The Pope
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"Article 38 of the 39 Articles of the Church of England" which led Marx to allude to in Capital"the English Established Church… will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of its 39 articles than on 1/39 of its income."
The Order of the Carmelites…to each according to needs
Quote:None of the brothers is to claim something as his own; everything is to be in common and is to be distributed to each one by the Prior—that is, the brother deputed by him to this office— having regard to the age and needs of each onehttp://www.vocationcarmelites.ie/texts/Carmelite%20Rule.pdf Of course for the more worldly, there is Dhammic socialismhttp://www.suanmokkh.org/ds/what_ds1.htm We know the Dalai Lama has spoke sympathetically of Marxism And some buddhist anarchism herehttp://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/garysnyder.htm I googled Islamic socialism and got a wiki articlehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_socialism But apart from rules on interest and taxation, they were pretty much committed to wealth and inequality
There is a difference between the "consumption communism" of the early christians and later monastic orders and the proposition that God gave the Earth to be held in common by all humanity.
He's still singing from the same hymn sheet
Quote:Speaking at Friday's welcome ceremony to the Philippine president and other officials, Pope Francis called for leaders "to reject every form of corruption, which diverts resources from the poor" and to make concerted efforts to ensure inclusivity.It is now, more than ever, necessary that political leaders be outstanding for honesty, integrity and commitment to the common good," he added. He said it was a Christian duty to "break the bonds of injustice and oppression which give rise to glaring, and indeed scandalous, social inequalities".I think there are so many problems with analysing early Christianity and its history that you can’t even just list them on a side of A4. One problem with reading academic articles on it re their alleged communist roots is almost universal bias. The Christians and the ‘Marxists’ are almost equally apoplectic at the idea. Consequently I have tried to read original source material which is a real ball ache as you have to trawl through so much crap to find interesting nuggets of information. Eg Contra Celsum Eg; Origen’s Contra Celsum written around AD240 in response to a Book called True Doctrine by a Celsus written itself allegedly circa AD180; dated as that from a forensic analysis of the text that there were two emperors at the time. Something Origen perhaps understandably overlooked as he professed ignorance and irritation at not knowing ‘who’ had written it or when. My opinion is that it was a work commissioned by the Roman state, maybe drafted by a committee at the intellectual centre of the Eastern Mediterranean, the Celsus library at Ephesus. It attacks Christianity from multiple and ‘philosophically’ mutually exclusive directions. One moment it seems to be taking an Epicurean ‘atheist’ position, the next standard Greek Gods stuff and then from Judaic monotheist perspective. [Including saying JC’s mother was a whore and the product of a liason with a named Roman Legionnaire.] A hostile Celsum tells us that nearly all Christians were low life working class, like it’s carpenter founder and ‘sailor’ apostles, and uneducated gullible idiots and it couldn’t be taken seriously as there were no educated and thus high class Christians. You can tell from the intellectual Origen’s reply that he almost looses his temper at that without actually denying it. He is much calmer when Jc's parentage is called into question as part of an academic historical debate, I accept that all pre AD350 Christians were not ‘communists’ but in spite of the difficulty of getting a accurate historical perspective from what is left from that period there is I think too much of it scattered around to dismiss it. A lot of the other ‘early Christian communist’ stuff also appears as part of hostile criticism of certain sects. It is possible I suppose that you might just accuse someone of ‘communism’ as a vile calumny just because you take issue with their views of the holy trinity or attitude to the Greek God’s or whatever. A lot of the big debates within early Christianity was around the Bolshevik like centralised democracy (Paul) versus the ‘church’ as a federation of autonomous branches in which many seemed to be giving too much latitude towards the opinions of women. Up to 1844 Karl accepted Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity’ psychological’ analysis. Which was that it was an expression and anthropomorphic ‘projection’ of an innate ‘human essence’ or communist ‘social instincts’. [That was 70 years or so before Freud and Jung did that kind of thing.] It wasn’t until Darwin’s second book that the idea was resurrected in which he speculated that generalised notions of ‘morality’ and ‘justice’ etc might in part have a ‘material’ base in a ‘social instinct’.
Now the Church of England gets in on the act (well, actually, they were there before the pope):http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/15/uk-economy-tale-two-cities-archbishopsSome extracts:
Quote:The book of essays, to be published next week, is edited by the archbishop of York, John Sentamu. On Rock or Sand? has unmistakable echoes of Faith in the City, the Church of England report published 30 years ago that infuriated the Conservatives, who denounced it as “pure Marxist theology”. (….)The book advocates a new redistribution of wealth, quoting the slogan popularised by Karl Marx: “From each according to his resources, to each according to his need.” (…)“If it is the survival of the fittest, that’s what I call living in the jungle and I don’t want to live in the jungle – this is supposed to be a civilised society. It is nothing to do with being socialist or whatever. What it has got to do with is, is this how God created us? Has he created us to be people who go to Black Friday to fight with each other because they want the biggest bargain? No, that’s the rule of the jungle, we left that behind.”Looks as if the churches have taken up the leftwing reformist banner abandoned by the Labour Party (because it didn't work). But the Archbishop is right: it doesn't have anything to do with being socialist.
