Was Jesus a socialist?

In these communities, these local churches in the New Testament the relinquishing of private property was not a requirement for participation. If a believer had the growth of spiritual life and the maturity of divine love to sacrifice his goods he or she did so. Neither was the absence of such “socialism” necessarily the mark of an improper Christian church. In one instance we see them sharing everything in common in the early days of Jerusalem. In Thessalonica, however, we see the Apostle Paul setting he and his associate apostles up as an example of people who did not eat anyone’s food as a gift:

“For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not disorderly among you; Nor did we eat bread as a gift from anyone, but in labor and hardship we worked night and day so that we would not be burdensome to any of you” (Thess 2 3:7,8). He goes on to teach that though as apostles they had to right to subsist on their food they would rather show them the example of each one working to support himself.

In Corinth Paul’s instructions about offerings also indicates that the disciples there had private wealth which they earned. They were encouraged to give to the common needs of not only their local church but if possible for other churches less materially well off.

These difference from the early Jerusalem practice do not mean that Corinth and Thessolonica had inferior churches. It may mean the the living Holy Spirit is not so easy to put in a box. We cannot dictate to Him do the same thing in the same way everytime. Insisting that a church has to be communistic is not that much different from insisting that all in it must “speak in tongues.” Christ could be manifested in them in having all things in common or in offering as they were individually led by the Spirit to do so.

There is a wide scope of ways in which the Spirit of Christ might build up His local churches. “Thou Shalt Always Have All Things in Common” was not the law anymore than “Thou Shalt Never Share Thy Wealth” was. And to try to hijack Jesus to the dignify an ideology of any kind can lead to a caricature of the living household of faith. God’s Economy to teach firstly that Christ is alive and available as a realm to live in. So the apostles spoke of planting and watering the divine life in the believers that God would cause them to grow spiritually:

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth” (1 Cor 3:6) Caused the growth of what? He speaks of the growth of the divine life with which they have been born a second time. Christ must be made to grow in them and be formed in them. One and not the only one, of the manifestations of this life is that the believer loves the spiritual brother. And John teaches that this Agape love is a sign of the new life:

“We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers” (1 John 3:14): The Apostle John also reminds the disciples that it is hard to conceive that they should be Christians and yet have a hard heart to not help the fellow brother in material need:

“But whosoever has the livelihood of the world and sees that his brother has need and shuts up his affections from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17) The different levels of maturity such as “little children,” “young men,” “fathers” (1 John 2:12-14) indicate that they churching people were in the process of spiritual growth. The churches were not utopias. They had many problems and challenges of all kinds including the challenge to overcome anxiety and stinginess. We even should not regard the church in Jerusalem with their having all things in common, as a utopian society. Acts shows us that they also had their problems. In the distribution of the food to the Hellenist and Hebrew widows the solution to tensions was to appoint men “full of the Holy Spirit” to oversee the matter (Acts 6:3).

Therefore the solution to the problems in a local church is to allow the Holy Spirit to have the last word, directing the constituents as to what should be done.

Rwingett writes further:

”It is now time to pull Jesus down from the distant heavens and make him relevant to our life in this world.”

I hope that my opponent doesn’t think that in saying this he is saying anything that the Gospel does not teach. I do not mean that Jesus needs to be “pulled down” but that in His resurrection presence He is totally relevant to today. What he means is that it is now time to hijack Jesus and use him a banner for another man made ideology to provide it with some special credence. “If Jesus taught it must be good.”


My opponent goes on:

“It is time to scrape away the many calcified layers of mythology that have built up around him and get back to the original man. It is time to realize that caring for the poor, the sick and the needy is not an option that Christians may avail themselves to as they see fit. It is the very essence of what it means to be a Christian. There will be no physical second coming of Jesus,”

I hear in his tone hints of the coming Antichrist. The very essence of what it is to be a Christian is to submit oneself to the present lordship of resurrected Jesus. Rwingett’s spirit of Antichrist is diametrically opposed to the kingship of Christ in any form. He doesn’t intend to allow Christ to be his king. So how can he be for the kingdom of God? In the end he entice you to join him in the mob to rid themselves forever of Jesus Christ - “Take Him away! Take Him Away … We have no king over us except Caesar.” (John 19:15).

