Jesus Christ Socialist?

[HanoiJohn]

Inb4 assumptions. Not a Christian or theist. This is in 'history' for a reason, guys. Obviously, I do not believe Jesus was magic. Lies and propaganda from organisations that sought to control people. Except Jesus himself, Yeshua bin [presumably] Yoseph, almost certainly did exist. Regarding this quasi-historical figure, do you think he was a socialist? And therefore his teachings, socialist teachings? Not the historical figure, even, so much as 'the man presented in the New Testament.' ''Tis easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven;' sounds like he knew which was was up, right?

I'm not alone in my suspicion; others have tried to sell this viewpoint and have tried to tie Christianity and Socialism. Reckon this is a worthwhile perspective? Or a valuable - from socialism's perspective - tactic? Not going to lie, something satisfying about using the 'weapon of the enemy' against them, even if, of course, they believe they're using it 'for the greater good.' You never know, it could achieve something.

[tuwix]

Jesus wasn't socialist in Marxist understanding. There aren't known facts that he was against private property and for a sort of common property. Nonetheless, he was against inequalities. So if we define a socialist as one who is against inequalities, then we can call a Jesus a socialist.

But there are a texts that his students became even communists. Acts 4:32 say:
“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had” ...

[consuming negativity]

>Inb4 assumptions. Not a Christian or theist. This is in 'history' for a reason, guys. Obviously, I do not believe Jesus was magic.

this stuff really isn't necessary, so you know

jesus would not have described himself as a "socialist" because "socialism" didn't exist at the time. now, did some of the stuff he say sound a lot like shit we believe? sure. but he was a man of his time; a jew crucified for his perceived threat to roman authority.

[odysseus]

Jesus was a living person, who like many, claimed to be the messiah and was crucified. That can be historically verified. We certainly know the roman governor and company existed as well.

The only curious thing is that, out of dozens of other 'messiahs', who were vastly more popular than jesus was, Jesus' movement stuck. The other movements followers disbanded cause to be messiah, you can not be dead. Jesus doesn't actually fulfill maybe half the requirments. Yet his apostles stuck around and truly beleived in it.

The new testament was not written to control people. Now, some later translators (king james) may have fudged certain parts to keep the populace from rebelling, but it was not written to control people.

Historians believe there is a 'book Q', a book of jesus' most famous quotes. The bible, written decades after he died, was meant to give context to those quotes.

I.e. "Man was not made for the sabbath, the sabbath was made for man".
Later on, an apostle sat down at his desk and made a story "one day Jesus and 12 Co. we're walking in a field of wheat, when hungry jesus picked some to eat.
The pharasies saw this and said 'no no no, thats against the sabbath', and Jesus replied 'Man was not made for the sabbath, the sabbath was made for man'.


Another quote is this:

Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 Blessed are you when people hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil,
because of the Son of Man.

But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

I just think its a shame you think of Christianity as a weapon of the enemy. MLK was certainly no enemy, yet he was probably had the greatest understanding of what Jesus was truly saying, and wholeheartedly believed in that message and spread that message, obviously with success. Just imagine if he could see how in 2008 capitalism nearly caused a second great depression like he grew up in.

While I don't think of Jesus' teachings as a weapon, to use your analogy, the capitalist forces of the world have been using our weapon(christ) against us for too long, instilling a false conciousness to which people have equated their entire political and economic belief system to since the 70's with those far right conservative pastors like Pat Robertson.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Jesus was not "ours". His message was pretty much that if you're good and meek in "this" life (that means no anal sex, no abortion etc., in addition to always giving unto Caesar what is Caesar's), you will be grudgingly saved when the divine paterfamilias throws his last cosmic tantrum, by throwing people into an eternally burning lake. And then you will be allowed to live in the kingdom of the divine paterfamilias and endlessly praise the monarch of the universe.

And this is completely contrary to the socialist message that the working class can bring about the classless, stateless society, with rule by a small minority of property owners replaced by the scientific administration of things and direction of processes of production, not by being meek and self-sacrificing but by ruthlessly pursuing its interest - in "this life", i.e. in the only life that exists.

And anyone who wants to use religion or myth to attract the proletariat without patiently explaining our communist politics is a populist, and a populist that shows an immense contempt for the proletariat.

[Armchair Partisan]

By modern terms, Jesus would be a left-wing populist and a social democrat, in the worst sense of the world: a "progressive" but paternalistic autocrat who throws a lot of scraps at you in exchange for complete submission. And that's with the most minimal amount of Bible literalism I can imagine.

I despise attempts to diffuse the message of socialism with religion, nor do I see any point in it.

[Tim Cornelis]

If giving alms and charity is socialist, then Christian democrats, paternalistic conservatives, NGOs, and whatever else too are socialist. I don't see why Jesus would be a left-wing populist or social-democrat. The Dutch and German welfare states were built by right-wing Christian conservative parties, I think it's more likely he would join one of those parties.

