The Compatible Teachings of Christ and Confucius

The Compatible Teachings of Christ and Confucius

By Lawrence W. Reed

You can judge a person, claims a time-honored adage, by the enemies he keeps.

In reading some Chinese history, I learned that the mass-murdering founder of Beijing’s communist state, Mao Zedong, despised the Chinese philosopher Confucius from the 6th Century B.C. Mao attempted to stamp out the Confucian legacy by banning it and killing its advocates. The people should look to the state for wisdom and virtue, Mao stupidly believed, not to a long-dead babbler who sounds like a Chinese version of Dale Carnegie.

One reason Mao hated Confucius is that the ancient thinker spoke of the “Mandate of Heaven,” the notion that rulers must exercise power lightly and justly or Heaven would see to it that the people overthrew them. Confucius defended the right of rebellion against tyrants. In contrast, Mao crushed dissent and resistance with calculating brutality, slaughtering an estimated 60 million of his countrymen to impose a rotten system cooked up by a degenerate German lunatic named Karl Marx.

Whereas Confucius was a consummate culture maker, Mao was the ultimate cultural nihilist, an enemy of culture itself. The former was a man of peace and virtue; he communicated wise advice echoed centuries later by Jesus Christ himself. Consider the following.

In Matthew 19:19, Jesus implores us to “honor your father and mother.” Half a millennium earlier, Confucius wrote, “When you serve your mother and father, it is alright to try to correct them occasionally. But if you see that they will not listen to you, keep your respect for them and don’t distance yourself from them.”

In Luke 6:31, Jesus gave us the Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Confucius said as much, though with a negative spin, when he wrote, “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”

Jesus stressed that leadership is not using one’s power to intimidate. It springs from integrity, justice, service, and mercy. Confucius said, "A good man does not give orders, but leads by example.”

Jesus urged us to aim for the righteous and eternal while avoiding worshipping the material and temporary. Confucius argued, “The superior man thinks of virtue; the small man thinks of comfort” and “The superior man loves his soul; the inferior man loves his property.”

“For those who exalt themselves will be humbled,” says Jesus in Matthew 23:12, “and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” He urged continuous self-improvement without bragging about it, and so did Confucius: “It is the way of the superior man to prefer the concealment of his virtue, while it daily becomes more illustrious, and it is the way of the mean man to seek notoriety, while he daily goes more and more to ruin.”

Jesus believed in introspection. In Matthew 7:5, he says, “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Confucius also advocated introspection: “The superior man examines his heart, that there may be nothing wrong there, and that he may have no cause for dissatisfaction with himself.” He also wrote, “When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine your own self.”

Both men would argue, I’m sure, that it is far better to count your own blessings in appreciation than to count the other guy’s in envy.

Confucius and Jesus reminded us that good character is essential in small matters. “Men do not stumble over mountains, but over molehills,” wrote the Chinese philosopher. Jesus says in Luke 16:10, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

Don’t wallow in unwholesomeness. Both men said this repeatedly. Confucius expressed it thusly: “The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.” The Apostle Paul was surely echoing Jesus in Philippians 4:8 when he said, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think on these things.”

A supreme value that our modern-day know-it-alls dismiss as relative or irrelevant was at the core of the teachings of both Confucius and Jesus. It’s called “truth” and neither man would ever denigrate it through such prevarications as “political correctness.” One Confucian proverb declares, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” Another one says, “Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”

Jesus personified truth, cautioned against bearing false witness, and told us in John 8:32, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

If you spoke of “his truth” or “her truth” to Christ or Confucius, I’m confident that both men would rebuke you in these terms: “There is only the truth, period.”

Mao, by the way, didn’t like Jesus either.

For additional information, see:

China’s Great Philosophers Would Be Horrified By What Mao and the CCP Created by Lawrence W. Reed: https://tinyurl.com/zhbpw2nh

Mencius: The Ancient Chinese Philosopher Who Made a Powerful Case for Limited Government by Lawrence W. Reed: https://tinyurl.com/yzjc2apj

No Such Thing as His Truth or Her Truth by Lawrence W. Reed

https://tinyurl.com/hz2hkf4a

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(Lawrence W. Reed is President Emeritus at the Foundation for Economic Education in Atlanta, Georgia, and author of the 2020 book, Was Jesus a Socialist? He blogs at www.lawrencewreed.com.)