My opponent writes:

“The second coming occurs within each man as he disavows a life of covetousness and greed and works to build the kingdom by his own effort.”

The Second Coming of Christ is more dependent upon the condition of His at least an overcoming and victorious remnant of His church, than is usually believed. The transformation and building up of the remnant of maturing ones will play a part in His return to gain His Bride. It is true that the church is not simply passively to wait until the clock unexplainably comes around to the hour for Christ to return.

Peter spoke of maturing in the divine life so that we disciples might even hasten the coming of the Lord.
“Expecting and hastening the coming of the day of God” (2 Peter 3:12). Peter’s concept is not that the disciples are simply expecting. They are also hastening that day. And the coming of Christ throughout the New Testament is an incentive also to want to be found fruitful and approved of Him, not necessarily for eternal redemption but for reward of enjoyng further service for Him over the nations after His coming:

Jesus says in His resurrected state in Revelation:
“He who overcomes and he who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will shepherd them with an iron rod, as vessels of pottery are broken in pieces, as I have also received of My Father.” (Rev. 3:26,27).

Rwingett’s “gospel” of a Christ Who is not coming again may motivate the unbelievers to do good things. But I would rather labor for the eternal kingdom rather than the one which will decay into the dusts of history. Indeed the hope of Christ’s return, and that His lover will finally be like Him in every way, is a great incentive to purify oneself from just the selfishness that my opponent sees as a damage to people:

“Beloved, now are we children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we will be. We know that if He is manifested, we will be like Him because will see Him even as He is. And everyone who has this hope set on Him purifies himself, even as He is pure.” ( 1 John 3:1,2).

Taking away the second coming of Christ is to take away a great incentive for Him to be Lord of our lives today.

My opponent looks again to the Gospel of Thomas:

“ As the Gospel of Thomas said, “the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you.” Change yourself, then you can change the world.”

Rwingett quotes the canon of the New Testament when it serves his ideology. Otherwise he searches for support in the apocrypha. Darrel Bock and Daniel Wallace’s book “Dethroning Jesus” discusses this popular cultures tendency to appeal to apocryphal books like the Gospel of Thomas to unseat the biblical resurrected and enthroned Son of God. Christianity’s degraded elements though are not because people have closely followed the New Testament instead of the Apocrypha. In most cases the licing Christ has been replaced with something else so that the vitality of His being is absent in the disciple’s lives. As Watchman Nee put it “It is not that we do not have enough Christ. It is that we have too many things other than Christ.”

I am thankful that God is recovering the prevailing oneness and just testimony of the new testament church. For over 30 years I have personally lived among the churching people. Quite a few times I witnessed or experienced God’s abundant supply met to a needy situation out of the Spirit filled generosity of the participants. There is no sense of shame to me when rwingett wags his finder accusing that today’s churches are not social enough. In New York City, Boston, Greensboro NC, and Dunn Lorng VA, though (cities where I have participated in the church life) though we may not have had total abandonment of private property, I certainly could give many testimonies of how the congregations ran to the aid of those members less well off materially. The glory goes not to believers changing themselves but to the indwelling Christ with whom they cooperated in His desire to grow in them.

Rwingett has been hoodwinked by the advertised “secret sayings” of Jesus allegedly found in the Gospel of Thomas. There was a plethora of phony writings by pretenders in the early days of Gospel circulation. To add dignity to their writings imposters often claimed that the source of the sayings were some well ...

typo

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. The law keeping Jews were able to keep Moses' law.
=====================================

Should have been twritten that they were NOT able to keep the law.

Deduct as many points as is necessary, judges.

OK, it looks like that's about it. Judges, do your duty.

So here we are!

When rwingett “asks” and “proves” that “Jesus is a Socialist”, he just conducts a personal reading regarding the personage and the intentions of Jesus. This reading, clearly an arbitrary interpretation, offers not an answer to a specific issue and thus it cannot be understood as a new “theory”.

