The Spirit of Socialism and Anarchism in Jesus
Talk at St Bride’s by Dr. Chris Allen
Preamble: From Socialism to Christianity
I have spent a lifetime searching for socialism. It all began when I was 13. I liked ‘alternative’ rock and punk music and, from that, my exposure to radical politics began. The ideas propounded by the bands that I was listening to fell into the categories of socialism and anarchism. They provided me with a way of understanding the world around me. It was 1983. This was Thatcher’s Britain. My father was variously in work, out of work and on strike. Why are good people treated so badly? It made no sense, until I began to listen to music.
Then I started to read about socialism too. At 18 I went on to study a degree in Government and Politics because there was just so much to learn if I was ever going to find an answer to my question – Why are good people treated so badly and what can be done about it? At university, and after, I became involved with various Marxist groups such as The Socialist Workers Party, The Community Party of Great Britain, The Socialist Party of Great Britain and a few left leaning groups that were attached to the Labour Party itself. I was also a member of various animal rights organisations connected to anarchism and so I regularly sabotaged fox hunts – and got into trouble for it.
I drifted away from these various left-wing groups, largely as a result of disillusionment: I was too often left wondering whether the primary objective of these movements was human well-being or something specific to those movements. In other words, they seemed more preoccupied with their own doctrines - and their own party positions within the hierarchy of ‘the left’ - than with the existential reality of human being and human suffering.
A few years ago, Pauline and I were having one of our many long and angst-ridden conversations about the state of the world – and my state of disillusion – when she provided me with a piece of advice that has stayed with me ever since. Pauline said to me “If you are looking for true radicalism, you ought to take a look at the life of Jesus”.
Having attended church and a Church of England school when I was young, and having cultivated and maintained many friendships with Christians in adulthood, I have always floated around the edges of Christianity – occasionally dipping my toes into the water but never submerging myself completely. But this was an invitation to submerge myself. And the invitation just so happened to come at the right time for me both personally and politically. So I accepted.
Now school taught me many things about Christianity. But my religious instruction was typical of a Church of England that is dominated by middle class and conservative values. This was reflected in our school motto: ‘Fide et labor’ – by faith and hard work. That said, it is no surprise that I was taught nothing about the radical, revolutionary and insurrectionary nature of Jesus’ life and teachings. Yet the radical, revolutionary and insurrectionary character of Jesus’ jumps out of the bible - if you care to read it!
The question that concerns me today is what kind of radical, revolutionary, insurrectionary Jesus was. When I was a socialist I thought of Jesus as the first real socialist. Now, through Christian eyes, things look different: Jesus teachings appear to me to have more in common with anarchism than socialism. This post explains why with reference to 5 key themes in Jesus life and teaching.
The Spirit of Equality in Jesus
There is a key tension between Socialism and Christianity as it is understood from a reading of the gospels: In socialist thinking, inequality is produced by the system that affords unequal recognition – in some cases even refusing recognition – to the various contributions that people make to wealth creation. Thus its conception of inequality is ontologically grounded in political economy and society - the political economy of inequality. It follows that the achievement of equality is a matter for politics and economic management.
Jesus’ understanding of equality is not ontologically grounded in this world. He teaches us that our fundamental equality is grounded in our singular divine origins, in God (Galatians 3: 28). This calls us to treat each other as if we were encountering God himself, that is, equally and with the utmost respect that we would have for the divine. If we reject each other then we are rejecting God (Matt 26: 42-45; see also Matt 7: 12).
So Jesus teaches us that our equality is ontologically ground in God rather than in ‘society’. That is to say our equality is assured through the eyes of God – through which we are encouraged to see each other – and not according to political and economic systems that assign equal recognition to our contributions to the whole, say, by a levelling of financial rewards or similar.
The Spirit of Wealth in Jesus
Socialism constitutes an intellectual response to the rapid changes that took place in the 18th and 19th century. Socialism grew out of intellectual understandings of the exploitative and unequal nature of industrial capitalism which concentrates wealth in the hands of the few. Thus the questions that concern socialists are (a) how to reorganise the production of wealth and (b) how to reorganise the distribution of wealth. We can see this if we consult the aims and objectives of some of the main socialist parties in Britain at the present time:
“Workers create all the wealth under capitalism. A new society can only be constructed when they collectively seize control of that wealth and plan its production and distribution according to need.”
