James 5:1-6 ~ How come Jesus' brother sounds like a 'Commie'?

[CHE with an AK]

I would love for a Christian to explain how James' Warning to Rich Oppressors does not implicate capitalism? If a Christian pastor yelled the following words from most pulpits in the U.S., most American capitalist Christians would call him a class warfare communist and someone who wants "evil wealth distribution".

My secular re-translation of what James is basically saying is:

(1) Listen oligarchs, start crying because the day of revolution is coming.
(2) You are selfish indulgent pieces of shit.
(3) You are hoarding your money and this will come back to implicate you after your fall.
(4) You have underpaid and exploited the laborers who made you all of your money in the first place.
(5) You are living in luxury while millions starve to death.
(6) You have mudered innocent people who tried to redress these issues.






James 5:1-6
New International Version (NIV)
1 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.




http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j318/Tredcrow/2011/Revolutionary_Savior_by_Rhy_Himself.jpg

[Susurrus]

I love the pic, but there's plenty of bible verses that contradict the idea of revolution(love thy oppressor, etc). Not to mention the fucked up parts of the old testament, and don't forget when Jesus endorses them.

Matthew 5:17-5:19
17 "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them.

[CommunityBeliever]

I love the pic, but there's plenty of bible verses that contradict the idea of revolution(love thy oppressor, etc).There are plenty of bible verses that contradict the idea that the earth orbits the sun, but Christianity adapted to Galileo, just as it can adapt to communist revolution.

[Sir Comradical]

Yeah, it's really a mixed bag with this whole Christianity thing. My liberation theologist grand-uncle spent his life trying to reconcile Marxism with Christianity, he was excommunicated for that among other things. It's just not worth it, kids. Sure, remember some of these quotes when you argue with some real right-wing Christian trash, but it's all over the place really.

[PhoenixAsh]

O hell no that verse can not be read as a pretext for revolution.

James is pretty much saying: do not get your wealth from the earth but from God and you should submit to his laws, his rule and his dominance. What James is saying in his entire book is that we should be content with our lots in live because it is what God gave us and we should not be malcontent.

He is not berating the rich for being rich. He is berating the rich for NOT believeing in God more than they do in wealth...in false securities...things which are not eternal. Mammon. There is a sideline of generocity of sharig and of being honest....but the essence of James is: focus on God.

In his earlier chapter he talks about not making plans. God makes them.
About your lot in life? Accept it God gave it to you.
About being rich? False security, security can only be given by God.
About condemning the righteous man? Only God will handout punishment and will see whats right and what is wrong.


James messages are about struggling and accepting your faith by believing in Gods greater plan and wisdom.

[Susurrus]

There is a wonderful quote I heard about the bible: "The bible is like a person, if you torture it long enough it will say anything you want.

[Sasha]

romans 13:1
" 1 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience."

popular translation:
"Every person must submit to the authorities for the existing authorities are instituted by God, consequently anyone who rebels is resisting a divine institution and those who so resist have themselves to thank for the punishment they will receive - for Government has no terrors for good behaviour. You wish to have no fear of the authorities? Then contribute to do right and you will have their approval for they are God's agents working for your good."

[Dave B]

When it comes to quoting “Romans” or in other words Saint Paul, as a serious student of early Christianity, it cuts no ice for me.

Paul was the first Christian revisionist and is to early Christianity what Stalin was to Marxism.

In fact Paul was ex Gestapo and as a Roman citizen, something that afforded him a privileged legal status with respect to laws, property, and governance; effectively a member of the ruling class.

Something he used to good effect when getting out of trouble with the imperialist police force and occupying army eg Acts 21;30+.

You have to read between the lines a bit as regards Acts as it is a pro-Paul document so it tends to put a bit of a gloss on things.

Whereas Jesus and his brothers, according to tradition anyway, came from working class stock.

Justin Martyr (110-165) Dialogue with Trypho

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

Chapter 88



He was considered to be the son of Joseph the carpenter…………and he was deemed a carpenter (for He was in the habit of working as a carpenter when among men, making ploughs and yokes;
That is dated around 135 AD, but there is controversy on that precise date.

Incidentally James again according to tradition was JCs step brother by Joseph’s first marriage.

The Catholics don’t like the idea much for some reason which is probably why you don’t here much about it as in BOOK OF JAMES, OR PROTEVANGELIUM.

http://www.gnosis.org/library/gosjames.htm


That document is generally considered as 2nd century.

Engels considered the early christians to be a kind of metaphysical communists.

Works of Frederick Engels 1894 On the History of Early Christianity




The history of early Christianity has notable points of resemblance with the modern working-class movement. Like the latter, Christianity was originally a movement of oppressed people: it first appeared as the religion of slaves and emancipated slaves, of poor people deprived of all rights, of peoples subjugated or dispersed by Rome. Both Christianity and the workers' socialism preach forthcoming salvation from bondage and misery; Christianity places this salvation in a life beyond, after death, in heaven; socialism places it in this world, in a transformation of society.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/early-christianity/index.htm

[tradeunionsupporter]

This is true.