The most important criterion for the evaluation of rwingett’s thesis must be the understanding of the Μessage of Jesus itself by means of scientific facts and evidence along with common sens (sense), regardless one’s religion, denomination, political beliefs and spirituality. Thus, when the debate boils down to the quotation of biblical verses as a means of prove of each thesis, the chosen verses should point towards a specific general understanding (towards the Message) that arises from the context of the scriptures, although sometimes we may find ourselves in front of logical contradictions. Due to the fact that rwingett offers his opinion based on verses of a specific scripture, we have to accept that these contradictions have to do solely with the hermeneutics and with the fact that these specific scriptures were written, worked out and rewritten by many authors and translators of different nationalities over different periods of time. Therefore we are forced to accept that these contradictions must not affect the essence of the Message itself, which by any means it remains clear, understandable and unique for every reader of the Bible.

Jesus concluded that the Human has the power to choose to neglect her/ his so called “divine nature”. He concluded too that the Human is free to choose to follow the “opposite” direction -to dedicate her/ himself to this physical world of ours and to pass her/ his life seeking solely for ephemeral pleasures.
So what is the core Message offered by Jesus?

Jesus’ Message, a clearly metaphysical dualistic approach, is quite conceivable by everybody although it responds at many different levels of understanding. Jesus clarifies that the Human has the power to choose to dedicate her/ himself to the divine sphere whilst living here on Earth, and that s/he can do it through his/ her firm belief and trust to God through Jesus.
Jesus clarifies that the Human can avoid her/ his sinful nature in order to be prepared to become “one” with the so called “God” during his “living” at an afterlife status of existence. This way, Jesus insisted, the Human would be “saved”.

The Christians understood and embraced this idea, which it remains the cornerstone of their religion regardless one’s denomination. By the way, thanks to this very belief, the world entered the 21st century through a unique social phenomenon, noticed for the very first time in Europe after the 17th century. This unique social phenomenon is Capitalism. Capitalism, not Socialism!

Now kindly please lend me your ears; around the 17th century, Europe was not the main centre of the global interest whilst China, India and the Ottoman Empire were in fact the biggest forces around the dial. The Chinese were much more advanced than the Europeans at the fields of technology and of economy. So who was the agent behind the unbelievable economical rising of the Europeans?
Opposed in full to the sophism that “Jesus is a Socialist”, the birth and the evolution of Capitalism is really a sociological issue because it is a unique historical phenomenon that deserves to be understood, explained and answered.

At every society and civilization we see that the citizens are willing to become rich, and this is logical because everybody wants to live a life under a solid net of security; everybody is eager to live a life full of pleasures, enjoying also the social benefits and the factual power of her/ his riches. But the European Christians of the 17th century, along with the Christians of the rich Italian cities during Renaissance, they developed a unique worldwide approach regarding wealth: they were creating entire fortunes because they used to spend not their money for ephemeral pleasures. Instead, they were leading a simple, frugal life, investing and reinvesting their money again and again in order to expand their enterprises to the hilt. And why they acted this way?
They acted this way because they wanted to dedicate themselves to the divine sphere and to avoid their sinful nature, for this was the Message they took from Jesus Christ, the “Son of their God”.

Due to unchallenged historical finds, facts and evidence, today the science of Sociology accepts that this attitude, which is acknowledged as the seed of the spirit of Capitalism, is closely related with Christianity. Christianity was the main agent that caused the economical rising of Europe, and particularly Catholicism, Protestantism and Puritanism -and of course Calvinism. The seed of the spirit of Capitalism is the result of the belief that the Human is a God’s instrument here on Earth and that s/he has to fulfill a divine commandment (vocation). This vocation is to work hard in order to promote the glory of God -and Christianity is a very active religion indeed, full of believers aiming to spread the “word of God” everywhere.
In addition the Calvinists had a well known dogma (predestination), according to which solely the “saved by God” persons would enjoy the life after death in oneness with God. Calvin was preaching that the Human can do nothing during her/ his life here on Earth in order to promote her/ himself into the community of the “saved by God” persons, because this outcome was already judged by God. And when this very teaching caused devastating agony to the Calvinists, this dogma slightly changed in order to enable the believers of this denomination to understand, through the evaluation of some “indications”, whether they were amongst the “chosen to be saved” or not.
The success in a profession was the main indication that the believer was “chosen”, and this success had to be combined with another main indication -frugal life! This exact way of living, under the auspice of Christianity, is the reason why and how the humanity created the spirit of Capitalism. The scientists at the fields of Sociology and History are aware of this fact since 1904 thanks to Max Weber’s theory.

