There are product links on this page, Smart Christian.net will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make via those links, and the proceeds will go to offset the cost of making this page.
On November 18, 1978, a man named Jim Jones was responsible for the deaths of 918 people, many of them were little children. He was an evil man who twisted Holy Scripture into something that justified socialism. It has been 40 years since this event, and we are still confusing socialism with Christianity.
What is socialism according to The New Dictionary of Cultural, Literacy “Socialism is an economic system in which the production and distribution of goods are controlled substantially by the government rather than private enterprise.”
In other words, the person who put all the work into imagining a product, and making a product, and all the other things involved in creating a business, don’t own that business. The under socialism the state either takes his property or taxes and regulates it so much that he is not the owner, but a puppet of the state. He isn’t entitled to the product of his labor or of his ingenuity. The state basically steals it. Yet the Bible says that thou shalt not steal.
Let’s say you are sitting in your living room one day and think of a cool new product that you believe would make the world a better place. You have the ability to make this product, but you know that the state will not allow you to keep your new invention as soon as it becomes even semi-successful the state will take it. Do you go through with the years of hard work that it takes to get that product going, or do you say that if I can’t get a reward for inventing it, it isn’t worth the trouble, and just give up? Most people will just give up, that is why most of the brilliant inventions of the last century were created in places like America, and not the USSR where everything belonged to the state.
Does capitalism steal? No, in order for capitalism to work two people have to volunteer to make a trade. No one is forcing you to buy anything. Is he stealing your labor? There is a possibility of that, but if you think that you are not being paid fairly, you can make your value more evident to your boss, and ask for a raise, look for another job that pays better, or even still go to trade school to learn a trade that pays better than the job you have now. If your boss truly is mistreating one of his most valuable employees, he will either let you have a raise when you threaten to quit without one or lose all of his employees that make his business worthwhile, and go out of business like a one business recently did when one day the boss showed up to a locked store and a note on the door said that ALL of the employees quit due to the mistreatment they received by their awful boss.
Are we supposed to be generous with our money? YES! But is paying taxes really being generous? NO, it is not being generous when you are threatened with jail for not paying someone money. Paying taxes actually divorces you from any good that you happen to accomplish with that money. You don’t know if you are trapping them in poverty (which many people believe) or actually helping them. You don’t get to partake in the joy that you create when someone truly needs help, and you help them. Which means that you don’t get to be a cheerful giver.
2 Corinthians 9:7
Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
In capitalism, you work to make something that other people want, and they give you something that you want. It is a completely voluntary action. With socialism, the government tells you what you will make and how much of it you will make.
This means that the baker no longer gets to decide that he needs a certain number of loaves of bread, and a certain number of doughnuts, to make his customers happy.
The government tells the baker what he will make, even though they don’t have the knowledge of someone who has been a baker and has kept his customers happy for decades.
How does this political model compare with Christianity?
Exodus 20:15 Thou shalt not steal.
In order for stealing to even be possible, there has to be private property. Something that socialism denies.
2 Corinthians 9:7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver
Socialism doesn’t allow you to decide how much you want to give. It doesn’t care that you could use the money it takes to allow you to help out someone you love in dire need. It just takes. While helping your sister recover from a great tragedy might make you more cheerful, giving more money to the government will never make you a cheerful giver. It divorces you from any good that your money may do when you just give it to the government. It isn’t even charity, it is just allowing the government to take your money.
When the church or individuals give charity they can see to it that those who are truly hard-luck cases, we can help them get the resources they need to have a better life. The state doesn’t know that a car that actually runs is what they need if they had that they could actually lead the productive life that they want to run. The state just hands them money and doesn’t care if the person who gets it can actually put it to good use. They just want to feel good, regardless of how much good that they really do.
When was the last time you heard someone say that they were happy that they paid taxes? While they may be grateful that they were actually able to find enough money to keep the IRS off their backs, they are never grateful to have to pay them. The only time gratitude ever happens in regard to taxes is when they get their refund. They are so happy that they forget that the money isn’t a gift, you only get a refund when the government took too much money from you from every paycheck that you received, it should have been your money all year.
Socialism almost always tries to restrict religion. Karl Marx the founder of socialism actually said “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Doesn’t sound very Christian, does it?
Socialism also thrives from dividing the people into classes. Usually, it’s by the rich and the poor, sometimes they divide the people by race or religion. The Nazis (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) divided by race. They were funded by confiscated material wealth that belonged to Jews, which would only work until they ran out of Jews and Jewish wealth, so it was necessary to add more enemy classes to increase the wealth they took. Eventually, if Hitler had been allowed to follow through with what he wanted to do, only Arians would have existed, and eventually, even they would have gone broke.
