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Jesus Was a Socialist

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Via: bob-nelson • 6 years ago • 2 comments

... the idea that Jesus was a socialist is obviously somewhat anachronistic. Socialism as a formal economic system did not originate until long after Jesus walked the earth. But as I will demonstrate, Jesus taught (and the early church modeled) principles very much in line with socialist thinking.

S E E D E D C O N T E N T

Thanks in no small part to folks like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, everyone is talking about socialism these days. Unfortunately, many Christians seem to be under the impression that socialism is at odds with their faith.

Plenty of other Christians disagree, of course. For example, theologian David Bentley Hart has spoken about his democratic socialism on several occasions , and Sojourners Magazine recently published a short piece by Obery M. Hendricks Jr. on “ The Biblical Values of Ocasio-Cortez’s Democratic Socialism .” AOC is herself a Christian , along with many other prominent democratic socialists, such as Cornel West and Martin Luther King Jr.

However, I’ve yet to find a systematic examination of the many things Jesus had to say on this subject. So that’s what I’ve endeavored to put together in this article.

My apologies for the length. If I’m not mistaken, this has turned into the longest single piece I’ve written. But I wanted to cover as much as I reasonably could while limiting my scope primarily to Jesus’ sayings in the canonical Gospels. (In practice, this has meant Matthew and Luke. Mark contains parallels to many of the passages under discussion, but little unique on this subject. And John, while in no way contradicting these themes, simply has its main focus elsewhere.)

The Original Article, with all the details, is here...

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Professor Guide

1 seeder Bob Nelson 6 years ago

When I say that Jesus was a socialist, I am not referring to the communal ownership of the means of production. This aspect of socialism is certainly consistent with Jesus’ message, and one could argue that it is a logical outworking from it for an industrial society, but it is not something Jesus ever specifically addressed. However, the socialist principle that positively saturates Jesus’ gospel is the idea of fair distribution of wealth, “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” And that is what I will be defending in this article.

Professor Principal

2 TᵢG 6 years ago

However, the socialist principle that positively saturates Jesus’ gospel is the idea of fair distribution of wealth, “ from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs .” And that is what I will be defending in this article.

That quote from Marx was him referring to a steady state, extremely advanced society that he only vaguely describes. He was describing, in part, what he expected when socialism (as he described it) eventually evolved into mature communism (as he described it).

The quote appears in Marx' Critique of the Gotha Programme - a critical analysis of a method of socialism put forward in Marx' time and rebuked by Marx on various grounds (detailed in the critique). It appears after Marx has just criticized the notion of an egalitarian society (everyone equal) noting that forced equality is the absence of equality.

The operative paragraph for the famous quote is below. In this paragraph, Marx is talking about a future condition in which society is sufficiently advanced so that all needs are amply provided. It is a condition where people literally live to work rather than work to live:

Marx: In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want ; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

One easy way to visualize what Marx might have had in mind is the world of Star Trek. ( Star Trek example used simply for clarity .) This is an advanced society where there is no need for people to labor to provide the needs of life - technology satisfies all the needs. Instead the people apply their labor to contribute to society according to their unique abilities. They apply their unique skills to better society, not labor to survive.

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