Essay Drop #4 Why Jesus is Incompatible with Socialism (and Capitalism)

Entry 95: Stray Thoughts 16

Introduction

This is an essay from my 1 Phrase entries series that stemmed from conversations on Reddit and other social media platforms and started a few years back. I shall state here and now that these are my opinions, I am open to being wrong and reserve the right to call myself a fool should I find anything here that is incorrect and antithetical to Christian Doctrine. We are all sinners who strive to right ourselves to God, and these are my views concerning Jesus, Socialism, Capitalism, and human government.

With that said. Here’s my current take on this topic. Let me know in the comments where I might be straying and why that might be!

What are Christians asked to do?

Individuals should not live solely for themselves, nor should they live for others or try to be someone else, or impose their beliefs, actions, and pursuits on others. This is the purest sense of a conundrum that has driven me to near insanity as of late regarding Christianity in Western Countries.

Jesus’ words are that of an individual to each of us as individuals, the community of believers, and to those who wish to hear the Good News. He calls Christians to treat one another with respect, dignity, and compassion; but he does not demand it from us. Nor does Jesus call for a governing body to demand it from us.

We are asked, and only asked, to treat one another with respect, dignity, and compassion.

Jesus, Socialism, and Capitalism

When folks claim Jesus was a Socialist, there is a plethora of Protestants (myself included until now) that cling to the idea that Jesus was more of a Capitalist. It took me a while to come to terms with this, but these are both false equivalencies.

Jesus was above human government; his teachings call followers to pursue the ideal.

Some might say this is a call to rise above human government in pursuit of the ideal (while still respecting the government instituted by man under whom they might live). This is not exactly true. Rather, Christians are called to be better individuals, to build stronger communities, and if that comes in conflict with human government, that indicates a problem with the human government.

 Jesus was also above human economics. So Capitalism, the system of private economic ownership which has little to no evidence of contradicting the teachings of Christianity (directly or indirectly), and Socialism, the human instituted government that seeks to demand, take by force, and otherwise coerce an individual to give up what is theirs no matter what is in their heart and no matter what good that person may have done; all sanctioned because the idea of centralizing economic decisions to the state and taking money from the individual will yield more good because of good intention and nothing more, are both incomparable to Jesus.

Further, those who claim Jesus advocated for one or the other fail to comprehend the words of the New Testament and the intended implication of the words therein. His words weren’t for empowering a system of economics or government—especially ones to be led by humans—they were for empowering the faithful to live as he instructed!

We should rebuke all who engage in such behavior (ourselves and others), as it detracts from both the weight and intended meaning of Jesus and his words. I speak here, of Luke 17:3-4.

“So watch yourselves. If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.” - Luke 17:3-4

Human Ideologies are Messy

Just because an idea aligns more with one ideology or system, governmental or economic or philosophical or religious, does not mean that the idea must be part of that ideology and only that ideology. Libertarians and liberals share many values, but not all. The collective of ideas, the overall worldview, is what makes them different and drives each of their ideas. Many times the reasons for supporting an ideal for a liberal and a libertarian may differ, but the end result is that they both wish to fight for the same thing. The same is true for conservatives, progressives, so on and so forth.

Some examples come to mind. Speaking with any true libertarian and conservative as defined by the American political system, they will both agree that smaller government is better for society. Libertarians often view a growth in government as tyranny, or not fiscally responsible, while the conservatives may view the same growth as unnecessary and bloated or not spent effectively. However, conservatives do not always agree on the traditions they wish to uphold, and even on size of government as the happy size of government is a tradition with each nation-state and with each group of voters within each nation-state. It’s a highly subjective point of view rooted in cultural and generational differences. In the modern paradigm, mainstream conservatism—including but not limited to neo-conservatism—appears to favor, or at least doesn’t bawk at, larger government!

Libertarians, on the other hand, generally agree the smaller the government the better. Where Libertarians differ is in determining what falls within the scope of a government apparatus, particularly at a federal level. This understandably requires careful consideration and prudence. Where libertarians—and dare I say the only real libertarians—and conservatives agree that gun ownership is a net positive, only libertarians seem to care about upholding the 2^nd Amendment as intended while conservatives waffle time and time again on where they stand. This is not about whether one may bear arms, and if so in what capacity, but the inherent lack of a standard by which the majority in an ideological group subscribe to.

Add in classical and modern liberal points of view on the above, and you’ll add to the mess already presented!

To give one example that comes to mind, many libertarians and liberals can agree on abortion and other “my body, my choice” type of stances, but disagree on taxation. I’d list more, but the winds of change make it hard to pin down more. Human ideologies rarely persist over time without changing. Since Covid, there has been a struggle in the libertarian party to realign to the ideological bent of the Mises Caucus, a far less progressive—in the 1990s sense of the word—worldview than libertarians stood for in my lifetime.

What is the general definition of conservative? Someone who upholds a set of traditions. This is so broad a definition you can find a progressive or even a socialist described as conservative if they seek to uphold a traditional large government or state-controlled economies! A liberal, conservative, or libertarian today might be right or left of center, hold religious values, and disagree with everyone around them ideologically. This leads to divisiveness over time—beginning with healthy and unhealthy debate—such is the messiness of human government and ideologies that differ and deter from Christianity.

To be fair and clear here, these are general examples. Not all conservatives are for small government and not all libertarians believe in abortion and not all liberals believe taxation should exist, nor does anyone agree on how much taxation should exist.

Jesus’ Teachings aren’t Messy

None of the human ideological constructs come without incoherencies and messy exceptions. When one follows Jesus, these inconsistencies are nonexistent. If you’re a practicing Christian, you’re taught what to do and asked to do those things as an individual believer by Jesus, and your adherence to these is what’s required to get into heaven. You are asked, but not forced to comply. The only coercion is in where your eternal soul resides when you die a human death which is a topic for a different conversation about freewill.

