his wife, not to you. Don’t you know what he promised her? “Until we are parted by death.” And don’t you know what Jesus taught? “What God has joined together, let no man separate.” That means no woman either.

Grace and peace,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS

And that young woman asking about dating a divorced man was … Nancy Davis. Now you now the REST of the story.

And when not telling students that God can forgive all repented sins but there’s no such thing as divorce, Dr. Theo regularly engages in educational dialogues with fictitious students he encounters at public eateries.

For instance, there was this time when he was just minding his own business, eating a bagel and thinking of how sinful divorced people are, when this student named Zack sat down and asked the Prof if Jesus was a liberal.

Let’s listen in:

“Last Sunday, after the service,” he said, “I was shooting the breeze with this guy Jason at my church. We were standing in the parking lot, and I noticed his bumper sticker. It said, “Jesus Was a Liberal.” So I asked him what that meant. I guess that wasn’t such a good move. He seemed annoyed.”

“Did he answer you?”

“Oh, sure. He said, ‘Jesus had compassion for the poor. That’s liberal. He was antiwar. That’s liberal. And he said we shouldn’t judge others. That’s liberal too. ‘I started to ask him another question, but he cut me off and said ‘Look. The political meaning of Christianity is liberalism. Any Christian who isn’t liberal is either corrupt, confused or full of hate.’ Then he got in his car and drove away.”

Young Zack is really confused, because if Jesus was a liberal, then why does Dr. Dobson say that all the liberals are going to burn in hell?

Fortunately, Prof Theo has a ready answer: the liberals in Jesus’ day were okay, but today’s liberals are like Hitler (who wasn’t that good of a Christian).

“Liberalism and conservatism come in more than one version.”

“What do you mean?” said Zack. “I thought all liberals were the same and all conservatives were the same.”

“Not at all. Take the pre-Civil War era; in those days, most conservatives believed that slavery should be allowed. They denied the equal human dignity of black and white. You couldn’t be a good Christian and that kind of conservative.”

“Today’s conservatives don’t believe that way, do they?”

Poor, young, moronic, fictitious Zack!

And then Prof Theo explains that today’s conservatives don’t believe that way, but today’s liberals are way more immoral than pre-Civil War conservatives could even DREAM of being …

“No. Neither do today’s liberals. On the other hand, most liberals in our day believe that abortion should be allowed. They don’t deny the equal human dignity of black and white, but they deny the equal human dignity of born and unborn. You can’t be a good Christian and that kind of liberal either.”

“Have liberals always believed that way?”

“No. The liberals of your great-grandfather’s generation didn’t believe that way. They would have been horrified by abortion.”

And anything which would have dismayed Zack’s great-grandfather’s generation HAS to be bad.

It turns out that Jason, the hippie with the bumper sticker, is personally opposed to abortion, but that doesn’t matter — because giving others a choice about whether they should be allowed to abort the two-month-old fetus living inside their body is like giving them a choice about whether they should be allowed to rape somebody, or murder a toddler.

“Or try these. ‘I’m personally opposed to rape, but I think someone who believes in it should have a choice.’ ‘I’m personally opposed to infanticide, but I think someone who believes in it should have a choice.’ ‘I’m personally opposed to �€”’”

“Okay, I get your point. But we should allow people to make some choices we consider wrong, don’t we?”

“Sure. But what kinds of choices are you thinking of?”

“Eating too much. Skipping church. Things like that.”

“You don’t see any difference between rape and overeating? Or between infanticide and skipping church?”

“When you put it that way, I guess I do.”

Yeah, even for a made-up student, Zack is criminally stupid. But hey, isn’t Prof Theo brilliant in these exchanges?

Anyway, now Jason wants to know if the hippie was right about Jesus being a liberal (albeit it an antiabortion liberal, of course).

I sighed. “All right. Your friend’s first reason might be put, ‘Jesus was more like a liberal than a conservative because liberals have compassion for the poor and conservatives don’t.’ How do you know liberals have compassion for the poor, and how do you know conservatives don’t?”

“Isn’t that pretty obvious? Liberals are always trying to increase funding for governmental programs to help the poor, and conservatives are always trying to cut them back.”

