05-11-2011, 08:14 PM
kj wrote:
[quote=August West]
[quote=kj]
But Christianity is a religion, not a political or economic system.
Socialism and Christianity are both ideologies, drawing comparisons is possible.
kj wrote:
And Jesus was most definitely neither a socialist nor a capitalist.
I believe Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew, a minor bother to the Roman occupiers, and, as such, an executed criminal. But any conjecture about Jesus' identity is just that.
Hopefully you can recognize that virtually no christians agree with you (christianity is not just an ideology to a christian, etc.), so there's really not much to discuss there. kj.
I see what AW is saying in that you can certainly draw comparisons between the Gospel and modern day understandings of socialism and capitalism, ... However, I'll agree with kj that religion and ideology are different in some important ways, primarily that religious belief usually derives from a single text that some, but not all, followers, view as infallible. Most socialists, for example, don't believe that Marx was infallible or had the last word. There are other important differences, but I'll leave it at that.
Looking at the parables alone and out of context, you could easily make the case that Jesus supported either socialism or capitalism as we understand them today. You have to include an understanding of 1st century Palestine, the economic, political, and social forces that were at work then, the conflicts between Romans and Jews, to put the message of Jesus into context. Also looking at the parables, I would disagree with kj that he was mostly talking about individual relationships and not society as a whole. Very frequently he was talking about the latter.