cont below

However I would be a sophist if I was trying now to “prove” that “Jesus is a Capitalist”, for Jesus was definitely not a Capitalist. On the other hand, Jesus was definitely not a Socialist too.
The philosophy of Socialism is not a concept invented by a single man -by Marx, by the English or by the German philosophers or by the Utopists, and definitely it was not a concept preached by Jesus. Socialism is the deep desire of the people to live equally within a society free from “masters” and “pariahs”. The previous struggles (revolutions) of the masses failed because the Human had not established the necessary social and political conditions for a change of such a scale and at this level. Today these tools are available and, although there is not a “bible” regarding the “right” procedure of the Socialism, the main concept of this system remains an all around the dial society, within which all the people will be united regardless their race, their colour, their social class and their religion. And surely it is supposed that this concept can be achieved strictly by political means, for “Socialism” is anyway a social process that at its core it has necessarily to do with two major political aspects: the class struggle and the refinement of the means of the production.
Yes, “Socialism” is a political system that contains social justice amongst its other humanistic and moral values. It is a political system that aims to offer new social motivations and new targets to the people. But Jesus was trying to pass through his sacrifice the Message of the “salvation” which, if it were to be understood and embraced, it could provide to the people social justice too -but through “religion”, through Faith and Love as Jesus posed it and not through politics, through Socialism as rwingett poses it. “Religion” within Socialism is meaningless, for “religion” is not at all a prerequisite for the procedure of this system. But the vice-versa is simply out of order, for the religious personages and the believers they consider that the so called “Message” stands above everything.

Jesus teaches that the Human has to live here on Earth “as if” s/he does not belong to this world, “as if” s/he respects the human law whilst at the same time s/he operates above it. He teaches the Human to “resign” in order to “win”. This is clear to everybody once s/he reflects under which circumstances Jesus asked from his God to relieve him from that bitter drink, whilst almost simultaneously he accepted it, raising sky high the potirion with full awareness thanks to his total commitment to his beliefs.

Jesus said nothing regarding the national and the global economy. Both his way of thinking and his actions they underline his firm belief that the Way is the one he was preaching. Jesus was sure that, once the Human is born, s/he is already guilty because s/he is separated from her/ his divine source. Jesus believed that, since the Way to the Non-created (to “God&rdquo😉 is heading always ahead, the Human can go towards “God” solely through her/ his human life, which is full of “sin” from the very first second of her/ his birth just because this state of existence is separated from the Non-created. Therefore, according to Jesus’ Message, the Human has to “repent” and to accept Jesus inside him as the Way. Solely through this circular belief the Christian can take seriously the important concepts of his/ her religion in order to be “saved”.

Furthermore, Jesus believed that the Human is not a stable formation that never changes. He believed that the Human is an experiment and a transgression, nothing but a narrow and dangerous bridge between Spirit and Form. Jesus believed that Human’s inner destination pushes her/ him towards God whilst her/ his deepest desires push her/ him towards to her/ his mother, the Form.
Jesus wanted to die in order to help every individual to be “saved” thanks to his personal sacrifice; he preached that, once the individual believes to him and trusts him, then that person would be “saved”. This sacrifice of his, along with the total acceptance of his personage from the Human, is the essence of Jesus’ metaphysics. This is his Message itself, and it cannot by any means be regarded as a “socialistic approach” at its core.

Therefore in my opinion rwingett’s thesis cannot pass the test of the “evidence beyond a reasonable doubt”.
In addition his thesis fails to be regarded as an acceptable, by the sciences of Sociology and History, theory due to the fact that the scientific facts and evidence are pointing clearly towards Weber’s established theory and against this attempted socialistic varnish.
As a result, I think that rwingett’s thesis fails to be regarded as a philosophical theory too.

