Religious socialism is atype of socialism based onreligious values. Members of several majorreligions have found that their beliefs abouthuman society fit withsocialist principles and ideas. As a result, religious socialist movements have developed within these religions. Those movements includeBuddhist socialism,Christian socialism,Islamic socialism, andJewish socialism. According to theEncyclopedia Britannica Online, socialism is a "social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources. According to the socialist view, individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore, everything that people produce is in some sense a social product, and everyone who contributes to the production of a good is entitled to a share in it. Society as a whole, therefore, should own or at least control property for the benefit of all its members. [...] 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".[1]
The teachings ofJesus are frequently described as socialist, especially by Christian socialists.[2]Acts 4 (Acts 4:35) records that in theearly church inJerusalem, "[n]o one claimed that any of their possessions was their own", although the pattern would later disappear fromchurch history except withinmonasticism. Christian socialism was one of the founding threads of the BritishLabour Party and is claimed to begin withthe uprising ofWat Tyler andJohn Ball in the 14th century CE.[3]
Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, acompanion ofMuhammad, is credited by multiple authors as a principal antecedent of Islamic socialism.[4][5][6][7][8] TheHutterites believed in strict adherence to biblical principles and church discipline, and practised a religious form ofcommunism. In the words of historians Rod Janzen andMax Stanton, 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 asproto-Communists."[9]
Religious socialism was the early form ofsocialism andpre-Marxist communism. InChristian Europe, communists were believed to have adoptedatheism. In Protestant England,communism was too close to theRoman Catholiccommunion rite; hencesocialist was the preferred term.[10]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 themselvescommunists. This branch of socialism produced the communist work ofÉtienne Cabet in France andWilhelm Weitling in Germany.[11]
Some view theearly Christian Church, as described in theActs of the Apostles, as an early form ofcommunism and religious socialism. The view is that communism was justChristianity in practice, andJesus was the first communist.[12] 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".[12] Furthermore,Thomas Müntzer led a significantAnabaptist communist movement during theGerman Peasants' War which Engels analysed 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.[13] Pre-Marxist communism was also present in the attempts to establish communistic societies such as those made by theEssenes and the Judean desert sect.[14][15][16]
In the 16th century, English writerThomas More, venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, portrayed a society based on common property ownership in his treatiseUtopia, whose leaders administered it through reason.[17] Several groupings in theEnglish Civil War supported this idea, especially theDiggers, who espoused clear communistic yet agrarian ideals.[18][19][20]Oliver Cromwell and the Grandees' attitude to these groups was, at best, ambivalent and often hostile.[21] Criticism of the idea ofprivate property continued into theEnlightenment era of the 18th century through such thinkers as the profoundly religiousJean-Jacques Rousseau. Raised aCalvinist, Rousseau was influenced by theJansenist movement within the Roman Catholic Church. The Jansenist movement originated from the most orthodox Roman Catholic bishops who tried to reform the Roman Catholic Church in the 17th century to stopsecularization andProtestantism. One of the main Jansenist aims was democratizing to stop the aristocratic corruption at the top of the Church hierarchy.[22] The participants of theTaiping Rebellion, who founded theTaiping Heavenly Kingdom, asyncretic Christian-Shenictheocratic kingdom, are viewed by theChinese Communist Party as proto-communists.[23]
Buddhist socialism advocates socialism based on the principles ofBuddhism. Both Buddhism and socialism seek to provide an end to suffering by analyzing its conditions and removing its leading causes throughpraxis. Both also seek to provide a transformation of personal consciousness (respectively, spiritual and political) to bring an end to human alienation and selfishness.[24] People described as Buddhist socialists includeBuddhadasa Bhikkhu,[25]B. R. Ambedkar,S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike,Han Yong-un,[26]Girō Senoo,[27]U Nu,Uchiyama Gudō[28] andNorodom Sihanouk.[29][30]
Bhikkhu Buddhadasa coined the phrase "Dhammic socialism".[25] He believed that socialism is a natural state,[31] meaning all things exist together in one system.[31] Han Yong-un felt that equality was one of the main principles of Buddhism.[26] In an interview published in 1931, Yong-un spoke of his desire to explore Buddhist socialism: "I am recently planning to write about Buddhist socialism. Just like there is Christian socialism as a system of ideas in Christianity, there must be also Buddhist socialism in Buddhism."[26]
Tenzin Gyatso, the FourteenthDalai Lama of Tibet, stated that "[o]f all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability. [...] The failure of the regime in the former Soviet Union was, for me, not the failure of Marxism but the failure of totalitarianism. For this reason I still think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist".[32]
Some individuals and groups, past and present, are both Christian and socialist, such asFrederick Denison Maurice, author ofThe Kingdom of Christ (1838). Another example is theChristian Socialist Movement, affiliated with the BritishLabour Party.Distributism is an economic philosophy formulated by such Catholic thinkers asG. K. Chesterton andHilaire Belloc to apply the principles ofsocial justice articulated by the Roman Catholic Church, especially in PopeLeo XIII's encyclicalRerum novarum.
