Religious communism is a form ofcommunism that incorporatesreligious principles. Scholars have used the term to describe a variety ofsocial orreligious movements throughout history that have favored thecommon ownership of property.[1][2] There are many historical and ideological similarities between religious communism andLiberation Theology.
The termreligious communism has been used to describe a variety of social or religious movements throughout history. The "commune of early christians at Jerusalem" has been described as a group that practiced religious communism.[1][3] The teachings ofMazdak, a religious proto-socialist Persian reformer, have also been referred to as earlycommunism.[4] According to Ben Fowkes and Bulent Gokay,Bolshevik Mikhail Skachko stated at theCongress of the Peoples of the East that "the Muslim religion is rooted in principles of religious communism, by which no man may be a slave to another, and not a single piece of land may be privately owned."[5]
T. M. Browning described religious communism as a form ofcommunism that "springs directly from principles native to a religion",[1] and Hans Hillerbrand defined religious communism as religious movements that advocated the "communal ownership of goods and the concomitant abrogation of private property".[2] Browning and Hillerbrand distinguishedreligious communism frompolitical communism,[1] as well as fromeconomic socialism.[2] Additionally, Hillerbrand contrasts religious communism withMarxism, which he describes as an ideology that called for eliminating religion.[2]Donald Drew Egbert and Stow Persons argued that "[c]hronologically, religious communism tended to precede secular [communism]."[6] Other scholars suggested that the traditionalpolitical communism, or Marxism, has always been a variety ofreligion.[7]
InChristian Europe, communists were believed to have adoptedatheism. In Protestant England,communism was too close to the Catholiccommunion rite, andsocialist was the preferred term.[8]Friedrich Engels argued that in 1848, whenThe Communist Manifesto was published, socialism was respectable in Europe while communism was not. TheOwenites in England and theFourierists in France were considered respectable socialists, while working-class movements that "proclaimed the necessity of total social change" denoted themselves ascommunists. This branch of socialism produced the communist work ofÉtienne Cabet in France andWilhelm Weitling in Germany.[9]
Some scholars have usedreligious communism to describe some 17th-centuryProtestant movements that "disavow[ed] personal property".[2][10] Bhabagrahi Misra and James Preston described the "religious communism of theShakers" as a "community in which all goods are held in common".[11]Larry Arnhart described "religious communism in theOneida Community" as a system where "[e]xcept for a few personal items, they shared all their property".[12] Albert Fried wrote that "American religious communism reached its apogee" in the 1850s "[w]ith the rise of the Oneida community".[13]
According to Rod Janzen and Max Stanton, theHutterites believed in strict adherence to biblical principles and "church discipline" and practiced a form of communism. The Hutterites "established in their communities a rigorous system of Ordnungen, which were codes of rules and regulations that governed all aspects of life and ensured a unified perspective. As an economic system,Christian communism was attractive to many of the peasants who supported social revolution in sixteenth century central Europe" such as theGerman Peasants' War and "Friedrich Engels thus came to viewAnabaptists as proto-Communists".[14]
Other scholars have used the termreligious communism to describe a communist social movement that developed in Paris in the 1840s, which was organized by "foreign-born, primarily German-speaking, journeyman-artisans who had settled there".[15] In the early 20th century, before the rise of Bolshevism in Russia, some intellectuals advocated for implementing a form of communism that incorporated Christian ideology "as an alternative to Marxism".[16] Additionally, some Catholic theologians organized groups in the late 20th century to create a dialogue between theCatholic Church and theCommunist Party of Italy.[17]
