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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025

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Is not the doctrinal communist ideal -- the universal fraternity of man, sacrifice for those who are in need, "the last shall be first" -- ultimately just an expression of universal Christian love?

Interestingly from what I can tell the "proto-Christian-communism" was within the Christian community - and it came with rules.

Besides Acts 2 (where the holding of "all things in common" was within the church) see for instance Galatians 6:10 ("...let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.") and 1st Timothy 5, which gives these instructions for granting charity to windows: "Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work."

So while Christianity definitely has an idea of the "universal fraternity of man" within Scripture the brotherhood of believers is privileged. That's not to say that charitable works to nonbelievers are forbidden, but it's not the communist ideal of the Universal Brotherhood of Man (...or perhaps it is similar, in the sense that the Communist Universal Brotherhood of Man was in practice often restricted to, well, Communists.)

Don't forget 2 Thessalonians 3:10 ("He who will not work, let them also not eat").

The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products.

-- Lenin