“I’m afraid it’s more complicated than that. The main disagreement between liberals and conservatives isn’t about whether to help the poor but about what does help the poor.”

The Prof explains that conservatives believe that many government programs hurt the poor by making them lazy and shiftless, so these godly rightists think that the best kind of help for the poor is tax breaks for the rich — you know, to give the poor something to work for. (Or something like that — Prof Theo speaks in code a lot.) So, if Jesus actually wanted to help the poor by teaching them self-reliance, industriousness, and the redeeming power of pure capitalism, He must have been a conservative.

But on to Jason the hippie’s second point:

“The one about war?”

“Right.”

“All right, that one might be put like this: ‘Jesus was more like a liberal than a conservative because liberals are more likely to be anti-war.’ Are you assuming that Jesus opposed all war, Zack?”

“Didn’t He? Turn the other cheek and all that. Don’t resist evil.”

“Consider the context of that saying. The meaning seems to be that you, as an individual, shouldn’t take personal revenge for insults. It doesn’t follow that the government is prohibited from using force to protect the nation.”

“But He didn�€™t say that the government is allowed to do that.”

“True. On the other hand, we believe that Paul was speaking with Christ’s authority in Romans 13, where he wrote that the magistrate ‘does not bear the sword for nothing’ because ‘he is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.’”

“So there might be such a thing as a just war after all?”

Well, young Zack, if the world made your country its magistrate, and you are using your authority to punish a wrongdoer, and you fight that war with swords, apparently so.

Prof Theo goes on to explain that everybody believes it’s okay to fight just wars, the only point of disagreement is in deciding when a war is actually just.

Take for example the just-war criterion that war should be a ‘last resort.’ That means you’ve tried diplomatic means of dealing with an international injustice, but they haven’t worked. At what point should you conclude that they won’t work? That’s a judgment call, one which liberals and conservatives tend to make differently.”

The question, of course, is when JESUS would have concluded they won’t work. The Prof doesn’t get in to that, though, instead moving on to the hippie’s third point:

“This time your friend’s argument is probably something like this: �€˜Jesus was more like a liberal than a conservative because conservatives are so judgmental.’”

“Right.”

“Didn’t we talk about ‘judging others’ once before?”

“Man, you’ve got a memory like an elephant. We did, but it was at least two years ago.”

“Do you remember our conclusions?”

“I think so. You pointed out that Jesus doesn’t condemn all judgments of behavior and character �€” what he condemns is hypocritical and self-righteous judgments. In fact, He says ‘Judge with right judgment.’ John 7 or thereabouts.”

“Good, Zack. I also seem to recall that you were upset with some of your friends.”

He laughed. “That’s right. They didn’t approve of my other friends. So I judged them for being judgmental. Hey!”

“What?”

“Jason did the same thing. Except that he judged conservatives for being judgmental. Then he judged them for not being liberals. So I guess liberals make judgments too.”

“Of course they do.”

“Then why are they so down on conservatives for doing the same thing?”

Because they hate Jesus, Zack.

“They aren’t down on them for making judgments, but for making different judgments than they do. When they say conservatives are ‘judgmental,’ that’s what they mean.”

So, they are being hypocritical and self-righteous, just like Jesus condemned. Therefore, not only wasn’t Jesus a liberal, but He really hates that hippie’s guts for his blasphemous bumper sticker.

Zack has learned many valuable lessons through his Q&A session with Prof Theo. And the wise, old professor has learned that today’s college fictitious students are not only very easy to manipulate, but they are also about as bright as a sack full of hammers.

Next time on “Professor Theophilus’ Imaginary Conversations,” we’ll get to listen in as the Prof teaches stupid fictitious young Mark that he has to marry Molly because he’s led her on and wasted her time by being her friend for two years (”Thinking like a Christian means a lot more than doing what the Bible says; it also means thinking like the Bible thinks, even about things the Bible doesn’t mention. That includes having respect for human nature as God designed it, like the difference between your biological clock and the girl’s. “)

I think you’ll find it educational. You know, if you’re really, really dumb. And fictictious.