How Would Jesus Vote? An Interview With the Author of The Tumultuous Times of Jesus in the 21st Century

I had met and known Luke a little bit from when I worked in the Capitol— mostly by reputation.

I learned that Breit did almost no research for the book except for the names of the towns on the Jesus road trip and this great character called Minister Home Rodd Heaver who runs a traveling fundamentalist revival circuit in the Midwest who Luke cribbed from a James Wright poem.

In the time I spent with Luke, I learned that what interested me about the book didn’t always interest him.

I asked Luke whether he really thought fundamentalist Christians are as cynical as he portrays them to be in the book.

He had this to say: “the people that follow them are sincere. The decent family that I put in exemplifies that. But they are not very intelligent. The TV Ministers at the top are that cynical, yes.”

Wo-oh. Generalize much, Luke? A whole group of people that aren’t intelligent? I let this pass. I had other questions.

What was the writing process like?

In the beginning, I wrote 3 or 4 chapters in the middle of the night. What seemed like brilliance in the middle of the night didn’t seem to work in the light of day. But then later when I got the idea of an epilogue, it all worked with only changing a few words.

Do you believe in Jesus’s message?

Regardless of your predisposition towards religion, anyone who is open at all is able to be touched by goodness which is why we’re suckers for little children. We’re still touched.

To me, Jesus the Christ is synonymous with love. Your Jesus is so powerful that complete unbelievers know him to be the Son of God, yet, you have him hate the evangelical political leader who controls his Republican candidate and voters in Jesus’ name. What’s up with that?

I decided to make Jesus human enough to hate—I saw Rich as a man that He hated because Rich knew better.

Tell me more about the relationship between Jesus and Mark, the political consultant (who seems pretty autobiographical) that Jesus crosses the country with?

As He awakens in the 21st century, Jesus is bewildered with the new world. His person is Mark. So it’s like Mark is His parent—He adopts Mark’s world.

What are Jesus’ politics do you think?

Jesus is more like a Communist than a Republican—the 1st people to rise against him would be the right wing fundamentalists.

What’s the basic problem with politics today? Is it control of the system by right wing fundamentalists?

No. The fundamental problem is that in politics we become the people that are the ones that say we can’t do that.

What do we need to do to change the political system in this country?

Get the money out of politics—that’s the fight that wins. Even the most idealist and imaginative electeds and staff people end up succumbing to it (money). The logic of capital is the logic of the capitol. Someone once said: ‘you gotta repair the mountain after you take its goods.’ My ethic is you should leave things as good or better than you found it.

Luke is working on a new novel. This novel may be the first inspired by a poem.

Luke will appear on Jeffrey Callison's KXJZ program, on Wednesday, Jan 16th, talking about Tumultuous Times. Here in Sacramento, he will be giving a reading (mostly poetry) at La Raza Galeria Posada on Friday, 1/18 and then a book-signing/reading at Luna's for a couple of hours on Saturday, 1/19 at 5pm.

Sara S. Nichols is a dynamic public speaker who has appeared on Larry King, Jerry Springer, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer and talk radio. She lives in Sacramento and writes from time to time on politics on snicholsblog where this article first appeared. It is republished with her permission.