Is Christianity socialist?

I think the Christian socialist argument is a bit of a stretch (it's usually people who are already both Christian and socialist deliberately trying to find an interpretation of the forming supporting the latter), but at the same time, I think we need to be careful about not projecting our modern ideas about a clear distinction between state, individual, and civil society back into the distant past.

Throughout much of history, people often didn't see a difference between "X is wrong" and "X should be illegal". It's often unclear from Biblical passages against wealth whether it's saying "Keeping lots of wealth and not giving it away in charity is bad, but that's your free choice", or "Keeping lots of wealth and not giving it away is bad, so it's legitimate for those without to take it from you".

The only Gospel passage I can think of that clearly leans towards the latter interpretation is the Cleansing of the Temple, where Jesus refers to the wealthy merchants there as "thieves". This is rather more than just saying being wealthy and non-philanthropic is wrong - it's saying that their acquisition of that wealth is in itself illegitimate.

That said, I'm not hugely bothered by this, given I'm an anarchist, which for me kind of necessitates being anti-theistic.

Was having a long discussion with my corbynite) best friend when we came onto Christianity, Jesus and politics as we often do after too many pints...

A lot of the left seem to misunderstand Christianity and it's message of 'helping the poor'. My friend and others seem to be under the impression that if Jesus were alive today he'd support Corbyn because Corbyn cares about helping the poor.


Christianity does indeed teach that we should help the poor and needy. It doesn't say necessarily that we should do so by setting up a state run welfare wealth redistribution program- clearly as no such thing existed in those times.

But what did exist then and still exists today is private charity, people freely giving up their own money (and time and effort) and distributing to the 'deserving' poor.

I fail to see how it is Christian or virtuous to take forcibly take from people and then give it to all regardless of merit. I'd willingly give a lot of my money to people who I knew to be struggling and were decent, honest people. To people who I knew who were struggling and didn't care for I certainly wouldn't give money to (because they'd probably abuse it) but possibly food and shelter- or direct them to somewhere that did e.g. Churches , Samaritans

Simply giving people money either just by giving a fiver to s homeless person voluntarily or by paying g tax to a welfare state doesn't mean your necessarily helping people, in fact you could very well be harming people continue an unhealthy and wretched lifestyle.

Was having a long discussion with my corbynite) best friend when we came onto Christianity, Jesus and politics as we often do after too many pints...

A lot of the left seem to misunderstand Christianity and it's message of 'helping the poor'. My friend and others seem to be under the impression that if Jesus were alive today he'd support Corbyn because Corbyn cares about helping the poor.


Christianity does indeed teach that we should help the poor and needy. It doesn't say necessarily that we should do so by setting up a state run welfare wealth redistribution program- clearly as no such thing existed in those times.

But what did exist then and still exists today is private charity, people freely giving up their own money (and time and effort) and distributing to the 'deserving' poor.

I fail to see how it is Christian or virtuous to take forcibly take from people and then give it to all regardless of merit. I'd willingly give a lot of my money to people who I knew to be struggling and were decent, honest people. To people who I knew who were struggling and didn't care for I certainly wouldn't give money to (because they'd probably abuse it) but possibly food and shelter- or direct them to somewhere that did e.g. Churches , Samaritans

Simply giving people money either just by giving a fiver to s homeless person voluntarily or by paying g tax to a welfare state doesn't mean your necessarily helping people, in fact you could very well be harming people continue an unhealthy and wretched lifestyle.

Going to heaven would require more than just going to church