Socialism in the Early Church

Support the channel by visiting https://brianholdsworth.ca

Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com

So last week, I was sitting down to do the readings of the day with my family, and there was a snippet from Acts of the Apostles, chapter 4 where it says that in the early #Church, there were no needy among them because people would sell their possessions, give it to the Apostles, and it would be distributed to each according to their need.

And as soon as I read that, I thought, oh great, we’re going to be hearing from the #Communist Christians on Twitter this week because Karl #Marx coined a particular communist mantra which sounds an awful lot like the phrasing in the book of acts. He said, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

And sure enough, a saw a self-satisfied tweet talking about how all the capitalist Christians must be trembling to justify their disdain for communism after reading that.

Now, I’m not an expert on #Communism, I’m not even an expert on Christianity, but I know enough about both to know that for whatever similarities you might be able to find at a high level, when you look at the fundamentals of each, there are irreconcilable differences – the kind that cause all the celebrities to get divorced, so you have to know that they are serious.

Even the fact that some Christians call themselves Communist Christians, underlines the point. If they are the same thing, then you shouldn’t have to qualify your Christianity. If Christianity simply taught communism as part of its social teaching, then simply describing yourself as a Christian would suffice in capturing that whole vision.

Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/