Our Lord did not advocate the ownership of the means of production by the State; therefore, He was not a Socialist.
Jesus never lobbied the Roman senate to help the poor. HE helped the poor and exhorted other people as individuals to do likewise. That’s not a socialist, despite what liberal douchebags **coughEdSchultzcouth** might want to think.
What I have read and understood from the Bible is that God and Jesus wants us to help each other by using our own time, treasure and talent and to give from our hearts (”Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” - 2 Corinthians 9:7). Nowhere have I found anything along the lines of “Go out and institute huge bureaucracies that will take money from some people at the point of a sword and give that money to other people as a politician sees fit.”
Matthew 25:22-30 "The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.' 23"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' 24"Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.' 26"His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. 28" 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. 29For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 30And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'"
Doesn't sound very socialist to me.
The level of ignorance is pretty astounding...
..bad exegesis of the Bible has given birth to many twisted forms of thinking—Liberation Theology is one of them...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2243243/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1276645/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2329525/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1174662/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/597213/posts
Been done to death already.
So this asshat of a Christian wants govt to enforce giving..How Christian. lOl!!
Was Jesus a Socialist?
Being the God of Israel, he told Moses to write down these words: Thou shalt not steal.
So no, he was not a Socialist.
I'll have to think on this for a while.
Jesus was a royalist.
Socialism is a theory of government. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” That’s a serious disconnect. Not to say there is no relevance of Christian belief to government operation, but Romans 13 makes it clear that government’s role is primarily to maintain the civil order, not to own and control everything, as totalitarian philosophies like socialism uniformly try to do. Only God owns everything. Replacing His authority over private souls with the absolute authority that socialism wields over the collective is idolatry. There is no substitute for God.
Jesus would blast the socialists for making their own rules/laws “of none effect” (the religious of the day had made traditions to get around the [Mosaic] law) and of piling weighty loads onto people yet never lifting a finger to help them (lawyers were the recipient of that one).
Private individual, paying his taxes to a government seemed a system unworthy of Jesus’s comment, other than an endorsement of paying ones taxes.
The justification most ‘Christian’ socialists have is they somehow imagine that Jesus said “Render unto Caesar those things which are Caesar's; and Caesar shall render unto the Lord on your behalf.”
They honestly think that paying taxes and being for public policy that could be considered ‘charity’ is THEMSELVES discharging their Christian duty as far as charity and care for the poor.
Sorry. It doesn't work that way.
Also, let it be noted that the Bible states CLEARLY...
“He who does not work, shall not eat.”
That is about as anti-Socialist a statement as one could think of.
Oh, joy! Let’s rewrite the Bible to support this, ... you know, bring the Bible up to the 21st Century.
We will replace ...
“Thou shall not steal”
with
“Thou shall not steal, unless by majority vote”.
Then we will replace the Parable of the Good Samaritan with one in which the Samaritan discovers the wounded man, but then:
gathers some friends with weapons
extorts money from travelers to pay for care, then
takes the wounded man to an Inn where he intimidates
the innkeeper to take only 40% of his normal fee, and
takes the rest of the money to finance the remainder of
his journey.