In socialism, you are entitled to everything you get, even if you did not earn it. remember back in High School there were two types of car owners. One type was given their car for turning 16, the other kind worked their butt off for the car. Who do you think appreciated their car more? It was usually the people who worked their butt off for it.
You see the people who were given their car usually knew, or at least though that if something happened to the car that they were given, their dad would buy them another one, so they could drive fast, and not worry about maintenance. The people who got a job worked hard, and saved their money, knew that their car was a treasure that was hard to replace, so they treasured it! Socialism is like a rich father if you “need” something you are entitled to it, and socialism gives it to you, but that same father is entitled to take the car away should he decide to. Then you are stuck!
Willingly giving to those in need is Christianity.
Being forced to give to people the amount of money that someone else decided is socialism.
Jesus was not a socialist.
Smart Christian.net 
For an alternate take, I here argue extensively and from his own words that yes, Jesus was a socialist: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/hippieheretic/2019/03/jesus-was-a-socialist.html
If you don’t mind I will handle my response a little bit at a time. First please don’t think that I am against charity. I think as Christians we need to do a better job at seeking people who need aid and comfort, hold their hands, pray with them and directly ask them what we can do to help them.
What I am against is the government saying you own nothing, it is all theirs for the taking.
In Acts 5 they were not giving money to some tax collector to skim some off the top, hand it to Caesar so he could buy himself and his buddies some gold encrusted chariots, before he passed the pocket change on to people who could be in need, or just wanting to leech of the system. They were giving it to people they trusted to be distributed to people that they knew were truly in need. During the great persecution that they were in many were in hiding and in prison leaving behind families who still needed fed, so this collection was by Christians and for Christians.
No one was coming to these people’s houses and saying give me money, or I will take your house and throw you in jail, they were volunteering to give money to people in need. In Acts 5:3-4 Then Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the proceeds from the field? 4 Wasn’t it yours while you possessed it? And after it was sold, wasn’t it at your disposal? Why is it that you planned this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God!”
It wasn’t wanting to keep some of his money that he got in trouble for, Peter told him that the property was his, and the money at his disposal. It was lying to God that got him into trouble.
More later
That’s a gross misrepresentation of socialism.
I am debating the type of socialism that is trying to take root here in America. Do you deny that our politicians are living high off the hog in mansions that most of us can not afford. and flying around in private jets almost every weekend?
Do you know what would happen if you did not give the government the money it wants? What happens is they will come to your house with guns, throw you in jail, and after the trial is complete they will sell your house and everything in it, while you rot in jail.
The government has even sunk so low as to take away a kid’s wheelchair when his father owed back taxes!
Check out all that has happened in other socialist countries like Nazi Germany, USSR, China… The government got bigger and bigger, and the people got smaller and smaller.
What did I misrepresent?
Fixing the problem of “politicians are living high off the hog in mansions that most of us can not afford” is precisely the point of socialism. In a true democracy, the government should be us, the people, not the politicians, who are only supposed to be representing us, nor certainly the special interest groups who are really running the scenes. We currently live in what is essentially an oligarchy. Because the rich are allowed to stay rich, they are able to use their money to legislate as they see fit. True democracy cannot be restored until we even the scales economically.
But of course all of that is entirely beside the point as to what Jesus actually taught. You can think that what he taught was impractical all you like, but it doesn’t change what he said.
Socialism would be fine as long as God was in control of it. But giving the government more power, and more money leads to more corruption and even a bigger oligarchy. Most if not all of the politicians on capitol hill are at least in the top ten percent. They are the oligarchy. Giving them more power and money would only increase the problem that you say that you are trying to get rid of, and bankrupt the producers who actually hire us so that we can earn the money that we need to eat.
If this doesn’t represent the type of socialism that you are talking about, you need a new name for it, because socialism was created by Marx and creates suffering as soon as it’s takeover is complete.
By the way, please don’t assume I am rich and unfeeling. 11 years ago my family lived in a single wide trailer and was barely able to keep food on the table. but my husband worked hard, kept looking for better and better jobs. Now we live in a decent house with plenty of food to go around, and money to pass around to people who need a helping hand.
I am not rich, but it sometimes feels like it.
I don’t hate rich people, I learn what I can from them so that I too can be better off.
Thank you for your post, I will answer at least some of your objections by tomorrow.