The Political Teachings of Jesus, by Tod Lindberg, gets the Wall Street Journal's thumbs up, though for my money, this graph tells you all you need to know about the Saviour's moral philosophy:
To be sure, the Golden Rule was not without precedent. Similar formulations can be found, among other places, in the Mahabharata, the ancient Indian epic, and Confucius's Analects. The rule in each of these texts, though, is stated negatively: In essence, do not do unto others what one would not like done to oneself. Jesus' positive wording, Mr. Lindberg says, allows for a greater "range of possibility for mutually beneficial interaction." Jesus does not merely forbid injustice; he proposes a principle applicable to our every act and constrained only by the limits of our imagination.
And of course evolutionary psychology explains that conscience is a relatively recent invention, which is why approximately 4% of humanity lacks it can thus be classified as sociopathic. (Not-so-free association moment: I'm currently reading Martha Stout's chilling but fascinating The Sociopath Next Door.)
Anyway, the guy who got Jesus' number best, I think, was Kingsley Amis. Here's his poem "New Approach Needed":
Should you revisit us,
Stay a little longer,
And get to know the place.
Experience hunger,
Madness, disease and war.
You heard about them, true,
The last time you came here;
It's different having them.
And what about a go
At love, marriage, children?
All good, but bringing some
Risk of remorse and pain
And fear of an odd sort:
A sort one should, again,
Feel, not just hear about,
To be qualified as
A human-race expert.
On local life, we trust
The resident witness,
Not the royal tourist.
People have suffered worse
And more durable wrongs
Than you did on that cross
(I know—you won't get me
Up on one of those things),
Without sure prospect of
Ascending good as new
On the third day, without
"I die, but man shall live"
As a nice cheering thought.
So, next time, come off it,
And get some service in,
Jack, long before you start
Laying down the old law:
If you still want to then.
Tell your dad that from me.