Was Jesus a Socialist?
Did Jesus support socialism? Do the teachings of Jesus Christ condemn the accumulation of wealth while pushing for the equal distribution of resources? Lawrence Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education, explains the misconceptions surrounding one of history’s greatest figures.
Donate today to PragerU! http://l.prageru.com/2eB2p0h
To view the script, sources, quiz, and study guides, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/was-jesus-a-socialist
VISIT PragerU! https://www.prageru.com
Join Prager United to get new swag every quarter! http://l.prageru.com/2c9n6ys
Join PragerU’s text list to have these videos, free merchandise giveaways and breaking announcements sent directly to your phone! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru
Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. Same great products. Same low price. Shopping made meaningful.
FOLLOW us!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prageru
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prageru
Instagram: https://instagram.com/prageru/
PragerU is on Snapchat!
JOIN PragerFORCE!
For Students: http://l.prageru.com/2aozfkP
JOIN our Educators Network! http://l.prageru.com/2aoz2y9
Script:
Was Jesus a socialist?
Well, if socialism is nothing more than being kind to other people, then you might think the answer is yes. But you can be kind to other people and be a capitalist. John D. Rockefeller probably gave away more money than anyone in human history, and he was certainly a capitalist. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have given away millions, too.
To get an accurate answer to our question, we need to define socialism.
Socialism is the concentration of power into the hands of government elites to achieve the following purposes: central planning of the economy and the radical redistribution of wealth.
Jesus never called for any of that.
Nowhere in the New Testament does he advocate for the government to punish the rich—or even to use tax money to help the poor. Nor does he promote the ideas of state ownership of businesses or central planning of the economy.
In Luke 12, Jesus is confronted by a man who wants him to redistribute wealth. “Master,” the man says to Jesus, “tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus replies, “Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?” and then he rebukes the man for being envious of his sibling.
How about Jesus’s Parable of the Talents (talents were a form of money in Jesus’s day)? A man entrusted three of his workers with his wealth. The two who invested the money and made a profit were praised and the one who buried his share so he wouldn’t lose any of it was reprimanded. Sounds a lot more like an endorsement for capitalism than socialism, doesn’t it?
Yes, Jesus spoke of the difficulty for a rich man to enter Heaven, but not because having money is evil. It’s not money; rather, it is the love of money, the New Testament tells us, that leads to evil. Jesus was warning us not to put acquisition of money and material possessions above our spiritual and moral lives.
Was Jesus promoting a socialist model when he kicked the “moneychangers” out of the Temple in Jerusalem? Again, the answer is no. Note the location where the incident occurred: it was in the holiest of places—God’s house. Jesus was not angry at buying and selling in and of themselves; he was angry that these things happened in a house of prayer. He never drove a “moneychanger” from a marketplace or from a bank.
Jesus advises us to be of “generous spirit”—to show kindness, to assist the widow and the orphan. But he clearly means this to be our responsibility, not the government’s.
Consider Jesus’s Good Samaritan story. A traveler comes upon a man at the side of a road. The man had been beaten and robbed and left half-dead. What did the traveler, the Good Samaritan, do? He helps the unfortunate man on the spot, with his own resources.
Ask yourself: To help the poor, would Jesus prefer that you give your money freely to the Salvation Army, for example, or have it taxed by politicians to fund a welfare bureaucracy?
Progressives like to point out that Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” But that has absolutely nothing to do with high taxes or wealth redistribution. It was the seed for the idea of separating church and state. It certainly wasn’t the same as saying that whatever Caesar says is his must then be so, no matter how much he demands or what he intends to use it for.
For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/was-jesus-a-socialist
source
Voluntary charity is 100% Free Market Capitalism because it's voluntary, in exchange of happiness and peace for the people who give their resources in that voluntary action
But forced charity or forced giving, is the socialist way to redistribute wealth, no matter if it crush all the rights of the owner as long as average gullible majority people agree to do so
Never seen a video where people debunk themself after less than 20 seconds, sure because Rockefeller did this because of charity(loving the people next and arround him) just for sharing with other people.