In this, Jesus—and by proxy God—is still in line with his own teachings. The Old and New Testaments both affirm that God is the only deity, and all other gods bow before him. He is the only god who should be feared.

Socialist government commands fear and demands your labor, your rewards, and your ability but does not grant you the absolute right of freewill—to choose to give these things up. Any good Christian must fear only God’s wrath and must live by his requests to gain entrance to heaven, but at no point is the Christian forced to comply during this endeavor. Instead, they are judged at the end of their human endeavors when there are no more choices left in life to make.

This religious concept is incompatible with a government which demands obedience and forces redistribution as it sees fit. More importantly, government lacks the connection with God to do as God sees fit, making all the effort to more equitably distribute the rewards of one’s toils antithetical to Christian doctrine. Christianity isn’t messy when you fixate on God, on Christ, and what is requested of us. Christianity is messy when humans start blabbering about their opinions and what governments ought to do in the name of God or to replace God’s request of us to achieve some end that may not even be what God wants for us!

And yes, I blabber too, which means what I say should be challenged and should be dissected and the ideas should be examined and each individual ought to test my opinions in this essay against the Bible. Do it… and let me know what you think!

God asks us to do onto others as we’d want done to us (Matthew 7:12), to love one another as Jesus loved us (John 13:34-35), to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit (Philippians 2:1-10), as individuals and through Christian communities and fellowships. He asks through his human form of Jesus, and does not tell us to put our reward into the hands of others so that they might do what they—or we—think is best on our behalf. He asks us to do what he says is righteous and just, not to pay someone else to do it, and especially not for others who wish to do good to take and redistribute. After all, they lumped the tax collectors together with the sinners for a reason.

Giving to Caesar What is Caesar’s

As for giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s, well, printed money is simply not God’s… but your time is God’s.

If you toil for the reward, the reward is the potential that God provides so that you can not only sustain yourself, but spread His love. Anyone who takes—or steals—that money is effectively stealing from God. Caesar may have materials he calls money in the form of coins or paper or gold, but “money” to God is your time, and time is required to earn material money. In this, one might say material money is equal to time, and time is God’s and therefore the logic follows that material money is God’s and not Caesar’s when it’s earned by an individual’s time. If this material money is given freely without labor, then it’s Caesar’s.

So, in this, Socialism would have to rely entirely on the failed system of printing and taxing indefinitely (Modern Monetary Theory) to control the monetary value, and that makes money less a store of time—a record of toil and labor—and more a store of faith in a god that is the centralized human or machine authority that dictates such policy.

To put faith into such a system of human creation is to create a god. This “god” is relied upon by the people to care for them and to ensure the money remains usable. Should the government’s money—Caesar’s money—fail to purchase what’s needed because it has no tangible value, then that money has become worthless. The manmade god of Caesar or any human government has failed to provide what a god should because it’s not God. It’s a human construct designed to mimic God (poorly), and will remove agency from Christians over time. That is why overbearing governments are antithetical to Christian teachings.

God gave us time, so that we might toil, and that toil belongs to God. God asks for our time, our love and honor and respect, and we owe the time we don’t toil to God for time—for the gift of life. With Jesus, Caesar’s useless money is of no consequence, as God will provide should we live as God intended for us to live in His image.

God is jealous of other gods, and doesn’t want us to follow them, even if they seem virtuous. God asks us, and wants us, to only listen to his edicts. He understands that from time to time we must comply with rules of others, but should those rules contradict what God asks of us, we as Christians must reject their ways.

Conclusion

As a Christian who strives to follow Jesus, I have to sort out what struggles in modern Western Society deter from his teachings and which ones enhance them. When it comes to tangible forms of government derived from Socialism and Capitalism, the only correlation I can draw between Jesus and Socialism is that one is the Son of God and the other is a manmade god onto itself. With Capitalism—thanks in no small part to Marx’s analysis of economics in his time and coining of the term—one might say there’s no need for a god at all in this ideological pathway! However, capital can become a god should folks turn away from their morality and religious teachings.

The benefit with Capitalism is that unlike Socialism which marries the state and economy, Capitalism only requires some form of governance to help maintain checks and balances against the economic system instituted by Capitalists. It can be any form, so long as it is not married—and I use the religious definition of this term—to a government. To put it another way, this can be a mixed economy of almost any form.

This, therefore, implies both human ideologies and formations of governance and economics discussed here can effectively develop or become their own gods. From a Christian perspective, Jesus(God) is above all other gods and any who sacrifice of themselves to other gods “shall be utterly destroyed” (Exodus 22:20).

“He who sacrifices to any god, except to the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.” - Exodus 22:20

It’s not right for another god to demand of us our time that could be spent serving our God. It’s simply incompatible, even sinful. It’s not our place to institute a government to oversee and dictate what must be done with an individual’s time(money) through decrees. Governments instituted by mankind must only uphold the laws of God, as taught by Jesus Christ, and carried by Christians through history.

Any government that dictates outside of these laws is either not based in the teachings of Christianity, or has lost its way—drifted away from what is divine, righteous and just—even if it shares some of the same values. It may be a government that can do good deeds, but it’s not a government that is comparable to Jesus, let alone God. It’s manmade and beneath God as all things made by humans are. This implies that Socialism, Capitalism, Democracy, and all ideologies separate from Christian Doctrine are mere attempts by humanity to create systems that right people towards God—or towards a god—but cannot be compared in any concrete way to the teachings of Jesus.

So, should a government institute the perfection of Christian teaching and law? What would it look like?

My belief is it would be comprised of individuals who right themselves to biblical teachings and who govern themselves by those teachings, forming communities of Christian Fellowship, and nothing more.