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this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2024
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the_dunk_tank
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Hot Take: I'm a bit skeptical of how some people paint early Christianity as a super progressive thing that got perverted by the Catholic Church or whatever. I was raised in the faith, and yeah Jesus had a lot of cool things to say about helping the poor and the rich being corrupt, but I think describing him as a "socialist" for that is a stretch at best. In the actual context he was saying it, it really comes off more as basic Millennialism, you give to the poor not to try and build a better world without poverty but because you end to purify yourself of material corruption for the end times which are totally coming really soon guys, just right around the corner.
This isn't to say having a progressive interpretation of Jesus' teachings isn't valid, it's no more or less valid than any interpretation of any religion, I just don't agree it's inherent to the original doctrine as some seem to feel it is.
I think that equating Jesus with mutual aid and/or socialism is just effective messaging in some places, that can be supported by certain Bible passages. Just effective agitprop in certain regions basically.
When I say "early christianity" I guess I basically mean the parts of Acts where everyone would join and sell all their possessions, and the "church" (still a small Jewish sect) was using the funds to help widows and other disadvantaged folks. At least, that is how it was described in Acts
Jesus himself - not a socialist really. I mean, some of his parables are based in capitalism (Parable of the Talents, Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard). He definitely became political, even if he didn't mean to. Ofc, I don't really trust the gospels as a historical account.
Worth keeping in mind that the material conditions for socialism and capitalism didn't exist. You could argue that Rome had some proto-capitalist stuff going on, I guess. But the communal nature of a lot of early christian and later christian heretic sects was an important part of developing the ideas that eventually resulted in communism.