(The Socialist Workers Party: http://www.swp.org.uk/about-us)
The discourse is, then, about the production and distribution of the fruits of industry. That is, wealth. On the surface of things, there are similarities here between Socialism and Jesus teaching in the Bible. Jesus vehemently opposed exploitation of the poor by the rich (Luke 4: 17-21; James 5: 1-6) and thus discouraged the hording of wealth (Luke 19: 23-7; Matt 6: 19-21). He places great emphasis on liberating the poor from exploitation and oppression (Luke 4: 18-19) as well as a wider distribution of ‘things’ (Luke 3: 11). His ministry has thus been characterised by its ‘preferential option for the poor’ (Sheppard 1983)
[Jesus] unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people. (Luke 4: 17-19)
However, Jesus’ teaching is more nuanced than a Socialist interpretation might assume. His teaching does not compel us to share wealth. It compels us to question it. And this is what creates tensions between socialism and Jesus teachings in the gospels. Socialism emphasises an egalitarian distribution of wealth whereas Jesus questions the whole idea of wealth. Indeed he calls us to reject material riches and material wealth. So whereas Socialism compels us to ask ‘How should we distribute wealth in order to achieve equality?’ Jesus compels us to ask ourselves ‘what is wealth?’ For Jesus, wealth was not to be found in the earthly riches that the Left want to distribute more evenly: ‘The things that are considered of great value by human beings are worth nothing in God’s sight’ (Luke 16: 15). It exists in our hearts and in our relationship with God (Matt 6: 19-21; Matt 19: 21; Luke 12: 33-34). Far from having a close relationship with Socialism, then, Jesus breaks with it by asking a different set of questions about wealth. Whereas Socialism seeks a fair distribution of wealth, Jesus asks us to reject it altogether and calls us to a life of what Quaker testament refers to as material ‘simplicity’.
The Spirit of Pacifism in Jesus
The relationship between socialism and the state is complex but, by and large, most forms of socialism contain the aim of capturing the state. Notwithstanding the ‘bottom-up’ model of the Base Ecclesiastical Communities, Christians – such as liberation theologians - that regard capitalism as inhumane have also given their support to political strategies that seek to capture the state. For instance, Priests for the Third World formed in Argentina in 1965 stating that their avowed aim was “to join in the revolutionary process for urgent, radical change of existing structures and to reject formally the capitalist system … and every type of imperialism”. Similarly the Colombian Priest Group, formed in 1968, was “irrevocably commit[ted] … to every manner of revolutionary action against imperialism and the neo-colonial bourgeoise … and direct ourselves towards setting up a socialist society …. We call upon all popular and revolutionary groups … to forge a revolutionary alliance that will break our chains”. Christian Smith (1991) points out that Christians and liberation theologists have been participants in armed insurrection, assistants to guerrilla insurgents, supporters of socialist candidates and advisors in revolutionary governments.
The issue here concerns Christians and the state. As the Diggers recognised, the modern state emerged as violent struggles over territorial spaces were resolved in favour of some groups and not others: land was acquired by the sword and the new system of territorial ownership was enforced and protected by the sword. Thus the defining characteristic of the state is its capacity for legitimised violence in the service of private property and that, furthermore, it possesses a legitimate monopoly of the means and use of this violence, i.e. the modern state has limited the capacity to wage legitimate violence to a professional army and police force.
Yet Jesus teaching in the Sermon on the Mount allows no such support for the state, which he refused to recognise (John 18: 36), or violence which he turned away from (Matt 5: 38-48; Matt 26: 52). In this sense his teachings were anarchist rather than socialist as, indeed, radical Christians such as the Diggers recognised when they rejected the state as a coercive body that stood in an antithetical relationship with what they regarded as true Christian teaching. Following Jesus example, the Diggers lived in the hope that their ‘alternative performance’ of life - based on mutuality and love rather than coercion – would entice people to voluntarily follow with them. Or as the Digger tract A New Year’s Gift for the Parliament and Armie puts it, ‘we will conquer by love and patience’ and not force or coercion.
The Spirit of Love in Jesus
Socialism is based on the idea of class conflict. Jesus makes no such teaching. Jesus’ teaching is radical in its emphasis on a love that is universal in the way it
(a) Extends beyond our biological mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters to humankind (Matt 13: 48-9; Mark 3: 31-35; Luke 6: 32-33)
(b) Transcends social divisions (Romans 10: 12-13).