[Comrade Jacob]

More of a social-democrat tbh.

[Armchair Partisan]

If giving alms and charity is socialist, then Christian democrats, paternalistic conservatives, NGOs, and whatever else too are socialist. I don't see why Jesus would be a left-wing populist or social-democrat. The Dutch and German welfare states were built by right-wing Christian conservative parties, I think it's more likely he would join one of those parties.

Well, with his anti-rich rhetoric I figured the "left-wing populist" label would fit him - I confess that I stuck the label "social democrat" to him for more vague reasons than that. Maybe he could fit in the German CDU, yes - in fact, if Jesus was resurrected and thrown into the 20th century, it's likely he'd revise his Roman-era populism, rationalizing it with "everyone can get rich if they work hard enough, it's not like the Roman era where birthright decided social status".

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

it seems a rather anachronistic label to apply to a man who died almost 2000 years ago but even in the most distorted versions of the new testament there are clearly parts of Jesus' teachings which sound pretty amenable. Also it seems a bit unfair to call a guy who trashed the market stalls at the Temple a social democrat, it seems that unlike them at least he was prepared to put his money where his mouth was, so to speak, which is more than you can say for basically any socdem party ever.

i'm by no means a christian or even remotely spiritual but i did grow up with christianity (and thus the gulf between existing churches and the teachings of the new testament) and i think its fairly telling that throughout history the groups that most embraced the new testament (which include the rejection of the laws in the old testament and the removal of original sin via Jesus' death, which most churches seem to forget to mention) have been ruthlessly flattened.


E:

for the record i don't condone 'christian communist' ideas or using religion as a kind of lure, in fact i'm pretty opposed to the idea. the fact remains that there are concepts in Jesus' teachings which would not be unfamiliar to socialists, and there have been movements throughout history which have attempted to realise 'christian communism'

[odysseus]

Jesus was not "ours". His message was pretty much that if you're good and meek in "this" life (that means no anal sex, no abortion etc., in addition to always giving unto Caesar what is Caesar's), you will be grudgingly saved when the divine paterfamilias throws his last cosmic tantrum, by throwing people into an eternally burning lake. And then you will be allowed to live in the kingdom of the divine paterfamilias and endlessly praise the monarch of the universe.

And this is completely contrary to the socialist message that the working class can bring about the classless, stateless society, with rule by a small minority of property owners replaced by the scientific administration of things and direction of processes of production, not by being meek and self-sacrificing but by ruthlessly pursuing its interest - in "this life", i.e. in the only life that exists.

And anyone who wants to use religion or myth to attract the proletariat without patiently explaining our communist politics is a populist, and a populist that shows an immense contempt for the proletariat.


Does Xhar Xhar always try to sound like she knows whats up on a subject she, in actuality, knows nothing about?

Jesus saying Give back to 'Cesar what is Cesar's, and give to god what is gods', (the land being god's) might have well have been saying give the romans their coins back, and take our land back.

That was as revolutionary as it got, and got him arrested later that night, to which he crucified.

Jesus was not preaching this world doesn't matter, only the next world does. He was calling for everybody to not only revolt against the Roman Empire, but also to completely upend the social order. That kind of message would not only get you killed then, but would get you killed today.

I don't know what denomination you grew up in Xhar Xhar, but it would behoove you to learn about the historical Jesus, not the BS version where he is completely detached from the world and only cares about the next. Someone as smart as you should be able to figure out why after 1000 years of feudalism and Kings, his message might have been just a little bit twisted to pacify the population. That is, after all, what Marx talked about in his 'religion is the opiate of the masses' quote.

I recommend listening/reading Reza Aslan, a historian of religions, if you feel like learning more on the subject.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Does Xhar Xhar always try to sound like she knows whats up on a subject she, in actuality, knows nothing about?

Jesus saying Give back to 'Cesar what is Cesar's, and give to god what is gods', (the land being god's) might have well have been saying give the romans their coins back, and take our land back.

That was as revolutionary as it got, and got him arrested later that night, to which he crucified.

Jesus was not preaching this world doesn't matter, only the next world does. He was calling for everybody to not only revolt against the Roman Empire, but also to completely upend the social order. That kind of message would not only get you killed then, but would get you killed today.

I don't know what denomination you grew up in Xhar Xhar, but it would behoove you to learn about the historical Jesus, not the BS version where he is completely detached from the world and only cares about the next. Someone as smart as you should be able to figure out why after 1000 years of feudalism and Kings, his message might have been just a little bit twisted to pacify the population. That is, after all, what Marx talked about in his 'religion is the opiate of the masses' quote.

I recommend listening/reading Reza Aslan, a historian of religions, if you feel like learning more on the subject.

