/lit/ - Literature

A lot of churches just facilitate business deals for the powerful in their community. I live in Alabama and all the cooky church people HATE Randian stuff, but their capitalist paterfamilias dad that buys them stuff secretly is a Randian and goes to church for handshakes and money.

They also have bank accounts full of speculation usury, yet paintings of Jesus fighting the money-changers hanging up on their walls.

Also Christians here have been subjected to a propaganda campaign that started way back with Woodrow Wilson. Before WWI Christians were deeply anti-war, but for some reason it was easy to transform them into jingoist warmongers. I wouldn't try to make sense of their hypocrisy, they are a broken lot. Love, Forgiveness, Truth, Beauty, and Humility are the last things on their minds these days.

>>4219443
Nailed it.

De facto it's very easy and oligarchs have historically intertwined closely with churchmen and even theology.

But in terms of high theology you're basically right. Christianity has historically been extremely hostile to even mercantile enterprise, let alone capitalism. Jacques Le Goff wrote an article on the topic called "Church Time and Merchant Time in the Middle Ages".

In modern theoretical terms, though, you're mostly talking about Classical Liberal Protestants arguing for laissez faire economies. There really isn't any theological concern other than the axiomatic "God is real and all-powerful, but shut up about it let's make some money". Same as anyone else who nominally integrates God into a liberal/republican/etc. constitution. On the Catholic (i.e. devout) front, there is still plenty of hostility for business and capital (idealistically and not practically speaking) and even for laissez faire social orders, hence the still lingering but previously very potent influence of Catholic "Centre" parties and intellectuals who wanted the church to be a pillar of social and economic life, to the point of seeing this as a solution for class conflict etc., by way of imposing higher ideals on materialistic vicissitudes.

>>4219464
As a sidenote, look into the history of Quebec. It mirrors what >>4219443 says as well. It was basically a society dominated by a few local magnatial oligarchs, in cahoots with foreign (English Canadian) businessmen and, of course, the Church, which was in ideal terms the cornerstone of Quebecois society and thus Quebecois nationalism.

In the ideal, the Church and conservatism were cornerstones of the social order which allowed Quebec to overcome irresponsible revolutionary and economic difficulties to be a more idyllic society. In reality, it was a paternalistic 16th century French village country dominated by an extremely small extremely incestuous elite that brutally repressed labour, held back urbanisation, and restricted education (via Church control of it) to keep the masses docile.

Reminder that Christianity is establishmentarian.

>>4219443

>Love, Forgiveness, Truth, Beauty, and Humility are the last things on their minds these days.

This has been true for most of the duration of Christian history to be honest. As soon as churches started to exist as recognized sociopolitical entities rather than persecuted congregations, they lost whatever veneer of ideology they may have possessed and became first (medievally) units of administrative control over the peasants for the decentralized but Church-affiliated governments of the era, and later, as centralization developed and religion lost its claim to justify the existence of the state, as social clubs - that is to say, units of administrative control over the bourgeois for the new governments. And in this second role they persist today. The 20th-century change that you're referring to doesn't result from a fall of the moral standard of churches, it results from a change in the narrative that is fed through them to their constituents by the powers that were and are.

>>4219464
>>4219489
I think you're painting with a very broad brush, as there are many Protestants today who hold to historic Reformed and theonomic understandings of civil government, and recognize the full authority of God in the civil sphere.

>>4219489

Word. Thanks for the response to my post, I need to learn more of their mercantile history. I'm mostly exposed to Alabama and Texan christians.

I'm a humanist/naturalist/athiest but in Boy Scouts for 3 years I was forced to be a Chaplain giving church sermons and prayers 3 times a week. The fact of the matter is that vast majority of the audience in our churches have never even heard of the word "Capitalism" or think for a moment that they should look up its meaning.

They aren't stupid people, they just lust for ANY kind of authority to dominate them and they won't question that authority. It's really strange.

