Congressman Sanford Bishop’s vote in favor of thoroughly compromised health care legislation last week was less remarkable than his explanation of how he decided to cast his vote: “I had to ask myself: What would Jesus do?”

It isn’t Bishop’s job to represent Jesus. It’s his job to represent his constituents, and their interests.

Besides that, the idea of health care presented in the Bible’s accounts of Jesus is to cast demons out of people’s bodies and resurrect the dead through faith healing. Jesus was never elected to the U.S. Congress. He wasn’t even an American citizen. So, in Sanford Bishop’s place, Jesus wouldn’t have done anything but tell people to pray and have faith in him, and everything would be all right – no further health care necessary. That doesn’t seem like a very good plan for our world today.

Bishop’s claim to be a politician loyal to the agenda of Jesus isn’t consistent with his voting record. Congressman Bishop wants his constituents to believe that he considers Jesus every time he’s faced with a difficult vote, but many of Bishop’s votes have absolutely nothing in line with anything Jesus would have ever done. Bishop’s vote in 2002 to allow George W. Bush to rush a military invasion of Iraq is a powerful example of that. Does Bishop expect us to believe that Jesus would approve of a campaign to unleash a battle beginning with 500 pound bombs?

If Sanford Bishop really orchestrated his activities according to what Jesus would do, he wouldn’t be in office any more. He’d be out preaching, or riding into Washington D.C. on the back of a donkey, or trying to walk across water, or something else like that. Representative Bishop is just using Jesus-talk as a kind of cheap pose, an attempt to gain the favor of his constituents by appearing to share their religious point of view. That’s a great method for selling snake oil, but it’s a lousy way to consider serious legislation.