I impatiently wait for that believers socialist party arising to assist in the struggle for revolution.In the meantime, as you suggest, all that is happening is added confusion to an already confused battlefield of ideas. " I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some."…and to be a nuisance…when i read the source of the quote i also read this" I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall." but also "We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited."
“If my good friend Dr. Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch,”Francis said, throwing a pretend punch his way. “It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others"looks like the present Pope, for all his apparent radicalism, has the true spirit of the inquisition in his veins.
Hmmm?…What about a fair-go fisty-cuffs boxing match between Dawkins and the Pope. Dalai Lama to referee.
FYIRosa LuxemburgSocialism and The Churches(1905) Part Three "Thus the Christians of the First and Second Centuries were fervent supporters of communism….." https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1905/misc/socialism-churches.htm
The Maronite Christian Pope adds his voice http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2015/Jan-18/284490-poverty-and-deprivation-hamper-peace-rai.ashx"Poverty and deprivation are destabilizing factors in the pursuit of peace ..There is no peace where there is underdevelopment,”
A man who is trying to make himself to have the image that he is near to God violates the law of equality, that's why there shouldn't be a God to get near at.sardaan Ordinarian
Yes, we were beginning to forget his megalomaniac claim to be his god's high representative on Earth.
I think when it comes to Christian ‘communist’ documents maybe one of the most interesting is the ‘Didache’ as it is considered by academia as perhaps one of the oldest Christian documents with the best provenance. Normally dated to late first and early second; although as with all these things there are a problems as regards the extant version being the same as perhaps the original was. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/didache.html It reads like a declaration of principles. The passage of interest is; Chapter 4. Various Precepts Do not turn away from him who is in want; rather, share all things with your brother, and do not say that they are your own. But on the downside! Do not enjoin anything in your bitterness upon your bondman or maidservant, who hope in the same God, lest ever they shall fear not God who is over both; for he comes not to call according to the outward appearance, but to them whom the Spirit has prepared. And you bondmen shall be subject to your masters as to a type of God, in modesty and fear. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-roberts.html And for additional interest? Chapter 3. Other Sins Forbidden Be neither money-loving, nor vainglorious, for out of all these thefts are engendered. I thought the following passage was interesting as it sort of links in to Lucian of Samosata’s AD 170 Passing of Peregrinus think about rogues free loading on Christian communes. Eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_of_Peregrinus Back to Didache; Chapter 12. Reception of Christians. But receive everyone who comes in the name of the Lord, and prove and know him afterward; for you shall have understanding right and left. If he who comes is a wayfarer, assist him as far as you are able; but he shall not remain with you more than two or three days, if need be. But if he wants to stay with you, and is an artisan, let him work and eat. But if he has no trade, according to your understanding, see to it that, as a Christian, he shall not live with you idle. But if he wills not to do, he is a Christ-monger. Watch that you keep away from such. It looks like that perhaps this kind of presentation of Christian communism and its focus might be something more like some kind of artisan/bondsman ‘Guild Socialism’; versus rich merchants? I think as historical materialists we should be looking at the socio economic base in which early Christianity was received. Whilst acknowledging heavy historical bias in the sense that the illiterate ‘bondsmen and maidservants’ might have had a slightly different take on things that hasn’t been passed down. Even if any original hadn’t been tampered with. As we have done the Mormons and Maronite popes it might be interesting to discover the ‘left’ Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians as I believe John Chrysostom c. 349 – 407 is still an important figure in that religion and his somewhat left of centre communistic commentary is very extensive. I think he is more of a redistribution of wealth revisionist Kautskyist. I seem to remember he was banished in a no punch pulling Charlie Hebdo incident for comparing the then emperor's wife to Herodias? I am still pretty ignorant of the socio economic bas of John Chrysostom’s immediate Christian city congregation; so far I believe it was predominantly artisan [80%] with 10% as the ‘rich’, maybe mostly merchants? There has always been economic tension between the rich Merchants and our artisan Proudhonist. I suppose that leaves out the primitive accumulation/surplus value of agricultural/rural and serf/slave production. I don’t like Rosa’s, Fred’s and Bauers bias urban city state analysis of early Christianity as what is most obvious in he historical record left to us.
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