When i was in 7th grade my D.A.R.E. officer Terry raped two of my classmates and shot himself in the head running from the cops. So I learned quickly to question authority. It makes me a pariah in the South here, but i love our nature even if the peasants are so manipulated.

>>4219512
How is that practically mediated?

>>4219518
It's usually understood in a postmillenial context, that we are currently in a period of widespread abandonment of the Gospel, and that correct civil government is to be instituted voluntary upon God bringing a nation to himself in large numbers.

However, there is practical application in that the Christian is not to be silent in civil matters, but to express the Law of God; in other words, taking political stances against evildoing, e.g. abortion.

>>4219443
Hello fellow alabama anon

It's very easy. God has given you talent(s). What you do with them is up to you.

>>4219542

Heart of Dixie bro, are you in our Huntsville "Pentagon of the South" ??

>>4219555
Nope, murderham.

>>4218285
Protestantism was pretty helpful to Capitalism. It's pretty much decentralizing religious authority, while living your life "as best as you can" in adherence to almost tradition Christian morality.

>>4219910
Something about the Protestant work ethic, right?

I've always found it ironic that said work ethic comes from a religion that's supposed to be anti-materialistic and in favor of giving to the poor and stuff. I'm sure somebody has written a book (or at least some articles) advancing the idea of Jesus as a left-libertarian.

>>4219935

There are also books advancing Jesus as an anarchist.

>>4219935
There is nothing against "giving to the poor" in protestantism.
Just the idea that accumulating wealth is good. Which is right because if you're accumulating wealth in the first place it means you're producing/supplying something of value to other people.
Doesn't mean you shouldn't give a good part of said wealth to charity.

>>4219935
Yeah, fucking Weber.

>>4218285
We need to awaken and embolden the religious left.
> christianity > capitalism > christianity + capitalism > socialism > christianity + socialism - capitalism > communism

>>4219950
Oh, agreed, but I'm thinking of the modern contempt for the poor that characterizes a lot of modern religious conservativism in America. And Jesus said, repeatedly and pretty fucking unambiguously, that accumulating wealth is NOT good.

Also, do you realize that you were just talking about supply-side economics?

>>4219973
>Also, do you realize that you were just talking about supply-side economics?
But I'm not. Charity endeavors are consumers. Just as much as buying expensive toys with your money.

>>4219973
Context.
If you're thinking about the rich and the camel bit, Jesus was referencing the exploitation of peasants done by rich landowners in Galilea.

Jesus was criticizing people building their wealth on the back of others, not the hard-working protestant craftsman/rancher/whatever.

>>4219997
Sounds pretty anti-capitalist to me!

But I mean, there are (with damn few exceptions; I'm having a hard time coming up with any) certainly some limits to the amount of wealth one can accumulate without owning and trading capital or without owning the means of production and paying others in wages, etc.

...I'll leave it there, though, lest this become yet another fucking commie thread.

>>4219981
Eh, sorta true, but I still see the driving mentality in both cases as being that the best way to distribute wealth the way it ought to be distributed is for the wealthy to get lots of money to spend. (I realize I'm bastardizing it more than a bit here, but I have a hard time swallowing my disdain for the idea. So, disclaimer: just that I think the idea is dumb doesn't mean that I think everybody who holds it is dumb.)

>>4220019
>Another fucking commie thread

You asked for it

>Religion and Communism General: BasedLenin Edition

>Lenin: Socialism and Religion
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/dec/03.htm


Jk OP. I wouldn't do that to you.

Scripturally, there's nothing wrong with wage labor, privately owning the means of production, or certain forms of slavery or indentured servitude. Injunctions are placed however upon the employer or master as to how he is to behave towards those he hires or owns, and how the slave is to behave to his master. Socialism and communism are of course non-Christian, as is any form of anarchy.

