Answer: 

This is a very good question.  I have not heard the question put quite this way.  First of all the person putting this question is making a false assumption.  Let us put aside for now the question of whether the Gospel writers were pushing a political agenda.   Let us concede that Matthew had a definite agenda as he wrote his gospel.  How would that make Christianity false?  Bottom line, if Jesus was who he claimed he was and if he was raised from the dead after being crucified, then Christianity is true.  Whether or not Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead or whether or not he was resurrected has absolutely nothing to do with politics.  What political argument would inspire Luke a Greek, Matthew a tax collector and John the fisherman to make up the miracles of Jesus and the resurrection?  This argument is really just a smoke screen.  The politics of the writers of the gospels has little to do with the central claims of Christianity.  Like Jesus said, he fulfilled all the prophecies of the Messiah (Luke 24:44).  His fulfillment of the prophecy about the Messiah being crucified (Psalms 22:16) is not a political question.  Whether the Gospel writers were conservative, liberal, Jew, Greek, Zealot or Pharisee does not seem relevant.  The fact is that even Josephus a Jewish historian and Tacitus a Roman historian tell us that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy.  What political agenda produced the claim that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, as was prophesied in Micah 5:2?  Again, this argument is a fallacy.  Perhaps there was a political agenda underlying what the gospel writers chose to report.  This does nothing to make Christianity be false.  The fact that Jesus worked public miracles, that he fulfilled the messianic prophecies and that he was raised from the dead is not changed by any political agenda.

Now, let me deal with the question.  Let us consider whether the gospel writers designed their writing and chose the material they included in their gospel in order to push a particular political agenda.  This is the kind of theory that anyone can put together as a scenario and then selectively pull material from the gospels out of their context and "prove" with such evidence.  I would wager that I could "prove" several competing political agendas are found in the book of John or of Matthew by a selective search of either gospel.  For this reason, I am skeptical of such theories.

Nevertheless, I am prepared to accept that each of the gospel writers had their own personal agenda.  I am even prepared to accept that up to a point their particular perspective may have affected what ended up in the gospel they wrote.  It is difficult to escape that David had a political agenda.  The same can be said for Ezra.  One can find a noticeably different "political agenda" behind the writers of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings as opposed to 1 and 2 Chronicles.  This is part of the brilliance of the Bible.  God uses people of an amazing variety of viewpoints.  He allows their personality and viewpoint shine through what they wrote, yet the Bible fits together as a united document to an incredible extent.  The God of David is the God of Moses is the God of Paul is the God of Isaiah and Ezra.  If I look at Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, I do not see a blatant political bias.  Matthew might have been tempted to use his gospel to attack Rome, as the Jews were politically subject to Rome.  Yet, he does not do this.  In his gospel, it is the Jews who play the principle role in the death of Jesus.  Luke might have had reason to make the Greek philosophers look good.  Yet he does not.  Paul gives a strong refutation of Epicureanism and Stoicism in Acts, yet he does not attack these philosophers.

Try to imagine if what these folks say were true.  If Mark had written his gospel in order to strike a blow for a political agenda, I believe it would look VERY different from what he wrote.  There is nothing here of the political polemic.  There is no attempt to run a smear campaign against any particular group.  To test this theory, imagine reading a piece of political propoganda from any perspective you like.  Then compare the writing style and content to any of the gospels.  I believe the case will be made.  It may well be true that the gospel writers did bring a particular political thinking to the table when they wrote.  Matthew was looking from the Jewish perspective.  Luke was looking at Jesus from the Greek perspective.  Their perspective did have a small but noticeable influence on what they chose to write.  Yet, the difference between their gospels is not sufficient to support the claim that either is a biased political polemic.  In fact the differences between the four gospels is part of what makes them complement one another.  The four perspectives taken together bring out more fully the character of Jesus.  Mark emphasizes his strength.  Luke emphasized his compassion.  Matthew emphasized his vision.  Despite the differences, all three present the same Jesus from just slightly different perspectives.  The evidence does not support the thesis.

John Oakes, PhD