The teachings ofJesus are frequently described as communist by religious Christian communists and other communists.[18]Acts 4:35 records that the early church inJerusalem, "[n]o one claimed that any of their possessions was their own"; the pattern would later disappear fromchurch history except withinmonasticism.[19] Christian communists view theearly Christian Church, as described in theActs of the Apostles, as an early form of communism andreligious socialism. The view is that communism was justChristianity in practice, and Jesus was the first communist. This link was highlighted in one ofKarl Marx's early writings, which stated that "[a]s Christ is the intermediary unto whom man unburdens all his divinity, all his religious bonds, so the state is the mediator unto which he transfers all his Godlessness, all his human liberty."[20]Thomas Müntzer led a significantAnabaptist communist movement during the 16th-centuryGerman Peasants' War, whichFriedrich Engels analyzed inThe Peasant War in Germany. The Marxist ethos that aims for unity reflects theChristian universalist teaching that humankind is one and that there is only one god who does not discriminate among people.[21]
Christian communism is an early form ofsocialism andpre-Marxist communism based on Christianity. It is a theological and political theory based upon the view that theteachings of Jesus compelChristians to supportcommunism as the idealsocial system. Although there is no universal agreement on the exact date when Christian communism was founded, many Christian communists say that evidence from theBible suggests that the first Christians, including theApostles in the New Testament, established their small communist society in the years following Jesus' death and resurrection.[22] While critics of socialism includingCatholic social teaching propounded by several popes argue that Jesus was morecommunitarian than communist, many advocates of Christian communism and other communists, includingKarl Kautsky, argue that it was taught by Jesus and practiced by the apostles.[23] Several independent historians have supported the latter view.[24]
In the 16th century, English writerThomas More, venerated in theCatholic Church as a saint, portrayed a society based on common property ownership in his treatiseUtopia, whose leaders administered it through reason.[25] Several groupings in theEnglish Civil War supported this idea, especially theDiggers, who espoused clear communistic yet agrarian ideals.[26][27][28]Oliver Cromwell and the Grandees' attitude to these groups was, at best, ambivalent and often hostile.[29] Criticism of the idea ofprivate property continued intothe Enlightenment era of the 18th century through such thinkers as the profoundly religiousJean-Jacques Rousseau. Raised aCalvinist, Rousseau was influenced by theJansenist movement within the Catholic Church. One of the main Jansenist aims was democratizing to stop the aristocratic corruption at the top of the Church hierarchy.[30] The participants of theTaiping Rebellion, who founded theTaiping Heavenly Kingdom, asyncretic Christian-Shenic theocratic kingdom, are viewed by theChinese Communist Party as proto-communists.[31]
Researchers have commented on the communistic nature of the society built by theQarmatians of theIsmaili aroundAl-Ahsa Oasis from the 9th to 10th centuries.[32]Kenneth Rexroth describes their community as practicing "communism of the urban gang or the roving band of robbers", whileJacques Bidet states that communism is inherent to modernity, and so no example in antiquity or medieval times qualifies as true communism due to a lack ofclass consciousness in those eras.[33][34][35]
Islamic Marxism attempts to applyMarxist economic, political, and social teachings within an Islamic framework. An affinity between Marxist and Islamic ideals of social justice has led some Muslims to embrace forms of Marxism since the 1940s. Islamic Marxists believe that Islam meets the needs of society and can accommodate or guide the social changes Marxism hopes to accomplish. Islamic Marxists are also dismissive of traditional Marxist views on materialism and religion.[36]
Early Christian communities also practiced the sharing of goods and labour, a simple form of socialism subsequently followed in certain forms of monasticism. Several monastic orders continue these practices today.
Christianity was the expression of class conflict in Antiquity.
That we may work in righteousness, and lay the Foundation of making the Earth a Common Treasury for All, both Rich and Poor, That every one that is born in the Land, may be fed by the Earth his Mother that brought him forth, according to the Reason that rules in the Creation. Not Inclosing any part into any particular hand, but all as one man, working together, and feeding together as Sons of one Father, members of one Family; not one Lording over another, but all looking upon each other, as equals in the Creation; ... .
Mao and the Chinese Communists largely represented the Taiping rebellion as a proto-communist uprising.
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