“Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat.”
The Communist Manifesto
Nixon’s Southern Strategy and it’s fallout made a lot of things weird.
The US has always walked a somewhat different path. In Europe, the left/right dichotomy was associated with monarchism for way over a century. In countries like the UK, it still is.
The soviet union considered the early christian communes to be examples of proto-communism. I don’t really know much about that school of thought.
The Stalin constitution of the soviet union even quoted the bible. Stalin did study to become a priest before converting to Marxism-Leninism.
He who does not work, neither shall he eat 2 Thessalonians 3:10
That quote featured big in early soviet propaganda, during the time of the Holodomor.
Whatever else he may have said, Marx’s version was much better. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is a much better way to run society as a whole.
Yeah, from saints like Francis of Assisi and Dorothy Day to the fact that the early church was basically voluntary communes Christianity could’ve just embraced communism and socialism. Hell there’s liberation theology as well!
Go back 100 years, and a big chunk of American church leaders either outright identified as socialist or were sympathetic. The early push for the prosperity gospel was laughed off because it was transparently a cop to the rich. Took decades to make it stick.
Nixon’s Southern Strategy and it’s fallout made a lot of things weird.
The US has always walked a somewhat different path. In Europe, the left/right dichotomy was associated with monarchism for way over a century. In countries like the UK, it still is.
The soviet union considered the early christian communes to be examples of proto-communism. I don’t really know much about that school of thought.
The Stalin constitution of the soviet union even quoted the bible. Stalin did study to become a priest before converting to Marxism-Leninism.
He who does not work, neither shall he eat 2 Thessalonians 3:10
That quote featured big in early soviet propaganda, during the time of the Holodomor.
Whatever else he may have said, Marx’s version was much better. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is a much better way to run society as a whole.
Passive income is un-Christian! Unfortunately, so are most Christians.
Yeah, from saints like Francis of Assisi and Dorothy Day to the fact that the early church was basically voluntary communes Christianity could’ve just embraced communism and socialism. Hell there’s liberation theology as well!
Go back 100 years, and a big chunk of American church leaders either outright identified as socialist or were sympathetic. The early push for the prosperity gospel was laughed off because it was transparently a cop to the rich. Took decades to make it stick.