Posted on 08/17/2011 8:52:17 PM PDT by lbryce
As the debate over the government’s debt and its role in assisting the poor intensifies, some on the far left have begun to claim that Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible advocate socialism and preach against capitalism.
While this notion gives many conservative Christians angst, it is an ideal that is quickly gaining steam among atheists (and some left-leaning believers) who find themselves more on the fiscally-liberal side of the political spectrum.
Last week, atheist Gregory Paul, a freelance researcher, author and illustrator, penned a piece for the Washington Post in which he claims that socialism has its roots in the Christian Bible. In his article, Paul questions why Christians have abandoned the socialistic inclinations espoused by Jesus Christ to embrace capitalistic beliefs that contradict, in his view, Biblical principles.
Paul contends that “a set of profound contradictions have developed within modern conservative Christianity.” These contradictions are so perplexing, he says, that they “set one’s head spinning.” In Paul’s eyes, Christians who denounce Darwin’s evolutionary science, yet espouse social Darwinism (i.e. capitalism) are doing so without examining the antithetical nature of their thinking. He writes:
Many conservative Christians, mostly Protestant but also a number of Catholics, have come to believe and proudly proclaim that the creator of the universe favors free wheeling, deregulated, union busting, minimal taxes especially for wealthy investors, plutocrat-boosting capitalism as the ideal earthly scheme for his human creations.
In citing examples straight from the Bible that he calls “outright socialism of the type described millennia later by Marx,” Paul pleads his case. The first example he gives is focused upon Jesus’ warning to the wealthy that they may not inherit the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:24, which reads, ..
(Excerpt) Read more at theblaze.com ...
I was going to respond in kind...thank you for completing the task for me.
"We oppose Moralities"
(morals)...So they do not simply express a practical need for mediation as they come into developement of those societies,and as a result they are expressed in very strict rules which allow no deviation in any sense....... From this point of view Christainity is one of the most hateful of moralities.So Morality is not simply a codification of external sanctions, but is deeply rooted in individuals in the form of "Moral Conscience". This moral conscience is acquored and maintained largely as a result of the religious. ...............
Frankly I would not pay any attention to the latest ploy by the Commie/Fascist/Socialist/Progressive to marginalize religion. They desperately need the masses to renounce religion (and Germans in the 30's did,and the Russians did even earlier) for the State to become the ALL powerful Ruler.
First, for Christians, Jesus Christ is understood in terms of the Trinity, defined, I suspect, fairly well by Wikipedia as follows:
“The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — distinctly coexisting in unity as co-equal, co-eternal, and consubstantial, or of one being. The Trinity itself is considered to be a mystery of Christian faith.
“According to this doctrine, God exists as three persons but is one God, meaning that God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have exactly the same nature or being as God the Father in every way. Whatever attributes and power God the Father has, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have as well.
“The doctrine developed from the biblical language used in New Testament passages such as the baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19 and took substantially its present form by the end of the 4th century as a result of controversies concerning the proper sense in which to apply to God and Christ terms such as “person”, “nature”, “essence”, and “substance”.
“Trinitarianism contrasts with non-Trinitarian positions which include Binitarianism (one deity/two persons), Unitarianism (one deity/one person), the Oneness or Modalism belief, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ tritheistic monolatrist view of the Godhead as three separate beings who are one in purpose rather than essence.”
Second, Marxism, of which Socialism is one form along a spectrum, has, from its founding, held religions such a Christianity in contempt, and more severe forms of Marxism have rigorously and violently sought to purge such religions and their practice from society.
Marxists who try to posit Jesus as a fellow-Marxist of one sort or another, or who equate any form of Marxism with the teachings of Jesus, are disingenuous in the extreme. They make him out to be a mere wise man, and seek thereby to secularize his teachings and use them for their own political purposes, while willfully ignoring his essential divinity, which they abhor.
So you mean I’m not allowed to kill my brother?
Possibly, but then in Christ we would all behave in such a way that no government would be necessary...or at least minimally.
perhaps i’m overthinking that...
Sodom and Gomorrah weren’t destroyed because of gayness.
Socialism is the political outgrowth of philosophical materialism..which is atheist by definition.
Christ/God created man with free will.
Envy is a sin, Socialism is institutionalized sin.
Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Jesus is a monarchist. What else would He be?
I’ll take a Shakespearean quotation as validating source anytime.
I very much appreciate your thoughtfulness in posting it :-)
jesus has nothing to do with politics-AT ALL- render unto ceaser the things that are ceasers and to god the things that are gods— meaning— ceaser has his laws and i have mine— jesus says fear not the man that can kill you in this world, i say unto you, fear him that have the power to cast you in hell fire after death- (forever)
But he eventually ended up high and dry.
The only thing "perplexing" him is his stereotypes. Capitalism is at heart a mutualistic system. The only regime that was all-but-explicitly founded on Social Darwinism, Nazi Germany, saw capitalists as milch-cows for their "betters" - i.e, the Nazis themselves. That ain't capitalist, no matter how much the sophistries are stretched. Sparing someone's life because he's useful to you doesn't mean you love him.
Fact is, our idea of free-market capitalism was born in the eighteenth century; it was sold by analogies to Newtonian mechanics. There have been some thinkers who have tried to graft Darwinism onto capitalism, but social Darwinism found a much more comfortable home in the progressive movement of a century ago. (Liberal Fascism.)
Laissez-faire is a good way of describing it. Free markets, free will. That is God’s way and I believe the way of Jesus. To involve Himself in our mundane political matters would effectively end our free will. God’s kingdom is not of this world - that he made very clear and proceeded to die for it. I am a believer in God and in no way a believer in government power beyond what we willfully give government in the Constitution.
Jesus A Socialist? No, he was a Capricorn...
Agreed.
My own take on the matter is that Jesus saw people who got rich out of a sense of obligation and who really didn't desire wealth. By telling them to sell their goods and donate the proceeds to the poor, he was freeing them from a false value system (i.e., propitiating Mammon as an obligation.)
It's funny that no-one's mentioned the Parable of the Talents so far. I guess that's because those who believe Jesus was a socialist interpret it in a different but not necessarily unBiblical way.
It was because they were mixed that Jesus was crucified.
Jesus calls us all to repent or perish. This is our #1 obligation in the Bible because we are all sinners in need of salvation. No one is appointed to create Heaven on Earth through the redistribution of wealth, which is what Socialism is all about.
Abraham Lincoln once remarked that as the Lord made man to live by the sweat of his brow, there would always be those who try to live off the sweat of someone else’s brow. This is what Socialism is.
Jesus was a religious communalist. Many of the early religious communities and monestaries operated on a similar basis. It works for small like-minded communities. It is a lot more difficult for countries, even with modern communications.
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