[Franz Fanonipants]

As a Christian leftist, I'd argue that a roughly 1,200 year old tradition isn't readily mapped to any ideology.

I will say that hegemony can be a two way street, though. If you know your gospels well enough you can manage to get most christians who aren't full-on focus on the family evangelical monsters to admit that christianity does have an implicit criticism of capital in it. The "upside down world" of the Kingdom of Heaven that Christ preaches is necessarily counter to processes of worldly acquisition and power.

[AnonymousOne]

How about we just ignore the silly superstition and move on? A powerful class analysis of our society is much better than the often contradicting words in 1200 year book written by a superstitious nomadic people.

[Weezer]

The Bible isn't supposed to be read literally.

Just sayin'.

[CHE with an AK]

How about we just ignore the silly superstition and move on?
I'd love to ... but over a billion Christians won't be dropping their beliefs anytime soon ... so why not see if they can be reached through their own worldview?

[Sir Comradical]

As a Christian leftist, I'd argue that a roughly 1,200 year old tradition isn't readily mapped to any ideology.

I will say that hegemony can be a two way street, though. If you know your gospels well enough you can manage to get most christians who aren't full-on focus on the family evangelical monsters to admit that christianity does have an implicit criticism of capital in it. The "upside down world" of the Kingdom of Heaven that Christ preaches is necessarily counter to processes of worldly acquisition and power.

Where?

[Dave B]

How about we just ignore the silly superstition and move on? A powerful class analysis of our society is much better than the often contradicting words in 1200 year book written by a superstitious nomadic people.


Well we could of course but that certainly wasn’t the position that Karl took in his Feuerbachian period, as in Feuerbachs Essence of Christianity.

Following on from people like David Strauss with his The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined1836 translated into English in 1846 which was the sensation of its time.

The problem, for Feuerbach who was a materialist and communist of sorts, was to put Christianity into a materialist context in the sense that ‘ideas’ don’t just spring out of thin air and catch the imagination of a large group of people without a material reason.

At this point what was of interest was the essence of Christianity not how it was subsequently adapted and revised as an ideological tool of oppression and justification of the state and the divine rights of Kings etc.

The essence of christianity or the gospel documents for Feuerbach, and Marx who followed him, in his human essence period was exactly as that discussed in the James thing at the top of the thread.

An ideology of the poor venting spleen and criticism of power and oppression etc.

It is written in right through the gospel documents with camels going through eyes of needles (actually ‘camel’ was probably a transcription error for rope)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle#fn_2


And for example in Luke 4;5-7 where power and wealth was within the gift of the devil and nothing to do with god.

You don’t have to be an intellectual to understand this part, as Michael Moore made the same basic point in Capitalism a Love Story

What Feuerbach said was that the early christians were projecting, imparting, expressing or transferring their feelings onto a metaphysical being or place and therefore the appeal of the christian message was a kind of political reflection of their state of mind and general attitude towards stuff.

It wasn’t just a matter of fantasying with vindictive spite about what was going to happen to the rich and devilish oppressors.

As if dreaming about putting all the capitalist up against the wall and shooting them after the revolution is any worse that having them burn in hell for eternity.

It did have a positive ‘communistic’ programme in sharing stuff and finding fulfilment in doing stuff for others. Eg Acts 4;32+

Feuerbach and Karl thought that humans had a ‘material’ natural social instinct or human essence for ‘communism’ which when frustrated was re-expressed in a fantastic or strange form.

A bit like the idea of broody women with their lap dogs or whatever if you believe that kind of thing, which is tempting when you hear them calling it ‘my baby’.

So in other words the communist or social instinct of the human species in christianity had been moved into the ‘heaven of abstraction’ but what caused it was real enough and thus Feuerbach had brought it back to earth.

Marx To Ludwig Feuerbach In Bruckberg Paris, August 11 1844




In these writings you have provided — I don't know whether intentionally — a philosophical basis for socialism and the Communists have immediately understood them in this way. The unity of man with man, which is based on the real differences between men, the concept of the human species brought down from the heaven of abstraction to the real earth, what is this but the concept of society!


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/letters/44_08_11.htm

Thus around the same time you get stuff like the following;



This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature, and between man and man, the true resolution of the conflict between existence and being, between objectification and self-affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between individual and species. It is the solution of the riddle of history and knows itself to Karl Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts Third Manuscript Private Property and Labor


3) Communism is the positive supersession of private property as human self-estrangement, and hence the true appropriation of the human essence through and for man; it is the complete restoration of man to himself as a social – i.e., human – being, a restoration which has become conscious and which takes place within the entire wealth of previous periods of development.



http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/epm/3rd.htm


It came to an abrupt end in 1845 with Stirners Ego and his Own who trashed the materialist concept of natural altruism.

