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Am I a Socialist?
I have a friend that I talk with about all sorts of different things. She is a socialist and I am definitely not. We were discussing politics relating to welfare and a universal health care plan. We are completely on opposite sides of the arguments, but we love Jesus and each other enough to discuss these things openly and without hurt feelings. (Everyone should have a friend like that.) During this conversation, she made a statement that has been with me ever since. I’ve been debating it in my own mind back and forth. She said, “Socialism is a Christian form of government.”
The part of me that agrees with her goes to the story in Acts, Chapter 2 about how the early followers of Christ came together and “had all things in common”. They didn’t have any personal property. They sold everything they had and divided it among the community. They worked and ate together. To me, this says socialism. Then later, in Chapter 6, we see the need for a welfare system. It seems it was too much work for twelve people to pray and study and spread God’s word plus divide the food and property evenly. So, they hired seven social workers to help. This system worked and their number “increased greatly”. To me, this says socialism was given a stamp of approval from God.
But then, like I said, I am definitely not a socialist. I don’t want the government in control of this and telling me what kind of house I can have, how much food I can have, what kind of toys I get to play with and what kind of car I can drive. I like my things. I like the feeling I get when I work hard and earn enough money to buy the things I want, even if I don’t need them. And then I look at how we in the U.S. have the richest poor people in the world. We do not have massive starvation. I heard a statistic a while back that one of the growing health problems among out poor people was obesity. We don’t have cities of people living in cardboard boxes and drinking sewer water. Don’t get me wrong, we do have people who are poor and hungry and homeless, but not like I hear it is in other parts of the world where whole societies are destitute. To me, this says a free market society has been given a stamp of approval from God.
So, I’ve come up with the argument against socialism. In the same stories in Acts, the Christians did not give their problems to the government to solve for them. They didn’t demand the government to come up with a system of food stamps to feed their widows. They found a way to continue to do it themselves. They kept the poor people in their community and took care of them. They kept the relationship with the needy and didn’t outcast them. They committed to living sacrificially and in community. I don’t see God commanding them to live this way. No one says “God told me we should do this.” In the Acts, Chapter six story of hiring social workers, God doesn’t give anyone a vision of a way to solve the problem. Instead, they have a town meeting and present their proposed solution. The solution seems acceptable to the community, so they go with it. So maybe, God’s stamp of approval in blessing them with increased numbers is approving of their desire to work together for a common solution and not just approving the particular solution they came up with. Maybe God is approving of their desire to keep the poor with them. Maybe God is approving of their accepting the responsibility themselves and not passing it along to someone else. Maybe God approves of all this, maybe not. The Bible just says their numbers increase. My desire is for God’s Church to increase. Their method of keeping the poor in their community worked to increase God’s Church. So, I want the church communities taking care of each other and not the government taking care of us. I want God’s Church to increase, not the government. So I guess my conclusion to my friends statement “Socialism is a Christian form of government” is that I want to be the socialist, not the government. How about that, I want to be a socialist! My friend won’t believe me.
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good article sherry! i’ve contemplated similar ideas… struggling between acts 2 and then paul saying “if you don’t work, you don’t eat”. i sort of had this “socialist Christian communities within capitalistic government” idea for a while, and it seems to be similar to what you have said. in a sinful world, it has been very obvious that a socialistic government doesn’t work. people need personal responsibility and personal possessions (this is biblical). if you don’t actually own anything, how can you give it away or share with others? personal possessions and responsibility are necessary in our world, but voluntarily living as a “socialist” within this context also seems to be within God’s desire. He seems to love it when we share with one another and help those in need. and i agree it is the CHURCH who should be doing this, not the government.