With all due respect, I imagine I know more about the subject than you do. Since you asked, I grew up Catholic. And I'm familiar with all of the standard excuses made by progressive Catholics. They're great if you're trying to reconcile not being a reactionary arsehole with being a Catholic, or whatever Christian denomination strikes your fancy (or more likely the fancy of your parents). But in the long run, it's pointless. None of these excuses stand up to scrutiny, and they can't be reconciled to the historical facts.

Your theory - that "what is God's" refers to land, probably meaning Judaea but who knows - is for example completely at odds with what the text actually says (the question was about paying taxes to the Roman state; land was never part of the dispute), and the activity of the early Christians, who certainly did not lead any movement to "take their land back". In fact they went to great lengths to dissociate themselves from movements that did. And this, at most, a few years after the death of the man who supposedly wanted to overthrow the Roman empire. Truly the Prince of this world is powerful.

Which is not to say that Christians are unconcerned with "this" world. We owe quite a lot of repressive legislation to their kind offices. What they are unconcerned with, and what Jesus was unconcerned with, was radically changing the structure of society. Hence the pacifism of the early Christians, hence a Christian Roman Empire and so on. Now contrast this to a figure like Ibn Tumart, a religious reformer that did not preach distancing oneself from political struggle.

[mushroompizza]

He was quasi anti-capitalist, he didn't like greed, but i dont remember him saying anything against money or flow of capital. I guess hes more a religous social democrat.

[Luís Henrique]

Yeshua bin [presumably] Yoseph

Curiously, the orthodox interpretation is that he was bar Abbas - son of the Father...

Then when I say that Mark was an epic troll, people stare at me like I was some kind of extra-terrestrial.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

He was quasi anti-capitalist

Anti-capitalist (even if "quasi"), 1,700 years before capitalism came into existence?

Luís Henrique

[Dave B]

I think what is clear that the early 2nd century christians were ‘communists’ in the sense of sharing or holding property in common.

This comes out in 2nd material hostile to Christianity ie

Lucian of Samosata : THE PASSING OF PEREGRINUS

And in Celsum’s true doctrine

Both dated to around 170 AD

And in extra new testament material;

Didache (Didache that is dated from late 1st to early 2nd)

Epistle of Barnabas (almost universally accepted as dated at 130AD from internal dating evidence).

From a text of Justyn the Martyr (again accepted at around 150AD)

And from the two passages in Acts itself.

I think that kind of thing persisted as a tradition up until the 4th century?

And was picked up later on by Engels, Kautsky and Rosa

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/early-christianity/

https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1908/christ/index.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1905/misc/socialism-churches.htm

there was an earlier statement position on this from Engels;




Apart from this it recognised, at most, the equality of the elect, which however was only stressed at the very beginning. The traces of community of goods which are also found in the early stages of the new religion can be ascribed to solidarity among the proscribed rather than to real equalitarian ideas.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch08.htm

I also think you can textually analyse the gospel material as proto communist.

You can say that you couldn’t expect it to be anti capitalism when there wasn’t any capitalism as we know it.


However there was a sort of socio economic revolution going on at the time due to changes in socio-economic law after the incorporation of Judea etc into the roman state after 6AD.

Small peasant farmers were getting into debt after getting pulled into the cash nexus of roman empire’s cash taxation system; and being foreclosed on to become agricultural wage slaves.





There was also an interesting passage from Eusebius ( quoting Philo from the early 1st) from the early 4th century eulogising Essene (monastic) ‘communism’; misogyny aside.

CHAPTER XI

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/eusebius_pe_08_book8.htm

[Dave B]

There is a strong thesis that early Christianity may have evolved out Essenism.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

[Dave B] I think what is clear that the early 2nd century christians were ‘communists’ in the sense of sharing or holding property in common.[/QUOTE]

So were the Pythagoreans, otherwise violent reactionaries even in the context of the ancient Mediterranean. As was every monastic order. And in a real sense, every garrison.

So yeah, pretty lax criteria for what constitutes a communist.

[Antiochus]

Socialism only exists within the present context of Capitalism. It would sort of be like saying "Player X was a superbowl champion".... before the superbowl came about. Jesus is certainly problematic for the fusion of capitalism/evangelism that exists in much of the Western world since he did seem to have a genuine dislike for property and power; but he disliked those things due to the fact that they "took away" from god's power.

[willowtooth]

Jesus never lived his existence is a myth

you might as well be debating whether leprechauns are socialists :wub:

[Dave B]

I think to start off with I will throw this link in as there is nothing easier than posting links!

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04179a.htm

I think Pythagorean, Platonic and its antecedent Spartan ‘Lycurgus communism’ was orientated around egalitarianism within the ruling class itself.

And you could make the argument it was a kind of ‘state socialism’ of and for the ruling class; and an expression of class conscious ruling solidarity.

[‘Lycurgus communism’ incidentally formed an important intellectually backdrop to the young Hegelians.]

