Is Christianity Communist?

Is Christianity Communist?

Rev. Dr. Thomas C. Sorenson

April 25, 2020

Scripture: Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-37

In my experience most Christians find these two passages odd, offensive even, and very much prefer to ignore them. In both of them we read that the first Christians lived in a way that hardly any of us do. At Acts 2:44-45 we read: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” At Acts 4:32-35 we read:

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common….Three was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed as any had need.

Startling, isn’t it? I mean at least those of us who are old enough to have been around during the time of the Soviet Union and the cold war were taught that “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” was atheistic Communism. It wasn’t the American way, and were to reject it as un-American and un-Christian. Yet there it is in the Bible, in the New Testament even. How can that be? Surely Jesus didn’t call anyone to be a Communist, did he? It sure seems though that these first Christians thought he did. What’s up with that?

In answering that question we must say first of all that Jesus certainly did not call anyone to accept one of the central tenets of modern Communism, which of course Jesus had never heard of because it wouldn’t exist for many centuries after his time. One of the foundational tenets of Marxist Communism is atheism. Karl Marx, the founding philosopher of modern Communism, called his system “dialectical materialism.” If you don’t know what “dialectical” means, don’t worry about it. That’s not the part of the phrase that’s important here. What matters here is the “materialism” part of the phrase. Philosophical materialism holds that only the material, that is, the physical, is real. It denies the reality of the spiritual dimension of existence. That is, it denies the reality of God. So Jesus certainly called no one to that aspect of Marxist Communism.

OK, but he didn’t call anyone to communal living either, did he? That’s an entirely different question and one that is a bit more difficult to answer. As far as we know from the available sources Jesus didn’t expressly call people to communal living. He did however call people out of self-obsession and into a life of agape, of love as giving for the sake of the other. He called people, that is, he calls us, out of a life centered on material wealth and possessions and into a spirit-filled life centered on God.

His call in this regard is perhaps particularly difficult for us Americans to hear and accept. We are members of the most consumption-driven and individualistic culture the world has ever known. Yes, many of us can be quite generous in our giving to charitable causes, but most of us give out of abundance and maintain our individualistic lives as we do. Most of us find the idea of selling all we own and living communally for the sake of all members of the community unattractive at best and perhaps even abhorrent. I mean, isn’t that what those disgusting hippies did back in the 1960s? When we read those passages from Acts we’re more likely to hear Soviet Communism with all of its horrors than Jesus’ call to a life of love. Yet those passages from Acts tell us that Jesus’ first followers understood responding to the grace they found in him as transforming their individual lives into lives in intentional community. They understood Christ’s call as one to transforming a life centered on the self and material possessions into lives centered on service to those in need. We are hardly in a position to say that they were wrong.

So no, Christianity isn’t Communist, but as a matter of history it seems clear that Karl Marx’s vision of an ideal society of equality and care for all comes from Europe’s Judeo-Christian heritage. He kicked that vision’s spiritual supports out from under it, but he retained the vision. That his twentieth century followers turned that vision into hell on earth doesn’t change that truth, although do learn from it the dangers of aggressive atheism. Christianity isn’t Communist, but Communism is in some ways a worldly distortion of the Christian vision of life. We can learn a lot from the disciples we read about in Acts. They understood Christ’s call as a call to them to live lives transformed from the ways of the world into one lived according to the ways of God, from excessive concern with wealth to a life of sharing and care for all who are in need. From a self-centered life to an other-centered life. God bless them for that. May we learn well from them