Conclusively, I am rating rwingett’s text as following:
1. Content: 3/20
2. Evidence: 1/10
3. Discussion: 5
4. Form: 10/10
Overall Rating: 19/50


jaywill had by far an easier task than rwingett, for he had just to bring up well established facts and evidence. And finally he stands in a slightly better shape and he is the stronger at this debate. It seems to me that he managed to “cast sufficient doubt” upon rwingett’s arguments and, in my opinion, he is ahead although his text was neither friendly to the reader nor a “debate text” at its core. It was a sermon, and I confess that I took great pains to read it -and I did solely because I was a “judge”.
But, sometimes, once one bows to the factual truth even by means of a sermon, s/he is in my opinion wiser than an experienced debater who can handle perfectly the formal virtues of Rhetoric but unfortunately he gets stranded.

Conclusively, I am rating jaywill’s text as following:
1. Content: 13/20
2. Evidence: 6/10
3. Discussion: 10
4. Form: 1/10
Overall rating: 30/50


rwingett and jaywill,
thank you both for this interesting debate, way to go!
😵

I have to make a correction regarding the second paragraph of my initial post.
The correct phrase is:

"The most important criterion for the evaluation of rwingett’s thesis must be the understanding of the Message of Jesus..."

I am sorry for the inconvenience;

Originally posted by rwingett
OK, it looks like that's about it. Judges, do your duty.

Originally posted by LemonJello
Both obviously put much time into their submissions, and I also need some time to assemble my thoughts. I plan to submit my verdict within the next couple of days.

Originally posted by Palynka
Same here. Thanks to you both and curse you beetle for making me look slow!

Originally posted by LemonJello
Thanks to both participants. Both obviously put much time into their submissions, and I also need some time to assemble my thoughts. I plan to submit my verdict within the next couple of days.

First, I would like to point out again what my function here is as a judge in this debate. I am not here to present my own case concerning whether or not Jesus was a socialist. Rather, I have been asked to set my own views aside, so to speak, and to consider the question of which participant presented the better case based solely on the merits of the argument and counter-argument presented during the debate.

The main considerations that informed my evaluation included structure and presentation; evidence and support; and interaction with the opponent. An argument obviously consists of some set of premises that collectively support a conclusion or main thesis. As far as structure and presentation, I was looking to see that the participant presented these premises in clear language and organization and to make sure the premises do logically support the thesis. But, here we also expect the participant to try to convince us that the premises are true, and that is where I looked for the offering of evidential considerations that recommend the premises. And lastly, in terms of interaction with the opponent, I was looking to see that each participant's rebuttal response was not misrepresenting his opponent's case and that there was due acknowledgement and response given to any major objections raised.

I'm not going to give a fully comprehensive breakdown of my evaluation, but I will give some brief feedback below.

In terms of structure and presentation, I think rwingett stood decidedly better than jaywill. I found rwingett's presentation relatively succinct and easy to follow, and it's clear to me that his premises do support his thesis that Jesus was a 'socialist' (again, I point out that I treat this as a different subject than the question of whether his premises are true or well-supported or whether or not his construal of 'socialism' and its application here should survive scrutiny, etc). In contrast, I found jaywill's submissions more difficult to follow. I had to read through jaywill's lengthier submissions several times before I could convince myself that I had faithfully captured his main points and objections. After doing so, I am still not convinced that some of jaywill's major points actually undermine rwingett's argument or actually support the counterclaim that Jesus was not a 'socialist'. (I say a little more about this below.)

I think rwingett did an adequate opening job in establishing his case under the construal of 'socialism' employed; but I think this construal and the application of the term in this case is highly contentious and could easily be challenged. I'm not sure the term was all that well-defined or consistently employed throughout the discussion, and at points it meant everything from brotherhood, justice and equality to theory on distribution of goods and wealth to at bottom love for one's fellow man. Additionally, much of his support is contentious and could easily be challenged as well (and was challenged by jaywill), including his discussion on what constitutes the most authentic of Jesus' teachings (which included considerations on Pauline perversion, embellishments and mythologizing, and research into the Q gospel and gospel of Thomas, realized vs. apocalyptic eschatology, etc). My point here is this: even supposing rwingett succeeded in meeting some minimal burden of proof within his construal of socialism (along with his clarifications concerning its apolitical nature here), I really think it should have been a relatively straightforward task for jaywill to cast sufficient doubt on his case.

