Is Jesus an individualist? If you asked me to quote Biblical verse to back up my assertion that Jesus is an individualist, I could not think of any, at least off hand.
Just remember, that I assume that individualism in the individual, is being self-centered and other-centered in a kind way, and that collectivist or altruist existing for the agent, is being self-centered and other-centered in a cruel, harmful way.
Jesus is so wise, powerful and kind that His altruistic motivations are good, and His egoistic motivations are also good.
When He died on the cross to take all human sin onto Himself, thus opening the way to heaven for all fallen humans, that level of self-sacrificing is to momentous and extraordinary that this most special kind of altruism blurs over into requiring a very good, loving, strong Ego to come up with such a plan, let alone live and die by it.
It is this Christ-like self-sacrifice that is why I think he is an individualist, but he is an altruist too.
2000 years ago, Jesus talked altruism, collectivism, and self-denial to the groupist-oriented people whom he shared His Truth with, because that was the little that they knew, and it took many centuries or them to get to where individualism soon will not no longer be regarded as linked to pure evil instantiated as extreme selfishness.
Once religious peoples understand and accept the Ayn Rand view that egoism is virtue, and altruism is vice, then we can make moral progress at last.
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