Jesus was an occupier

Recently I wrote a piece responding to Tony Perkins’s piece at CNN
in which he claims that Jesus was not an occupier, but was “a
free-marketer.” Well, his piece upset me so much I’ve decided to write another response to that ludicrous claim. So, here you go:

Theologically speaking, Christians have a variety of answers to the
question of why Jesus was killed: to appease God’s anger for human sin,
to bear the just punishment owed to God by a sinful humanity, as a moral
example of suffering love for God that future Christians should follow,
as a sacrifice offered to God for the forgiveness of human sin, as the
ultimate example of God’s unending love for humanity, and several other
formulations. Historically speaking, however, there is a nearly
universally accepted answer among scholars as to why he was killed:
Because Jesus occupied the temple.

During Jesus’ life the temple in Jerusalem was the symbolic center of Jewish religious, political, legal, and economic
power. It was, in the words of one of my former Bible professors, the
White House, Supreme Court, and Federal Reserve combined. During the
time of Jesus’ life the temple had a practice of using “moneychangers.”
Moneychangers had the task of exchanging Roman and other money for
‘temple money,’ and charged an exorbitantly high exchange rate to do so.
So, the poor, in order to pay their temple taxes or for the animals
needed to go through with their religious sacrifices, had to pay more
than real value for this necessity. This practice was especially unjust
in light of the fact that God allowed for different animals to be
sacrificed by people of different socio-economic classes to avoid
placing too great a burden on the poor. This temple practice, in spirit
if not letter, was a direct violation of God’s law which was constructed
with an eye toward helping the poor.