who said that socialism is Gods way please read the book what do you call it when people
love the Lord so much that they have ALL things in common realizing it is all Gods anyway.
Are Communist ideas from the Bible ?
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a documentary broadcast on state-funded channel
Rossiya 1 on January 14 that the Communist ideas of the Soviet Union come from the Bible.
He said:
"Maybe I am about to say something that some people will not like, but I will say what I think.
Firstly, faith has always accompanied us. It strengthened when things were hard for our
people’s country. There have been harsh, God-fighting years when clerics were destroyed
and churches were ruined. But at the same time, [the Soviets] created a new religion.
Communist ideology is very akin to Christianity, actually".
-
Mr. Putin is not the first to make such a claim. Advocates of socialism and communism have
often argued that certain passages of Scripture prove that the Bible supports state-enforced
redistribution of wealth.
The most commonly cited passage is in the book of Acts. Acts 2:44-46 say of early Christians:
And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions
and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily
with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat
with gladness and singleness of heart. Acts 4:32-35 paint a similar picture of the Church,
saying again that members had “all things common.”
-
But a look at the context shows that these passages do not advocate government-mandated
redistribution of wealth like the model that Putin’s Soviet predecessors strove toward.
It is clear that these early Christians were not practicing communism. They were responding
to the needs of a temporary and extraordinary situation. And they were responding to those
needs with voluntary generosity and compassion.
The Bible also shows that not all of the Church members sold their private property for this
emergency. Only some of them chose to—and only on a voluntary basis. This is clear from
a conversation Peter had with a member named Ananias who had sold some of his property.
“The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished,” Peter said to him. “And after
selling it, the money was also yours to give away” (Acts 5:4; New Living Translation).
It is clear that Ananias—like all of these individuals—privately owned his property and could
do with it as he chose. “Here was private enterprise, and private initiative, and private ownership
—not regimented communism.
After the new converts left Jerusalem to return to their homes, this temporary “all things common”
situation ended. It is true that generosity, compassion and giving remained a central Church practice
(e.g. Acts 11:27-30; 20:35; 2 Corinthians 9:6-7; Galatians 2:10; 1 Timothy 5).
But such instances of giving were carried out by Church members
only on a voluntary basis,
and not at all in line with the Communist model of state-mandated redistribution of wealth.
A study into these and the rest of the scriptures shows that the Bible’s teachings
are as far from Communist ideology as east is from west.
-
As he continues on his quest to restore Russia’s superpower status, Putin relies on support from
both Russia’s Orthodox Christians and its Soviet nostalgics. Where he can make the two comingle,
a new kind of religion emerges: Putinism.