Were Early Christians Socialists?

Today socialism is a hot topic. In 2015, Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders won the hearts of many young Americans in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination with promises of free college tuition and medicare for all. More recently Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has taken the spotlight as she pushes the radical vision of her Green New Deal that would would cost tens of trillions of taxpayer dollars to implement. Then in a more negative light, conservative commentators and politicians blame socialism for the collapse of countries like Venezuela. Donald Trump even referenced this in his recent State of the Union address saying, “America will never be a socialist country.” All of these things bring a lot of questions to mind. Is socialism a good thing or a bad thing? Does it help people or does it hurt people?

So let’s define our terms. Merriam-Webster defines socialism as, “any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.” To contrast that, it defines capitalism as: “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.”

Now back to my original question: Were Early Christians Socialists? One of the most common defenses I have heard for socialism is that the early Christian church practiced it. I agree with that statement to an extent… but what they practiced was not Democratic Socialism like we see in American politics today. It was a unique form of what I will call Christian Socialism. The most commonly referenced passages on this are Acts 2:44-45: “Now all the believers were together and held all things in common.  They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need.” Another very similar passage is Acts 4:34-35: “For there was not a needy person among them because all those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the proceeds of what was sold,  and laid them at the apostles’ feet. This was then distributed to each person as any had need.”

I do not intend to argue that this was not a form of socialism. However, I do intend to argue that this form of socialism is not transferrable to a secular society, and I am basing that conclusion on at least two reasons. First, the people in Acts were all followers of Jesus. Followers of Jesus are adopted into the family of God (The Church). When we become part of this family, we are no longer just individuals; we are one with our family of Christian brothers and sisters united under Jesus. This is far from what socialism in the world is today. People who are arguing for socialism are arguing for people to share their money and livelihood with people that they disagree with fundamentally. They want taxes to take money from people in order to support causes that Americans disagree on politically, religiously, culturally, socially, etc… There is no way such a system could be unified like it was in Acts. There is no commonality other than the simple fact that we are all sinful human beings. You don’t see the early Christians including the Roman or Jewish non-believers; only the ones who believed. Second, the Christians freely put their money at the feet of the apostles; no one forced them. The apostles were the people that Jesus had left in charge of his church, and their character was respected by all who believed. Socialism today does not work that way; the government takes what is necessary to sustain its programs whether people like the programs or not. Our country is so politically polarized that there is no way giving money to politicians could possible work out in everyone’s best interest. There is too much corruption, selfishness, and disagreement.

Because of these two reasons, and the historical examples of socialism failing because of them; I caution supporters to evaluate why they would support such a view. Socialism could only work in a world with perfect sinless people, but that is far from reality. What is free for one person is not free for another. Because of this, there will always be a tension between those who want to chart their own path to success, and those who want to take advantage of the system by being lazy. Also, over and over throughout history socialism has given too much power to the government, which eventually led corrupt people to take advantage of that power. When people give too much power to the government, they become dependent on it. Then when someone corrupt gets voted in democratically, it’s hard for the people to do anything about it because they previously gave away all of their power, money, and rights. Venezuela voting in Hugo Chávez is a perfect example… and things did not turn out well for other socialist countries in history like the Soviet Union either. Do we really want that here? Freedom is having the ability to choose what you do with your life, time, and money. True, there are many greedy capitalists. I do not deny that, but is it any less greedy to say that they should give all of their money away to causes they don’t support? That’s not freedom and it’s definitely not what we see in the Bible.