The Early Church - A Socialist Utopia In The Making???

First reading	Acts 4:32-37 ©

The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul

The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul; no one claimed for his own use anything that he had, as everything they owned was held in common.

  The apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus with great power, and they were all given great respect.

  None of their members was ever in want, as all those who owned land or houses would sell them, and bring the money from them, to present it to the apostles; it was then distributed to any members who might be in need.

  There was a Levite of Cypriot origin called Joseph whom the apostles surnamed Barnabas (which means ‘son of encouragement’). He owned a piece of land and he sold it and brought the money, and presented it to the apostles.

Good day comrades!  First of all, let me say that if you are looking at the graphic, you are probably saying, "Comrade Michael the Lesser, there is a difference between socialism and communism."  Comrade Michael the Lesser would respond, "Yeah, but this picture caught my attention so I thought I would use it."  But, the scripture passage is often used to state that the early Church was trying to set up a socialist utopia here on earth. Well, while it sounds like the seeds of socialism have been planted, they really were not.  The Church has never said one form of government is better than another, except it has condemned communism because of its atheist dogma and lack of respect for the human being.  The Church, on the other hand, has cautions for all types of government.  She wants governments to be servants of the people and not the people to be servants of the government. But what do we have here in our passage?  We have some of our fellow Catholics turning their possessions into money, which is then used to help less fortunate members of the Church.  This is a completely voluntary thing while in socialism and communism this generosity would be compelled by the state.  

With what we know today, wouldn't it be a great experiment to see if we could have the benefits of socialism?  No, not really.  Socialism has a tendency to fall apart.  Religious and pseudo-religious communities come and go, they all have a couple of things in common.  First, the surrendered property starts out helping everyone but soon enough the funds are diverted to help the founder of the group and his or her appetites get more and more extravagant.  For example, do you remember the televangelists Jim and Tammy Baker?  They hauled in millions and instead of using it for their ministry they used it to pamper themselves.  There were extravagances aplenty including jewels and furs for Tammy, vacations in hotels that featured gold plated toilets and sinks, antique Rolls Royce automobiles, two of them, I guess "his and hers."  Their ministry fell apart due to scandal, Jim was found in an intimate encounter with another man by Tammy. Then all of the excesses and theft from the church coffers came out, and Jim was sent to prison, initially for forty-five years which was later reduced to eight years.   

Perhaps more socialistic in nature was Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple.  Jim was an old-fashioned film flam man but he did not seemingly start this way.  He started as a person concerned with social change and the ending of racial segregation in our country. He gathered a large following and he became friends with politicians and thus had political clout and he knew how to use it.  Through the years the temple evolved into less of a religious organization and more of a political one.  At one point, Jim condemned the Bible as a book full of lies.  He demanded his followers sign over their property to him and that he would take care of them. Eventually, Jim decided to build a utopian community in Ghana. Several hundred of his followers left everything behind and went to Ghana with him.  He was a pill popper.  He took pills to wake up, to go to sleep, to walk, to talk, any reason was good enough for him to take a pill.  The effect of all of these drugs made him paranoid.  When a US Senator came to investigate rumors that people were being held against their will, Jim decided that the time had come and he induced his followers, nine hundred of them, to swallow poisoned Kool-Aid and they all, except a few that escaped into the jungle, died.  Jonestown was a monument to Socialism. 

What the scripture passage tells us is simply that the people in the early Church were inspired to be generous and inspired to help those less fortunate.  The Church was not setting up a new socialist government, the Romans would not have approved, but they were setting up, as Christ told them to do, the Kingdom of Christ on earth.  We can thank those early Catholics (Yes, Catholics) for the example that they showed us. We can thank them too for showing that Christianity is compatible with many forms of government.