Although Jesus refuses to recognise the state as a legitimate entity before Pilate (John 18: 36) and lambasts the holders of wealth and power (Luke 4: 17-21; James 5: 1-6) his engagements with the Roman Officer (Matt 8: 5-13; Luke 7: 1-10) and Tax Collector (Matt 9: 9-13; Mark 2: 13-17) teach us that we are called to each other and not into any kind of class war. We are called not simply to love those that love us – our ‘own kind’ - but to universalise our love (Luke 6: 32-36).
This has important implications for our understanding of the Christian attitude to politics. We have already seen in Jesus’ teaching that the essence of our fundamental equality lie in the ontological grounding of our singular origins, in God. Paul similarly stresses that our universal sameness – borne of our singular divine origins - can be found beneath our apparent differences which are what society, not God, creates (Romans 10: 12-13). Thus Jesus calls us to recognise ‘all’ as our brothers and sisters (Matt 13: 48-9) and, above all, commands us to ‘love our neighbours as ourselves’ (Matt 22: 36-40; Mark 12:29). We are therefore called to recognise our fundamental oneness and, as such, to act with a universal love and compassion towards each other. We are called to identify rather than dis-identify with each other. We are members of a universal and not members of social categories.
This has important implications for our understanding of equality: As we have already seen, Jesus rejection of wealth (Matt 6: 19-21; Luke 12: 33-34) suggests that he does not guide us to a materialist definition of equality. Now we can see how his embrace of the privileged and wealthy (Luke 19: 1-10) emphasises our fundamental equality and unity which is defined by love and demands relations of mutuality. As Leonardo Boff suggests this notion of equality is far superior to that contained in Socialism
“The love demanded by Christ is superior by far to justice. Justice, in the classical definition, consists of giving to each his own …. In the Sermon on the Mount Christ breaks this circle. He does not preach any such system of justice …. He announces a fundamental equality: All are worthy of love. Who is my neighbour? The question is fallacious and ought not to be asked. All are neighbours to each person” (Leonardo Boff, 1978: 71)
To emphasise the point: Jesus does not simply require the person that has two shirts to give one to the person that has none (Luke 3: 11) as if such a material levelling would be enough. He commends a universal love that requires us to love all and not just those – our ‘own kind’ - that love us back (Luke 6: 27). This is a love that compels us to give when it cannot be given back (Luke 14: 13) but, more than that, it demands an ethic of not just giving but also sharing (Luke 3: 11).
So a key difference with Socialism might be this: Whereas the intellect might keep an account what each has and has not, then, the heart has no interest in keeping such an account. It seeks only to love without regard for its own relative position vis-à-vis others. If anything, then, there are stronger links between Christianity and the proto-anarchism of Levellers such as Walwyn who - far from levelling the land - argued in 1649 that the essence of Christianity lay in ‘universal love to all mankind without respect of persons, opinions, societies’.
The Spirit of Anarchism in Jesus
However much it springs from the heart, Socialism remains an intellectual project that is based on leadership and ideas: The ‘false consciousness’ that dupes working class people into thinking that capitalism is natural, inevitable and even ‘good’ requires that leadership is made available to lead people out of this delusion. To this end, intellectual leaders within the Socialist tradition have been preoccupied with creating a Utopia and, thus, with their own debates about the nature and design of ‘the Good Society’.
