Was Christ a communist?

It could. And if we play with words in the bible, we can find phrases which can mean pretty much anything. Which is what it's all about, really, and why Christians can, in effect, do anything they want to, and do it with the belief that their God is behind them. Your right. I should know better than to think that Christianity might have any such practical purpose. As Jesus said that, Christians perhaps should be strongly anti-communist, to make sure that he's always right. I suspect that if we search the bible carefully, and interpret the words the way we want to, we will be able to make them both right and wrong. Indeed. Or because one of them had picked his pocket, and no-one else knew this.I've come to the conclusion that Christ is a communist and a fascist and a liberal all at the same time, and probably pretty much anything anyone wants him to be. That's the beauty of religions like Christianity. They can mean anything their adherents want them to mean at any time.

Well, this is Bible Study. The idea is to look at the words and figure out what they probably mean in context.So far, it appears that Jesus might have had certain ideals in common with communism, but it's quite a stretch to conclude that He was a communist. Well, that's not a "fact". You'd do well to chose your words more carefully. And no, I'm not allowing for that. If you're going to turn this into just another Christian-bashing thread, you've been wasting my time. Do your homework and come back when you have something to back up your wild speculations.

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you are aware that neither socialism nor communism precludes richness.

just making sure i didn't lose my mind somewhere.

I am not afraid of any bashing, but with a self-proclaimed provactive question, backed up by purposeful provocation, the question of the thread loses some of its integrity. IMO the question has been answered. Here is your version of the answer. Communism is an ideal. If there is anything true or good about Jesus. there will be possibly many over-laps in world ideals and His teachings.But technically, Christ is an ideal, and communism is an attempt at a workable system based on some of what Christ has said. Having one or more things in common doesn't make Christ communist, or communism christain. It only makes them two ideals with some things in common.Perhaps the OP should have asked if Jesus would have approved of communism. I am sure that in its pure sense He would not disapprove. But brenna has a point. I don't think that Jesus was concerned with the over-all system as much as the person. You said a version of this also. If His ideas caught in a big way, I am sure things would work out, and maybe similar to the monastic life-style. Monasticism has not been tried on a large scale, and essentially it gets into the rich/poor thing anyway. The superiors eventually are seen as the prestigious, there is an unequal distribution of 'wealth' and power, and the positions of authority are often abused. Relative to the lowest nun, the superior has 'more'. They have freedom to decide what to do with the money. They lead, they promote, they control. Someone must. Leadership and its benefits will never be abolished even in the monastic lifestyle. Only the individual can truly uphold the ideal. As long as there are leaders, there will be followers. If a person is a leader, they must also give, not always money, but time and advice. Compassion, all of that. I don't think that Jesus predicted a failure of Christianity. He knew there would always be room for more giving.

wow. i see what this is all about.mod?

Which seems to mean that the phrase above can become "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God with his riches."If that degree of interpretation is allowed, fine. I'm certain that you know far more about Bible Study than I do. But I don't think you're right to describe my reaction as Christian bashing. All through my life I've witnessed Christians of greatly differing political and philisophical opinions interpreting scriptures in the way that fits their views. Moslems and Jews do it as well. Old earthers and young earthers on this site are as good an example as any. So, I know very well that if I try to make a case for Jesus being either left or right wing, there will be scriptures that can be seen to contradict the position. Considering the history of Christianity, the conclusion that individual Christians can make the Bible support pretty much any idea that they want it to could be seen as "Christian bashing", but it could also be seen as an accurate assessment of what goes on.You know very well that religions like Christianity can be very political, and that they effect us non-believers whether we want them to or not.I think that Christ saying there will always be poor may be a good argument for Christians against any form of socialism, actually.

It's common for xians to drift into socialist type thinking. There's even a term for it, the Social Gospel;NerdWallet: Make all the right money movesThe gospel accounts state that Jesus' kingdom was not of this world.On the one occasion where he was asked to dispense social justice ("tell my brother to share the inheritance with me") he refused.Jesus' priorities were eternal, specifically that people should have eternal life.As politics is to do with the here and now - I think Jesus was not political at all.

It doesn't have to "become" that. It already is that.A "rich man" is a man who has riches. If/when he enters heaven, he can't take his riches with him. Inside the pearly gates, he's no longer a "rich man", he's just a man. The verse in no way implies that the man can't get into heaven.Consider the parable:

quote:

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Luk 16:22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
Luk 16:23 And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

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By all accounts, Abraham was a rich man on earth and he made it to heaven.That's why you have to consider the whole picture. You can't base an interpretation on one or two quote-mines. I didn't say that (some) Christians don't deserve to be bashed, or even that Christian-bashing is a bad thing. I said that it doesn't belong in this thread. It looks like a weak fallback position since the wheels came off your thesis.

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It's still the same question. I certainly may have lost some of my integrity!The rest of your post, I think, is probably by definition absolutely correct, if we're talking about your Christianity, which I'm sure is an ideal which has some things in common with communism. That could be said of Ringo's view of Christianity, which seems to have some things in common with communism as well. The same can't be said of all versions of Christianity. I expect that's right, in a sense (Brenna's point). But as He's supposed to be concerned with all the people, and it is the actions of all the people that make up the society and the over-all system, as you put it, then doesn't it work out to one and the same thing? And as he seems to have so much of a caring, sharing philosophy, wouldn't a truly Christian culture work out to be, at the very least, socialist?All this is, I admit, up to you Christians, not me of course! Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.