VariousCatholic clerical parties have at times referred to themselves as Christian Social. Two examples are theChristian Social Party ofKarl Lueger in Austria before and after World War I and the contemporaryChristian Social Union in Bavaria. Nonetheless, these parties have never espoused socialist policies and have always stood on the conservative side ofChristian democracy.[33]Hugo Chávez ofVenezuela was an advocate of a form of Christian socialism as he claimed thatJesus was a socialist.[citation needed]
Christian anarchism is aChristian movement inpolitical theology that combinesanarchism and Christianity.[34] The foundation of Christian anarchism is a rejection of violence, with Leo Tolstoy'sThe Kingdom of God Is Within You regarded as a key text.[35][36] Tolstoy sought to separateRussian Orthodox Christianity—which was merged with thestate—from what he believed was the true message of Jesus as contained in the Gospels, specifically in theSermon on the Mount. Tolstoy believed that all governments that wage war, and churches that support those governments, are an affront to the Christian principles ofnonviolence andnonresistance. Although Tolstoy never actually used the term Christian anarchism inThe Kingdom of God Is Within You, reviews of this book following its publication in 1894 appear to have coined the term.[37][38] Christian anarchist groups have included theDoukhobors,Catholic Worker Movement and theBrotherhood Church.
Christian communism is a form ofreligious communism based on Christianity. It is a theological and political theory based upon the view that the teachings ofJesus Christ compelChristians to support communism as the idealsocial system. Although there is no universal agreement on the exact date when Christian communism was founded, many Christian communists assert that evidence from theBible (in the Acts of the Apostles)[39] suggests that the first Christians, including theapostles, established their small communist society in the years following Jesus' death and resurrection.[39] Many advocates of Christian communism argue that it was taught by Jesus and practised by the apostles.[40] Some independent historians confirm it.[41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52]
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Islamic socialism incorporatesIslamic principles into socialism. As a term, it was coined by variousMuslim leaders to describe a morespiritual form of socialism. Scholars have highlighted the similarities between the Islamic economic system and socialist theory, as socialism andIslam are againstunearned income. Muslim socialists believe that the teachings of theQuran andMuhammad—especially thezakat—are compatible with the principles of socialism. They draw inspiration from theearly Medinan welfare state established by Muhammad. Muslim socialists found their roots inanti-imperialism. Muslim socialist leaders believe in the derivation oflegitimacy from the public.
Islamic socialism is the political ideology of Libya'sMuammar al-Gaddafi, former Iraqi presidentAhmed Hassan al-Bakr, Syrian presidentHafez al-Assad, andZulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistani leader of thePakistan Peoples Party.The Green Book, written by Gaddafi, consists of three parts, namely "The Solution of the Problem of Democracy: 'The Authority of the People'", "The Solution of the Economic Problem: 'Socialism'" and "The Social Basis of the Third Universal Theory". The book is controversial because it completely rejects modern conceptions ofliberal democracy and encourages the institution of a form ofdirect democracy based on popular committees. Critics charge that Qaddafi uses these committees as tools ofautocratic political repression in practice.
The Jewish left consists ofJews who identify with, or support,left-wing orliberal causes consciously as Jews, either as individuals or through organizations, although there is no single organization or movement which constitutes the Jewish left. Jews have been major forces in the history of thelabour movement, thesettlement house movement, thewomen's rights movement,anti-racist andanti-colonialist work andanti-fascist andanti-capitalist organizations of many forms in Europe, the United States, Algeria, Iraq, Ethiopia, and modern-day Israel.[53][54][55][56] Jews have a rich history of involvement inanarchism,socialism,Marxism and Western liberalism. Although the expression "on the left" covers a range of politics, many well-known figures "on the left" have been Jews who were born into Jewish families and have various degrees of connection to Jewish communities, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, or the Jewish religion in its many variants.
Labor Zionism or socialist Zionism[57] (Hebrew:צִיּוֹנוּת סוֹצְיָאלִיסְטִית,translit.Tziyonut sotzyalistit;Hebrew:תְּנוּעָת הָעַבוֹדָה translit.Tnu'at ha'avoda, i.e.The labor movement) is the left-wing of theZionist movement. It was the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizations. It saw itself as the Zionist sector of Eastern and Central Europe's historic Jewishlabour movements, eventually developing local units in most countries with sizable Jewish populations. Unlike the "political Zionist" tendency founded byTheodor Herzl and advocated byChaim Weizmann, Labor Zionists did not believe that a Jewish state would be created simply by appealing to the international community or a powerful nation such as Britain, Germany or the Ottoman Empire. Instead, Labor Zionists believed that a Jewish state could only be created through the efforts of the Jewishworking class settling in theLand of Israel and constructing a state through creating a progressive Jewish society with ruralkibbutzim andmoshavim and an urban Jewish proletariat.[citation needed]
Labor Zionism grew in size and influence and eclipsed "political Zionism" by the 1930s internationally and within the British Mandate of Palestine, where Labor Zionists predominated among many of the institutions of the pre-independence Jewish communityYishuv, particularly the trade union federation known as theHistadrut. TheHaganah, the largest Zionist paramilitary defence force, was a Labor Zionist institution and was used on occasion (such as duringthe Hunting Season) against right-wing political opponents or to assist the British Administration in capturing rival Jewish militants. Labor Zionists played a leading role in the1948 Arab–Israeli War, and Labor Zionists were predominant among the leadership of theIsraeli Defense Force for decades after the formation of the state of Israel in 1948.[citation needed]
Prominent theoreticians of the Labor Zionist movement includedMoses Hess,Nachman Syrkin,Ber Borochov, andAaron David Gordon, and leading figures in the movement includedDavid Ben-Gurion,Golda Meir andBerl Katznelson.
Locating Christian anarchism...In political theology
Leo Tolstoy
Christianity was the expression ofclass conflict in Antiquity.
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