This early ‘Christian communism’ however seemed to be ‘based’ on the ‘dispossessed’; in fact Celsum of 170AD described them as the lower classes ie artisans, slaves and wage workers.

And takes the piss out of it for not having any ruling or ‘middle class’ advocates; and its proponent being a carpenter of all things and his mother a weaver of cloth.

You don’t have to read into and invent a contemptuous anti workerist ‘class’ analysis into it; is writ large within Celsum’s document.

We and they are scum.

I think Christian communism later morphed into monastic state capitalism in the same way as Bolshevism did.

[Spectre of Spartacism]

Xhar-Xhar has already said what I would have. Communist in the most general meaning of the term? Yes, Jesus might squeeze into that category. He was certainly not a communist in the scientific meaning of the term as expounded by the Marxist tradition.

[Luís Henrique]

Jesus never lived his existence is a myth

you might as well be debating whether leprechauns are socialists :wub:

Yup, Jesus of Nazareth probably never existed, and is merely a fictional character.

But Subienkov (http://london.sonoma.edu/writings/LostFace/lostface.html) never existed, too, and was certainly a Polish nationalist, wasn't he?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Well, with his anti-rich rhetoric I figured the "left-wing populist" label would fit him - I confess that I stuck the label "social democrat" to him for more vague reasons than that. Maybe he could fit in the German CDU,

Just as he couldn't be a socialist, he could obviously not be a left-wing populist, a social democrat, a "Christian democrat", etc. All those things are firmly rooted in capitalism, and could not exist in Jesus times.


yes - in fact, if Jesus was resurrected and thrown into the 20th cenury, it's likely he'd revise his Roman-era populism, rationalizing it with "everyone can get rich if they work hard enough, it's not like the Roman era where birthright decided social status".

If Jesus was resurrected, then the Christians would be right, isn't it?

************************************************** ***

Jesus lived in a time whence capitalism didn't exist, and consequently there was no possible "socialism" as a social force. There could be anger against the rich, there could be an uncanny feeling about money as a rising social construct that misled people into "antinatural" lives, there could be angst about the role of the Roman Empire and its oppression of other people, but those things would be rooted in something completely different from "socialism".

Jesus, consequently, was not talking about socialism versus capitalism; his subject was a completely different one. His saga is a story about Jewish particularism, about the failure of Israel as a contender for hegemony in the Mediterranic world, about its military defeat and political subjection to the Romans, about its intellectual displacement by Greek philosophy, etc. It is a tale about a small and excessively proud nation having to give up its supposed direct relation to the One God, and to reshape its vindications as universal vindications of justice and freedom, that its former ideological apparatus could not handle.

Jesus is an attempt by the Abrahamic God to explain its failure to secure the position of Israel, and to flee forward, claiming a universalism that was unheard of of him before. He is an acceptance of political defeat ("to Caesar what is Caesar's"), and a challenge to change the game into something very different. Thence the many conundrums in the Gospels, especially the mysterious confrontation between the political Messiah (Barabbas) and the non-political "King of the Jews", with the many indications that the issues appear inverted (Jesus, whose "kingdom is not of this world" is crucified as Rex Judeorum, while Barabbas, the "leader of the (very much of this world) rebellion" is freed by Pilate).

Those, at least, seem to me the actual questions that Jesus (or rather the people who wrote about him, since he was probably not a real person, or perhaps was an amalgamation of several different real but actually unimportant characters) would have faced, and tried to solve. Questions that were of his time and place, and that a normal human being would be prepared to struggle with.

Supposing that he could transhistorically assess issues that only became relevant in the 19th Century would be to accept that he was indeed more than a mere human being.

Luís Henrique

[Rafiq]

One should be very careful about drawing such conclusions by merit of appearances and resemblances, for reasons already stated. For example, the Qarmatians of early Islamic history were conceived as communistic by some, with their commendable sacking of mecca in defiance of the institutionalized Islamic superstition - and their "apparent" egalitarian ways. A closer look, unfortunately shows that private property and slavery persisted within the Qarmatian empire, despite the relative egalitarianism.

The point is that these social categories might "resemble" things unique to our present epoch, but they are not expressions of them.

I would like to add, however, something rather crucial with regard to Christianity: Jesus may have not been a socialist, but to disavow the long-line of western thought (which culminated into the enlightenment) that was made distinct not only through Hellenism and Christianity, but also Judaism, as arguably advances in historical reason - in favor of either paganism or Eastern spirituality, etc. is an arduous mistake. It is not a coincidence that Fascists were the first to hark on about the "weaknesses" of western thought, in contrast to the mythical, ancient past or the East.

That is to say, we oppose western Christianity, but not insofar as it is contrasted with - for example, Orthodox Christianity. We oppose Protestantism, but not insofar as it is contrasted with Catholicism.