That's interesting. I'll try try and make the case for the Christian communists, as I stated in the O.P. that I think they have a good point.The question would be, what was assumed at the time when Jesus spoke these words? Was it generally assumed that someone's donkey, or their house, or their clothes, or their crock of gold went to heaven with them? If not (and I suspect not) then, by your interpretation, Jesus was just stating the obvious. You could be right, and the purpose of the line is just to emphasize the unimportance of material possessions on earth when existence for believers is eternal. However, if taken literally, the line says that a rich man cannot go to heaven. Of course, at the moment of death, he is no longer rich, in which case the statement just becomes an apparently pointless one, like saying that it is harder for a living man, regardless of his level of wealth, to get to heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.Even if Christ is just emphasizing the triviality of wordly goods, it could be claimed that it's a blow to the incentive scheme that capitalism relies on.I suspect, in the end, that Christian communists will make their preferred interpretation, and that Christian non-communists will make theirs, and I apologise slightly for making that point again, but the history of Christendom is on my side.Your Abraham point seems a winner. Would I be cheating if I say that it is virtually as hard to be a prophet of God as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, and Abraham and the other prophets are guaranteed places in heaven, surely? Abraham could be rich and go to heaven, and Moses could commit a genocide and go to heaven, but surely the same rules can't apply to the rest of us?Probably cheating though, so that I think you win, there. So Christianity is not by its nature anti-capitalist. Combined with your point about Jesus saying there will always be poor, then it certainly looks, at this point, as though the Christian communist's case isn't looking too good.Does this mean that God wants there always to be poor people?Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.

That's just the obvious part of "you can't take it with you". The main point is that people are judged in heaven by completely different standards than on earth. On earth, the rich man has all the status and privileges. In heaven, if there is such a thing as status and priviledge, it's based on what you did on earth, not what you had.That distinction is difficult for the rich to grasp. On so many levels, literalism just doesn't work. I wouldn't call Abraham a prophet. He was just a man who followed God and God rewarded him, materially on earth and eternally in heaven.And I don't see anywhere where Jesus advocated special status for prophets, etc. Jesus was just acknowledging that humans can never eliminate human suffering. It's all part of that "free will" thing. As I mentioned earlier, you can't force a man to have shoes."To each according to his needs" is simplistic. You can give a man all he "needs" to feed, clothe and house his family. But you can't guarantee that he will distribute the wealth evenly. The child who is a basketball star might get all the new shoes and the maladroits go barefoot.That's a big part of why communism doesn't work on a large scale: micromanaging the redistribution usually requires a police state.

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It says it is harder, not impossible.It is important to note.Riches do not keep a person from heaven. I can't say anyone actively believes this. There have been canonized saints who were kings and queens.What Jesus is talking about, is the mindset which can come with riches. Corruption, plain and simple. We don't have to think too hard to find examples of corruption in high places. You may take the passage as a warning against being rich, or as a warning about attachment to riches, which is what Ringo is saying. The Jews did not believe they would take possessions with them as did some cultures, as far as I know. They also did not have our current concept of heaven. But the point is, an attachment to riches will make you forget about everything except your own power. That may be true, but altogether capitalism is not anti-christian, nor is communism, and it is not the economic system that Christ was concerned about. So imagine the whole world became Christian. You cannot possibly say it would therefore become communist. If everyone was giving and giving cumpulsively, it would just be chaotic. Somewhere an organized system would have to result. You can see that there might be some communists. But I am suspiscious that those who call themselves Christian communists aren't thinking about the same passages we are at all. They are emphasizing equality of members under Jesus' rule. They wish to do away eventually with heirarchy, and much of that is based on end time prophecies if I am thinking rightly. Christian communism and Christian communal monasticism differ in their ideas about leadership, not so much economics. As I see it, any group with a heirarchical type of leadership has the same pitfalls as a capitalist society where gain is for one and not all. The RCC has a leader, and the supposed wealth of the Pope is one of the things which other christians despise. But, obviously, the RCC sees itself as completely in line with the teachings of Christ.We see good popes, and we see corrupted popes, and I still believe that following the Bible is not about a social system. I believe you are correct that the different sects will have different supported positions. But they are all based on what WE think Jesus would like as a society. Jesus advocated a personal code, not a political one. If you get too uptight about it, you might conclude that 'selling what you have any following' does not apply to beggars. Therefore, beggars can't be Christians, the rich don't get to heaven, and the message of Jesus was only for the middle classes.The point is, we all have riches, even in a perfectly eqaul society we will all have the sick and the imprisoned, the lonely, the 'poor' of many descriptions. The systems of God don't begin or end with actual money. Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

you could easily say that jesus was a capitalist democrat. he defined salvation on individual terms as determined by individual choice. he demonstrated the eternal profitability of individual compassion (see sermon on the mount). just because he measures value in other terms than money doesn't really mean he can't be a capitalist...see? it's a silly argument.

I couldn't agree more.It hardly seems worth while trawling through the Bible looking for evidence that Christ might have been a communist, at least in ethos, if none of its contents need be taken literally by Christians. By definition, any non-Christian would agree that the Bible shouldn't be taken literally. If I believed that Jesus was the product of an immaculate conception and was the son of God, I would, of course, be a Christian.Looking at Christianity throughout history, with the quite probable exception of its very early beginnings, it has generally been a conservative force. While there have been plenty of radicals and reformers, I think that they've always been a minority. This fits the world today. The most enthusiastically Christian country in the west is the U.S., and it is also, in many respects, the most conservative. So the reality of Christianity tends to back up the status quo, even though it can contribute to radical ideas, like communism.So is or was Christ a communist?Perhaps the reality of Christ is that he is whatever Christians make him into. As there's always disagreement, we could take the the average or mean of opinion at any particular time. In that case, Christ is not a communist at this moment in time, as the overwhelming majority of Christians are not communists. But what about the O.P. question of whether he was a communist? Then the answer would be possibly, but only if there was a point in the early history of Christianity when a majority of Christians could be described as communists. And will he ever be a communist in the future? Only if a majority of Christians make him so, and that certainly won't be in the near future.