This was good up until the 3:10 mark. Sure, this passage isn't talking about wealth redistribution. It does, however, relate to taxation and economic activity. The denarii, the coin that was shown, was the currency of the time for use throughout the Roman Empire. Taxation was a key area of Roman rule – and had been under the Roman Republic too. The whole idea of asking the question was the challenge the Lord Jesus if he was disloyal to God (to the Jews, this being represented by the Temple), or disloyal to the Emperor. His response showed his due regard for both, that the taxation of the Romans was legitimate, but so too the services and sacrifices we are called to make to God. What is sad is that this niche political ideology that taxes are some sort of evil has so distorted the understanding of this passage – when the verses immediately prior directly link this discussion to the legitimacy of Rome's taxes – that this even needs to be described. To put this in perspective, the following is one of the New Testament passages that this video is quoting:
13 And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words. 14 And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? 15 Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it. 16 And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar's. 17 And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him. Mark 12:13-17 (AV1769)
Look at all of the Socialists crying in the comments section. Sorry your economic theory is responsible for millions of deaths in the modern era
The fictional character was indeed a Proto-Communist.
I have reservations about placing Gates among the good guys, but maybe his doings and intents were not known yet.
If anyone disagrees with this prove that Jesus was a socialist based off the Gospels. I'll be waiting.
In Matthew 19:21, Jesus told a wealthy man to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor. If Jesus was a socialist, he would have told the man to give his possessions directly to the poor. But, instead, Jesus told him to SELL his possessions and THEN give the money to the poor. To whom would the wealthy man SELL his possessions and who would have the MONEY to buy all his possessions? Another wealthy man is who. Jesus was advocating an individual act of charity WITHIN the established property system. He was NOT advocating a socialist overthrow of that system.
These comments are disgustingly wrong and blasphemous!!!!!!!🇺🇲✝️🇺🇲✝️🇺🇲✝️
99.9% of these comments are just utter garbage
Socialism and Communism are explicitly atheistic. Both replace God with the state (government).
Jesus was not an atheist.
For how many Bible Stories this video brings up it does not directly quote the Bible much.
Jesus sure as Hell 👿 wasn't a Capitalist 👿 that's for sure.
Isn’t arguing either side kinda redundant since capitalism and socialism were invented centuries after he lived so how could advocate for either of them
That was pure comic gold. Thank you!
Ok but like,
"One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me" (Luke 8:22). The whole argument about not doing it via the state is misleading, because under Ceaser, there were social programs. The most effective way to distribute wealth nowadays is to pay your fair share of taxes through the Government.
So like, wanna read the 2 most important commandments again or are you going to keep cherry-picking??
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God"
Mark 10:25
Stealing wealth from your workers and then giving it to charity isn't exactly friendly behavior — especially if that gives you a tax break
Capitalists certainly don’t “love people.” They love money. Didn’t Jesus say money is the root of all evil?
Two members of this group were Ananias and his wife, Sapphira; they also had sold a field. Part of the profit from their sale was kept back by the couple, and Ananias only laid a part of the money at the apostles’ feet. However, Ananias made a pretense of having given all the proceeds. This hypocritical show may have fooled some, but not Peter, who was filled with the power of the Spirit. Peter knew instantly that Ananias was lying—not just to him but to God—and exposed his hypocrisy then and there. Ananias fell down and died (Acts 5:4). When Sapphira showed up, she, too, lied to Peter and to God, saying that they had donated the entire proceeds of the sale of the land to the church. When her lie had been exposed, she also fell down and died at Peter’s feet.
Acts chapter 4:32[2] closes by stating that the first followers of Jesus did not consider their possessions to be their own but rather held in common, in order to use what they had on behalf of those in want. For example, Barnabas, a Levite from Cyprus, sold a plot of land and donated the proceeds to the apostles.