No. Extend love and charity, but Jesus also said that if you don’t work, you don’t eat.
Why link only?
If thou shalt not work, thou shalt not eat.
Doesn’t sound like communism to me.
I think that Acts clearly PERMITS Christians to live in quasi-communist communal arrangements, presumably voluntarily.
Any time the libs ask a question, stupidity follows.
The author doesn’t understand communists or the bible....
What to make of this...?
I guess the NYT is attempting to normalize communism by making it equal to being “Christian” or asking the ridiculous question: is it Christian?
Very confusing, lacking all historical perspective and even slightly demented.
But whatever, let the liberals move to the left. They’re so daft they’ll go all the way to down the dead end known as communism, see it for what it’s worth and become full-blown marxist apologists. It only benefits us.
It’s really stunning to me how any supposedly educated person could look at the history of Communism and conclude its anything but a failed and dangerous ideology. Ditto for Socialism. Yet these cheerleaders for Communism are not unintelligent people. Which leads me to believe they are motivated by evil and a lust for power.
Mat 22:29 Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God.
Christians lived communally early in the book of acts to help avoid persecution, having their property confiscated by the state for violating local customs. They figured it was better to sell it all and live out of a common pot for a while.
However, it wasn’t long before they ran out of money. Thanks to the work of the evanjelists Paul, Barnabas, Silas et al, there were other churches that could contribute of their largesse to help the Christians in Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, NONE of this was by compulsion.
Not the living communally, nor the giving of money to help the poor and sick.
Paul the Apostle said in his second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 9 and verse 7, “As every man purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver.”
Communism might work with a moral and religious people as well, but Communists hate religion and morality, so it wouldn't.
Communism, which is envy that demands theft from others, is not Christian.
No. I give to you is Christian. I take from you for the greater good is commie.
The “having all things in common” was a spontaneous out-flow of the new believers love for one another, and was from the heart and not dictated by any leaders.
It was from the inside, to the outward. This is what real Christianity is.
Marx & Engels read the book of Acts, and reading it with atheistic minds (without the interpretation by the Holy Spirit) liked what they saw, and said, “Wouldn’t it be great if everyone did that?” Yes it would.
So they devised an evil system, run by corrupt men, to FORCE everyone to do what love did in Acts.
Externally forced from the outside. This is not love - it is slavery - and theft.
Communism - and every other cult - is the result of what man’s mind does with scripture without light (revelation) from the Holy Spirit.
The communists also got the great idea of their cell groups from Acts, where saints met not in a church building (a concept that didn’t appear until the 2nd or 3rd century AD), but “house to house”......a practice that was key to the “spontaneous expansion of the church” (search Roland Allen on Amazon) and the upsetting of the world in the first century - and mostly lost to today’s church.
Interestingly, the “having all things in common” did not last, and never appears again in the NT. It was tried by the first settlers of our nation - and abandoned as it totally failed....as it was forced externally, and not from love for one another.
I haven’t read the article but I’ve read lots from the author who is brilliant and one of the finest philosophical minds alive. He has commented in the past about the murderous Communist regimes. Still, maybe he’s read a bit too much Terry Eagleton who has for a long time tried to reconcile Christianity and Communism. But it can’t be done, at least without ignoring human nature and history.
The first Christians were “voluntary” “communists”. It was a voluntary thing within the overall non-communist culture. And it was not particularly successful, apparently.
Communism is not voluntary.
The question as posed is an oxymoron.
It’s like asking if a Police officer is supposed to be a criminal.
Communism requires the rejection of a supreme being as creator, making room for subjects to channel such loyalties and devotions to “the State”. “The State” (government) takes the place of God.
The backbone core belief of communism and socialism is atheism. So no.