Yet Jesus is unambiguous in his criticism of ‘leaders’ that teach their own human laws but whose heart is far away from God (Matt 15: 8-9; Mark 6: 6-9; see also Matt 23: 25-26). He has no time for hierarchy – embodied in the state and status – which he regards as corrupting of the spirit (Luke 21: 45-7). Thus he paid no attention to status at all – either upwards or downwards – and was critical of those that did (Matt 22: 16-17; Mark 12: 14). And since he rejected hierarchy and status he asks his disciples to reject such models of social organisation and, instead, to form into a community of equals (Luke 22; Acts 2:43)
“… leaders have complete authority. This, however, is not the way it shall be among you. If one of you wants to be great, he must be the servant of the rest; and if one of you wants to be first, he must be your slave – like the son of Man who did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life to redeem many people” (Matt 21: 25-28)
“You must not be called ‘teacher’ because you are all members of one family and have only one teacher. And you must not call anyone here on earth ‘Father’ because you have only the one father in heaven. Nor should you be called ‘leader’ because your one and only leader is the Messiah. The greatest one amongst you must be your servant. Whoever makes himself great will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be made great” (Matt 23: 8-12)
Jesus does not encourage us to look to the state and its leaders for ‘justice’. Indeed, he refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the state at his showdown with Pilate (John 18: 36). His advice, instead, was that we should look to no authority than that of God (Luke 4: 8) which implies that we are encouraged to refuse our recognition and respect to the authority of the state which is false authority that, in a break with God, bases its legitimacy on its capacity for violence and coercion. That said, Jesus encourages us to construct an understanding of how to ‘be’ – with each other - from our faith rather than via the discourses that politics makes available to us (Wallis 1981; Milbank 2006). This is a distinctive form of teaching that has clearer links with anarchism than socialism.
But it is not simply Jesus’ refusal of the state and leadership that marks out his anarchism. His politics of love is based on an unmistakable anti-intellectualism. As Leveller and Digger critics of the established Church, such as Walwyn, argued in the 17th century, Jesus did not choose the learned to as his disciples but ‘herdsmen, fishermen, tent-makers, toll gatherers, etc.’ His teaching on humility (Luke 14: 11) encourages us to ‘be like a child’ and thus enable ourselves to be open enough to feel with our hearts rather than our intellect (Matt 18: 1-5). Jesus does not provide us with a Blueprint for just Utopia, then. He points us towards how humility and the power of love will guide us towards a just world. As Jim Wallis (1981: 70) argues, it is humility that provides us with our openness to the spirit which ‘is the power of the new economy’. There is no state, no coercion and no rules
“The early Christians did not share their resources out of obligation, guilt, or in obedience to a new rule called ‘equality’. They shared their goods out of a tremendous experience of joy and spontaneous offering. They had experienced the holy spirit in their midst, and their response was the share everything they had …. It is the very presence of the spirit … which breaks through our old assumptions, breaks down our self-interest and makes the new economy possible” (Wallis 1981: 69)
Looking again at the example of the Diggers, then, we do not find an intellectual blueprint for the good society. We find, instead, that the Diggers expressed hope that people would follow their example and that, therefore, all who owned property would voluntarily give it up and join their communal enterprise which was defined by fraternity and love rather than any system of distribution.
‘In Cobham on the Little Heath our digging there goes on / and all our friends they live in love as if they were but one’
(Digger Tract A Watchword to the City of London and the Armie)
But that is not all. Although the Diggers offer their hope that people would follow into the example of their alternative performance of life they also proclaimed its necessity. Winstanley believed that the second coming of Christ would not occur in the form of a dramatic event that was played out through the appearance of an individual. He argued that the second coming would occur through the spirit rising up in men and women simply because Christ is not a single man but wisdom and power and spirit embodied in ourselves. We are called by the spirit, it seems, to the organic communalism of anarchism.
Questions for Consideration:
How, if at all, should Christians work together with Socialists and Anarchists?
Should we rely on the spirit within us to enable us to change society, or is social change necessary to allow us to open ourselves to the spirit?
As Christian Socialists or Christian Anarchists we might live in tension with the Church of England. What reasons, if any, would you give Christians that felt discomfort with the CoE for staying within it?
References
Boff, L. (1978) Jesus Christ Liberator: A Critical Christology. New York, Orbis
Milbank, J. (2006) Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. Oxford, Blackwell
Sheppard, D. (1983) Bias to the Poor. London, Hodder
Smith, C. (1991) The Emergence of Liberation Theology: Radical Religion and Social Movement Theory. Chicago, University of Chicago Press
Wallis, J. (1981) The Call to Conversion. New York, Harper Collins
The exception to this can be found in post-structuralism where we have seen a rejection of the left tendency to reduce of categories such as gender, ethnicity and disability to the social and economic relations of capitalism. They have been given their own ontological grounding, albeit in a way that recognises categorical commonalities whilst shying away from the idea of a wider commonality.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
‘Whoever has two shirts must give one to the man who has none, and whoever has food must share it’ (Luke 3: 11)
Jesus accuses the Pharisees and teachers of law of cleaning the outside of their cups and plates ‘while the inside is full of what you have obtained by violence and selfishness’.