Social instinct theory was later placed back into the materialist and scientific arena by Darwin in his Descent of Man.

Which in retrospect provided substance to Feuerbach who, in that respect, was just ahead of his time.


There are contradictions in the Gospels but they are only of interest as regards christians who think every word is precisely true.

Just in case anyone is interested one of the greatest is the date of the nativity and an impossible contradiction between the account in Matthew and Luke.

Luke 2 ‘The Birth of Jesus’;



1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.

There was actually a census as reported by Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 18.1-2 backed up by circumstantial material and custom and practice in the Roman empire upon taking direct control over a region etc;


Quirinius was a man of the Senate, who had held other offices, and after going through them all achieved the highest rank. He had a great reputation for other reasons, too. He arrived in Syria with some others, for he was sent by Caesar as a governor, and to be an assessor of their worth. Coponius, who held the rank of knight, was sent along with him to take total command over the Jews. And Quirinius also went to Judaea, since it became part of Syria, to take a census of their worth and to make an account of the possessions of Archelaus.



Admittedly it wasn’t of the whole of the Roman empire, but you could put that down to a pedantic detail, I think there was sort of one around AD70 so it is possible that the author of Luke assumed the earlier one was the same as the more recent one.

The ‘nativity’ Census happened shortly after Herod Archelaus (the one after Herod the Great) ceased to be the Ethnarch* of the region in AD 6.

But according to Matthew at that time JC, already well extant, and family were hiding out in Egypt eg Matthew 2.



19 After Herod (the great) died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee.

In fact the Matthew account and in particular the murdering of the babes of Bethlehem 2;16 isn’t taken seriously as no such thing was reported by Josephus who not being a fan of Herod the Great would have been as unlikely to have not reported it as Fox news would WMD in Iraq.

And Baby eating monsters was also a popular literary theme.


It is possible of course that Luke similarly was weaving historical fact into fiction.

The book of James is interesting perhaps as it fuses the two narratives together with both Luke’s census and Matthew’s baby eating Herod.


if you take the Luke position he would have mis-described Herod Archelaus as a ‘king’ rather than ‘ethnarc’ in Luke1;5, but again that would be splitting hairs a bit.

And of course if want criticise Christianity, or for that matter Leninism it is a good idea to get tooled up first and understand their subject better than they do.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Where?

you're right bro its just backwards superstition about a man w/a beard in the sky. sorry.

[ZrianKobani]

Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. ~Luke 6:30

Works for me.

[Waltraute]

an excellent book -- I've often made comprisons between James &, for instance Trotsky ("the St. ames of Marxism") in conversation with friends

[gendoikari]

When it comes to quoting “Romans” or in other words Saint Paul, as a serious student of early Christianity, it cuts no ice for me.

Paul was the first Christian revisionist and is to early Christianity what Stalin was to Marxism.


just look at john the revalator, over a century after christ during a time when christians were being harrassed and killed and he writes a book full of wonderful imagry about rising up ...... yeah revelations was never meant to be read literally.

[Blackburn]

As a Non-American I can the one thing that doesn't mix well together is the USA Culture and Christianity.

It seems to have created a monstrous beast that is the Prosperity Gospel.

Also the whole 'Jesus loves guns thing'.

Sometimes it's not the fault of religion, more the cultural influence that creates it's own religious experience.

[CHE with an AK]

http://blogs.courant.com/susan_campbell/libertarians_in_heaven.png

[eyeheartlenin]

Just two points: The explicitly Christian content of the Letter attributed to James is really very thin, just a few verses. If those verses are omitted, what one has is an ancient Jewish sermon, to the effect that conviction without action is dead. That statement is actually quoted in the recent movie, "The Trotsky," which many people don't like, but I enjoyed, since I like Jay Baruchel.

Communism is at least as old as the church: Acts 2:44-45, "And all who believed were together and had all things in common and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to them all, as any had need."

The same theme occurs in Acts 4:32, "Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common." (RSV translation, 1952)

To quote an earlier response, "Works for me." :)

[tradeunionsupporter]

Thank you for the info.

[o well this is ok I guess]

I love the pic, but there's plenty of bible verses that contradict the idea of revolution(love thy oppressor, etc). Not to mention the fucked up parts of the old testament, and don't forget when Jesus endorses them.

Matthew 5:17-5:19
17 "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. The important part is to figure out which saints you prefer over others

for instance: Ignore fucking everything St. Paul ever says. The gospel of St. Luke is for winners.

[RGacky3]

Matthew 5:17-5:19
17 "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them.

The point of that was that the law and prophets were a precurser to the massiah, and that once the massiah came they were fulfilled, aka, not neccessary any more, in other words he was saying they had a purpose but not anymore.