Is Christianity Socialist?

Maybe. Or maybe the social sharing done by Christians isn't an economic or governmental model at all.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

That's weird. Tucker Carlson is probably gonna be the one thing that keeps this silly little channel alive. So he had a friend on the other day, not a friend of mine, a friend of his show, I'm guessing, who of course said that capitalism should be nowhere near Christianity. Bringing up, of course, the tired old argument that Christianity is actually socialist, not capitalist at all. Well, maybe there's some to be said for it, but probably not much. Four starters, the thing that they like to point out too, is that the first century church, in fact, the first couple of years of the church, even more so than the first century, the people sold what they had and had it all in common, and they gave generously to each other and they took care of each other within the community. That's what we get at the end of, I believe it is, Acts chapter 2, where it is a description of what they did. Now, I would like to point out something first of all, that there is a difference between what the Bible describes people doing, such as Solomon having lots and lots of wives, David having Uriah the Hittite killed, and Peter denying Jesus three times, and what the Bible prescribes for them to do, which is monogamy, fairness, um, you know, staying true, standing firm to the end. So when the Bible describes what the Christian Church was doing at the front end of things before they were even called Christian, I think that is a full blatant misunderstanding of what Christianity is there for to describe that as socialist, because it is not describing a system of governance, nor is it describing a system of economics. It is describing what faithful people did in reaction to the love of God expressed to them in Christ Jesus by forgiving their sins and assuring them by Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, that their lives, even if they were difficult on this earth, would be recompensed to them in the life to come. That Jesus had not merely died to give them good life in heaven, but also that he died to prove to them God's good intentions towards them here. And out of that trust, they could do as Jesus Himself had said to do several times: sell all you have, give to the poor, come follow me. You see, the charity that the Christian church did in that first century was not a charity enforced upon them by the will of God, but resultant in them as a reaction to the grace of God. It did not have to be enforced from the top down because the need was seen from the bottom up. Jesus Himself said, The poor you will always have with you. So not all charity is something that has to be enforced by government or by large organizations. In fact, charity is meant to be not merely the work of the church on earth, but of Christians, who again, in response to the grace of God expressed to them in the person, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, are to thereby say, I do not need to cling to the goods and the materials that I have here, for God can repay from his own fullness all he takes away. Keep in mind that Jesus went into the desert for 40 days to be tempted by the devil. He did not have any food in that time, and at the end of them he was hungry. The people of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and yet Moses can say to them, Look, the soles of your shoes never wore out. The widow at Zarepheth, during the time of the wicked kings in Israel, had so much grain. Why? Because the prophet of the Lord said to her, You shall have grain and honey enough to make what you need for the rest of this drought, because the Lord says so. It is out of response to the fullness of God that Christians give to others, even sometimes to their own detriment, because they trust that God can and will provide, and that He can, will, and often does provide through the believers around you. Does not need government dictate or supervision or anything. So maybe Christianity has some things in common with socialism. Or maybe. Just maybe. Christianity is a lot more of a spiritual mechanism than an economic descriptor. If you're gonna make an argument for socialism, leave the church out of it. It is a bad example for you.