Talk:Christian socialism

i'm an atheistic communist that agrees with the pope pius that the term is incoherent.

to start with, that quote from matthew is really ironic, because marx' argument against christianity was always that it co-opted revolution by promising an afterlife. marx was very explicit: there can never be a real socialist revolution until workers discard the idea of an afterlife. this is not an isolated thread, either. it was picked up by bakunin and also by kropotkin. it was really the central tactical idea on the left: how to get workers to discard this idea of the afterlife that is preventing them from revolting.

these christian societies were never classless, either. they always had supreme leaders. they could never be described as leftist.

but the biggest problem with christian socialism is that socialism argues that morality is a consequence of the economy, itself a consequence of technology. this is the central philosophical idea in marxism: that the social order follows the economic order. so, it's literally impossible to be a christian and a socialist at the same time, as understanding socialism means undercutting the very basis of christianity as a religion: it didn't come from god, it came from the economy. and, it equally follows that it would be impossible for the future moral and social order to be christianity if this is true.

i know these people exist. but they've lost the plot somewhere. it really doesn't make any sense. ^{— Unsigned, by: 198.84.130.106 / talk} 19:37, 8 January 2017‎

On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you. ScepticWombat (talk) 20:05, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Don't presume that Marx is the first Socialist, or even Communist. He just had the privilege of coming up with a name after taking out the religious aspect of Christian communes. Socialist ideals have appeared in Christian thought for centuries, from the 1st century communalists, to John Ball. They were big on setting up a classless society, but they failed due to issues not relating to a religious contradiction (whether from too many freeloaders leeching off a small village of others, or the state violently quelling dissident ideas like "God creating all men equal"). -- Forerunner (talk) 19:57, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Or the societies found out that having no possessions is a real headache if you try to maintain some sort of stable, long term community and began making loopholes (e.g. the Franciscans and Dominicans). ScepticWombat (talk) 20:09, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm curious to see some support for the claim that Quakers were "important in Christian communism." Especially since the text following that claim makes no case for their behaving in any communistic or socialistic way. Some Quaker meetings have been what might be considered liberal, but others have certainly not. And any significant support for communism or socialism of any sort doesn't seem to be part of any Yearly or Quarterly Meetings' minutes. Recounting Penn's attempts to build Pennsylvania may not be as indicative of the rest of Quaker history, before or since, as this section implies. The fact that there have been Quaker communists says very little about all -- or even a significant number of -- Quakers. Even if such a person enjoyed the friendship of several other Quakers, the requirement for unanimity -- from each persons' distinct and private conversation with God -- in all decisions made it unlikely that a particular political ideology would be accepted. ScruffyCat (talk) 12:38, 7 March 2017 (UTC)