A while back I received a series of questions from a reader, one of which was, “Wouldn’t our country be better off if we all followed the teachings of Jesus?”

I have heard it said that Mahatma Gandhi was a fan of Jesus’s teachings, but couldn’t be a Christian because of Christians. Thomas Jefferson took the Bible and removed the miracles. He was a fan of the moral high road presented in the Gospels.

Yes, I do think that the teachings of Jesus are great examples of morality. Heck, we could just stop at the “Golden Rule.”

Before you all freak out about this seeming concession, let me note that the Golden Rule is present in almost all ancient traditions, including sources that predate the gospel by several centuries.

So yes, we would all be better off if we all followed a high code of ethics.