However, I saw jaywill's counterargument as rather one-dimensional in his persistent attack on rwingett's denying (or at least failing to provide for) the living resurrected presence of Jesus. In my opinion, the affair sort of devolved at the prompting of jaywill from a debate over whether or not Jesus was a 'socialist' to the question of Jesus' resurrection and the dependence of the resurrected being in his teachings. The problem remains, however: if you allow rwingett so much leeway in his construal of what 'socialism' is; and do not insist on his pinning the term down further; then it becomes hard to show Jesus was not a 'socialist' – and that is regardless of whether we are talking about a dead Jesus or a living resurrected Jesus. I still find jaywill's chief counterpoint a little curious. If I argue "J was a socialist: his authentic teachings are socialistic, and those that have faithfully internalized his most authentic teachings have manifested socialism"; and then you respond "But what you fail to realize is that J is not some dead teacher: he is alive and resurrected and has been imparted into his followers through indwelling; that is the real reason why you see his followers manifesting socialism (and a precondition for the manifestations): J is alive and working through them to manifest a socialism that they could not achieve on their own"; then I am only left wondering how that counterpoint actually demonstrates that J is not a socialist. Unless I am missing something, if the socialistic manifestations are due explicitly to the work of Jesus, then that still only seems to suggest that Jesus had (and presumably still has) socialistic goals and intentions. Again, in my opinion, a major failing for jaywill was in not insisting that 'socialism' be pinned down more aggressively and calling rwingett's construal into doubt. Failing this, if anything, I saw substantive parallel between the participants' cases rather than just dissidence. For instance, it is jaywill's contention that God's OIKONOMIA first-order effect is distribution of his living, working, indwelling self into his people and that in turn enables his people to orient toward manifestations of 'socialism'; rwingett's contention is that the first-order effect of internalizing the authentic teachings of Jesus is inner personal transformation that in turn orients us toward the 'socialistic' manifestations characteristic of the kingdom. The two seem to bear much similarity in substance (again, under the broad construal of 'socialism'😉. Jaywill wants to show that God's economy is not principally (or not first and foremost) concerned with distribution of material things; but this is exactly something that rwingett already holds of Jesus' putative 'socialism'. Of course, again, jaywill takes it to be absolutely crucial that rwingett is not providing for the living resurrected Jesus (along with his claim that humanistic attempts at transformation cannot properly so orient and basically that we cannot self-improve, which I found to be unsupported both as a claim in and of itself or taken as a tenet of Jesus' authentic teachings). But again I failed to see how it is so crucial to the question of whether or not J was (or I guess still is) a 'socialist'.

In terms of interaction with the opponent, I thought both participants did a decent job addressing the main objections of the other. I thought jaywill was more comprehensive in this area. Additionally, I thought there was really only one glaring instance of misrepresentation, which was when jaywill tried to imply that rwingett's argument (or definition) was circular: "Let's free ourselves from the circular definition of Socialism is what Jesus did. So Jesus was a Socialist." That was not a fair characterization of rwingett's argument (and for jaywill to also submit the Cabet quote taken by itself as a characterization of rwingett's construal of socialism was likewise misleading). Again, if rwingett's construal is too vague and multi-valued (which I think it was), then jaywill should have attacked it more aggressively and systematically.

I think the debate was relatively close and I do not consider it to be a landslide by any means. All things considered, my vote is for rwingett.

That's two judges. Can the other three be far behind? Nudge, nudge.

Originally posted by rwingett
That's two judges. Can the other three be far behind? Nudge, nudge.

Originally posted by whodey
Perhaps he is attempting to build the suspense.

Originally posted by rwingett
For some odd reason the judges seem to think their verdicts need to rival the debates in length.