Communism?

 Fifteenth Saturday after Pentecost

Our Bible Study for today is Acts 4:32-37. You need to read it first.

Friedrich Engels, partner of Karl Marx in the writing of The Communist Manifesto, took this passage as chief example that the earliest Christians practiced Communism. When I read these verses, it's easy for me to see how Engels came to this conclusion.

As is always the case, we need to look at the fuller context:

1. This early form of "communism" appears not to have been practiced in any other early Christian community than Jerusalem.

 

2. Within 20 years after the resurrection the Jerusalem Christian community had become extremely poor. Paul in his letters is constantly asking for donations for the church in Jerusalem. His plea is most extensive in 2 Corinthians 8-9. The Corinthian Christians practiced the mercantile economic system of their city. I have been to the archaeological site of ancient Corinth many times and seen the well laid out streets lined with the remains of ancient shops, some of which belonged to Christians like Priscilla and Aquila.

3. When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:26, "Nor many of you were powerful, not many of noble birth," he implies that at least some of the Corinthian Christians were powerful; some were of noble birth. 

4. The church at Philippi appears also to have been a church of some wealth. Lydia, the first Christian convert in Europe (Acts 16) was an international business woman who dealt in purple dies and fine clothing. Paul notes that the Philippians helped him out financially numerous times (Philippians 4:15-19).

These are just a few observations. Just as the Bible is not a science book, it is also not an economics book. The early Christians worked within the economic systems of Imperial Rome. In those systems there was a very small percentage of extremely wealthy landowners, less than one-half of one per cent. There was a small mercantile class, 7-10%, an abundance of peasants (subsistence farm workers who did not own the land they worked), 20%,  smaller numbers of craft workers, fisherman etc, around 10%, and 60% slaves. Christianity was different from the other religions of the empire in many ways, one of which was that it attracted people from all social classes. 

One prominent themes throughout all the early Christian writings, and indeed throughout the whole Bible, is care for the poor. Jesus spent an extraordinary amount of his time working among the poor and speaking up for the poor. Neglect of the poor was, next to idolatry, the most common accusation the prophets leveled at the peoples and governments of ancient Israel. 

The single, one most prevalent theme throughout the Bible is that the people of God care for the poor, especially the poor among them but also the poor beyond them. For whatever reason God appears to have created us with widely different abilities. Some people have the talent for business that creates and increases wealth. Some don't. Some have barely the talent to survive. Christianity embraces them all, with the expectation that the rich take care of the poor. 

 

The Roman Imperial government did little to care for the poor. The Christians did much. The Roman Empire should not be a model for how countries work their economies today. Care of their own poor is something that many countries do well today. Care for the poor of the world is so massive a task as to be beyond the reach of even the wealthiest countries today (that's assuming that the wealthiest countries are interested in caring for the poor of the world). 

Over the decades of my immersion in the study of the Bible, I have seen more and more that care of the poor is close to the very top of all the Biblical themes. That care can come through governments, non-government organizations, and individuals. I lament that our political leaders,both parties, do not have care for the poor as a top priority. Not since Lyndon Johnson and the War on Poverty in the 1960's have I heard any of our top political leaders campaign with care of the poor as a part of their platform. There is always rhetoric of help for the middle class but hardly ever any talk of care for the poor. 

I realize that I speak as a retired person with a guaranteed pension and social security income, as well as a good nest egg (although I realize that none of us are immune from total economic collapse). The Bible has convinced me that in my own voting, my number one criterion should be which candidate and which party will do the most to help the poor.

 

Faithfully,

Christian