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Jesus Was A Socialist

Peter Dreier, Contributor
E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, Occidental College

12/25/2016 05:18 pm ET Updated Dec 26, 2017

As people around the world celebrate Christmas, it is worth remembering that Jesus was a socialist. Of course, he was born long before the rise of industrial capitalism in the 19th century, but his radical ideas have influenced many critics of capitalism, including many prominent socialists and even Pope Francis.

Pope Francis has consistently criticized the human and spiritual damage caused by global capitalism, widening inequality, and corporate sweatshops. Last week, he blamed the “god of money” for the extremist violence that is taking place around the world. A ruthless global economy, he argued, leads marginalized people to violence.

In 2013, he released a remarkable 84-page document in which he attacked unfettered capitalism as “a new tyranny,” criticized the “idolatry of money,” and urged politicians to guarantee all citizens “dignified work, education and healthcare.”

“Today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills,” Pope Francis wrote. “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”

During the last year, as Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign gained momentum, the word “socialism” generated lots of media attention because Sanders described himself as a “democratic socialist.” In November, Americans elected a staunch capitalist, Donald Trump, as president, but a majority of Americans - and even many of those who voted for Trump - disagree with his policy ideas.

Few Americans call themselves socialists, but many of them share socialists’ critiques of American-style capitalism, including the widening gap between the rich and the rest, the greed of the super-rich, the undue influence of Wall Street and big business in politics, and the persistence of widespread poverty and hunger in our affluent society.

The idea of Christian socialism has a long and proud tradition. As capitalism emerged in the mid-1800s, many of its fiercest critics based their ideas on Jesus’ teachings.

“No one can serve two masters,” Jesus says in Matthew 6:24. “Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” I

In Luke 12:15, Jesus says, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’”

Jesus not only urged people to be kind to others in their everyday lives. He was also talking about those in government who ruled over others, including the priests who ruled Judea for Rome and the rulers of the Roman empire.

Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) — often called the “workers’ pope” — echoed similar ideas. His 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum (“On the Condition of Labor”) focused attention on the dehumanizing conditions in which many workers labored. He affirmed workers’ rights to just wages, rest, and fair treatment, to form unions, and to strike if necessary. He called on governments to promote a more equal distribution of resources and said, in particular, that the poor “have a claim to special consideration.” He did not espouse socialism, but his attacks on capitalism for its endorsement of greed, its concentration of wealth, and its mistreatment of workers had a major influence on the emerging socialist movement in Europe and America.

Francis Bellamy (1855-1931), an American Baptist minister, was a leading Christian socialist. Like Pope Leo, he championed the rights of working people and a more equal distribution of wealth and income, which he believed reflected Jesus’ teachings. In 1891, Bellamy was fired from his Boston pulpit for preaching against the evils of capitalism and describing Jesus as a socialist. But he’s best known as the author of the “Pledge of Allegiance,” which he wrote in 1892 as an antidote to Gilded Age greed, misguided materialism, and hyper-individualism, reflected in those radical words “with liberty and justice for all.” (Ironically, Bellamy did not include the words “under God” in the original Pledge. They were added by Congress in 1953 at the height of the Cold War).

Many of America’s leading socialists — including labor leader Eugene Debs, settlement house founder Jane Addams, Rev. Walter Rauschenbusch, and Helen Keller — rooted their views in their Christian faith, which became known as “social gospel.” Indeed, many of the leaders of America’s socialist movement, including Norman Thomas (1884-1968) — who ran for president five times on the Socialist Party ticket and was often called “America’s conscience” — were Protestant clergy.

Throughout American history, some of the nation’s most influential activists and thinkers, such as philosopher John Dewey, sociologist W.E.B. DuBois, scientist Albert Einstein, poet Katherine Lee Bates (who wrote “America the Beautiful”), muckraking writer Upton Sinclair, labor leaders A. Philip Randolph and Walter Reuther, civil rights crusader Martin Luther King, feminists Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Gloria Steinem, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, and Dorothy Day (founder of the Catholic Worker movement) embraced democratic socialism.

In the early 1900s, socialists led the movements for women’s suffrage, child labor laws, consumer protection laws and the progressive income tax. In 1911, Victor Berger, a socialist congressman from Milwaukee, sponsored the first bill to create “old age pensions.” The bill didn’t get very far, but two decades later, in the midst of the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt persuaded Congress to enact Social Security. Even then, some critics denounced it as un-American. But today, most Americans, even conservatives, believe that Social Security is a good idea. What had once seemed radical has become common sense.

Much of FDR’s other New Deal legislation — the minimum wage, workers’ right to form unions and public works programs to create jobs for the unemployed — was first espoused by American socialists. Socialists have long pushed for a universal health insurance plan, which helped create the momentum for stepping-stone measures such as Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s.

More - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jesus-was-a-socialist_b_13854296

- Then there is the other side's -

No, Jesus Wasn't a Socialist

Christian charity, being voluntary and heartfelt, is utterly distinct from the compulsory, impersonal mandates of the state.

Sunday, January 5, 2020



Lawrence W. Reed

Economics Charity Jesus Socialism Bernie Sanders Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wealth Creation

The claim that Jesus Christ was a socialist has become a popular refrain among liberals, even from some whose Christianity is lukewarm at best. But is there any truth in it?

That question cannot be answered without a reliable definition of socialism. A century ago, it was widely regarded as government ownership of the means of production. Jesus never once even hinted at that concept, let alone endorsed it. Yet the definition has changed over time. When the critiques of economists such as Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, and Milton Friedman demolished any intellectual case for the original form of socialism, and reality proved them to be devastatingly right, socialists shifted to another version: central planning of the economy.

One can scour the New Testament and find nary a word from Jesus that calls for empowering politicians or bureaucrats to allocate resources, pick winners and losers, tell entrepreneurs how to run their businesses, impose minimum wages or maximum prices, compel workers to join unions, or even to raise taxes. When the Pharisees attempted to trick Jesus of Nazareth into endorsing tax evasion, he cleverly allowed others to decide what properly belongs to the State by responding, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s.”

Nonetheless, one of the charges that led to Jesus’s crucifixion was indeed tax evasion.

Changing the Definition

With the reputation of central planners in the dumpster worldwide, socialists have largely moved on to a different emphasis: the welfare state. The socialism of Bernie Sanders and his young ally Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is that of the benevolent, egalitarian nanny state where rich Peter is robbed to pay poor Paul. It’s characterized by lots of “free stuff” from the government—which of course isn’t free at all. It’s quite expensive both in terms of the bureaucratic brokerage fees and the demoralizing dependency it produces among its beneficiaries. Is this what Jesus had in mind?

https://fee.org/articles/no-jesus-wasnt-a-socialist/

I haven't seen any shift in the definition of socialism except from conservatives, as that Lawrence Reed obviously is. E.g.

"Marco Rubio
@marcorubio
A radical leftist agenda in a divided country will not help unify our country, it will only confirm 75 million Americans biggest fears about the new administration"