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Was Jesus a Socialist?

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jul 29, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 34, No. 31.

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Was Jesus a Socialist?

AMONG Socialists Jesus has frequently been claimed as one of themselves. "One would like to say that He was," observes a writer in "The Interior" (Chicago), for He was "social in the largest sense, because He sacrificed Himself for the welfare of other men." But since "socialist" in the modern world has come to mean (the writer interprets) "the adherent of an economic cult that would reorganize society on the public ownership of property," he does not allow the ranking of Jesus among them. Against what he calls the "rash assertions of agitators," he places this "proposition" as capable of being established from the Gospels:
"NEITHER SOCIALISM NOR ANY OTHER ECONOMIC DOCTRINE EVER ENTERED INTO THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS OF NAZARETH.
"He simply paid no attention to the economic phases of life. He treated industrial questions exactly as He treated political questions; He let them alone.
"There were doubtless two reasons for this. Jesus didn't come into the world to meddle with the clock of human progress. Some day the world would learn that democracy is better government than despotism, free labor a better industrial system than slavery, and would get hold of the facts all the stronger for having had to dig them out. Jesus had no time to stop to teach the world what it would eventually come at on its own account.
"The second and positive reason why He did not concern Himself with social questions was because it was part of His mission to throw temporal considerations into the background.
"HIS PRINCIPAL TEACHING BUSINESS WAS TO SPREAD A DOCTRINE OF LIFE THAT MADE A MAN'S ECONOMIC CONDITION A SECONDARY MATTER.
"Here Jesus differs from socialism the whole length of the diameter. The thoroughgoing socialist thinks poverty the worst thing that can happen to a man. His great plea is to abolish poverty. Jesus didn't think being poor mattered much—not at all if the man was the right sort. He was poor Himself, and didn't care in the least.
"The overmastering principle that decides how Jesus looks at any or all human circumstances on this earth is this:
"IF A MAN DOES THE WILL OF THE FATHER IN HEAVEN, NOTHING IN HIS EARTHLY CIRCUMSTANCES CAN BE WRONG.
"This confidence is half a faith that the Father will compel circumstances to turn out favorably; half a faith that a man who lives for the Father can be happy in any circumstances."
The nearest Jesus ever came to an economic question, the writer points out, was "when He saw that some certain man's economic condition was hindering his development in unselfish, God-loving, and man-loving character." He goes on:
"Modern social philosophers say it is the poor who don't have a fair chance at fine character, but Jesus thought different—He considered the rich the most handicapped.
"When with His marvelous inlook into the heart the Master understood that the rich young ruler thought so much about his wealth that he couldn't think much about his neighbors, the prescription for cure was instantaneous and unsparing: 'Sell that which thou hast, and give to the poor.' Jesus didn't speak so much of hate for the property but out of yearning for the man. If He could in this way give the youth a big heart full of spontaneous impulse to help people, He knew it would be worth the price.
"But where He didn't find worldly possessions hindering the growth of a man's nobler character, He simply ignored them. Giving half delivered Zaccheus from the bondage of avarice, and Jesus asked no more. He was equally at home with the poor and with the rich. He loved both for common qualities which are counted in no coin on earth.
"JESUS TAUGHT NEIGHBOR-LOVE ABSOLUTELY, NOT AS AN INCIDENT BUT AS AN ESSENTIAL OF RELIGION, BUT HE NEVER SO MUCH AS HINTED AT A SOCIAL PROGRAM FOR DEMONSTRATING THAT ASPECT OF RELIGION.
"Jesus was no program-builder. This is one of the very hardest things for the modern age to comprehend in the Master. The latter-day must have an organization at work, or it thinks it has nothing. But Jesus had an unbounded faith in the power of a spirit at work in and thru the lives of individual men.
"Likewise, when He said, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' He did not deposit the dynamic of that love in some artificial social body, either then existent or afterward to be created, but He imported it by contact to the affections and wills of His friends, and left them to extend it in the same manner."—Literary Digest.