>>4218285
There was a movie from way back when that was a semi-autobiographical retelling of this soldiers experince during WWI. How when he was drafted and he objected the government guy asks him "Why?" and he says "I'm Christian and it's against my faith. Thou shalt not kill." and they laugh at him and he gets drafted anyways. What I'm saying is, Christianity is more of a guideline for most.

>>4220080
>Socialism and communism are of course non-Christian, as is any form of anarchy.
Okay, maybe I'll give you that last one, but I'm not sure about the first one. I mean, sure, you can say that Marxism is non-Christian, but that doesn't mean all socialism/communism has to be.

>>4220080
>Sell everything you own and give to the poor.
Uh hmm, I think I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that one, bro.

>>4220080
>Socialism and communism are of course non-Christian
Yet the most successful socialist communities, besides Cuba, are the Amish, Mennonite, Quaker, and Shaker communities.

>>4220085
Not him, but I'm gonna say that it's stuff like this that's always made me wonder how the hell Christians deal with what seem to me to be massive discontinuities between Jesus's attitude towards life and Paul's attitude. I mention this in this context because I think that's where this particular disagreement is rooted.

>>4220084
Proper communism is stateless, yes? Thus it would be an error in this field first of all. As for socialism I think the best argument against it, as far as Scripture is concerned, is that we are simply not given any indication that the means are production are to be cooperatively owned in such a manner. That is not to say that they cannot be, depending upon how its implementation, but wage labor is presented as a normal practice; Jesus even makes use of wage labor in one of his parables, Mt. 20, as being like the kingdom of heaven. I think there is simply a preponderance of examples that it is not a proper system to pursue at a national level.

>>4220085
Jesus's words to the ruler are intended to illustrate that person's imperfections, that their supposed keeping of the whole law was not enough righteousness that they may enter heaven. It is not an injunction for all Christians to sell their possessions, as I'm sure you can tell. Besides, selling your possessions and giving them to another necessitates that you privately owned them and that another may privately own them. This would include means of production.

>>4220086
Yes and I think they have made theological errors, in this area and others. I doubt you'd want to hear about that, though.

>>4220109
>Jesus's words to the ruler are intended to illustrate that person's imperfections, that their supposed keeping of the whole law was not enough righteousness that they may enter heaven. It is not an injunction for all Christians to sell their possessions, as I'm sure you can tell. Besides, selling your possessions and giving them to another necessitates that you privately owned them and that another may privately own them. This would include means of production.
>implying the Kingdom of God isn't a stateless utopia to be established on Earth
Christianity is personal, anti-revolutionary socialism. The disparity between the urgent "The Kingdom of God is at hand" and the far-off, apocalyptic promises of its establishment refers to the necessity of living as such that it is already here, so that it might be. There's no intermediary stage, no dictatorship of the proletariat. Christianity is living selflessly, and encouraging others to do so as well, through words and by example. However Christ never promises universal acceptance, and in fact warns that those who refuse to join will ultimately be destroyed. That this is to be by their own hand is alluded to, but never firmly stated.
If you want to be a communist Christian, live as if you already live in a classess society. "For there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."

>>4219946
Give me some titles, anon. I want to read them.

>>4220180
The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy

>>4220185
...I don't know how the fuck I forgot about Tolstoy.

>>4220165
>If you want to be a communist Christian, live as if you already live in a classess society. "For there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."

This is not a proper application of Gal. 3:28. It refers to man's soteriological sameness with other man due to his ingrafting into Christ. It is not abolishing social distinctions, as the New Testament is quite clear about the different roles of men and women, differing requirements between Jews and Greeks (e.g., circumcision), and the proper manner of behavior between slaves and slavemasters. Scripture confirms real social divisions and differences such as these, and puts them to their proper place.

>>4220180
There's also BBS' Androcles and the Lion.

>>4219946
I don't see how you could possibly come to such a conclusion without ripping things out of their context and presuming contradiction between Jesus and Paul.

>>4219443

The natural result of Protestantism. They have no tradition to stand on and no hierarchy to let them know that they've gone astray.

>>4220240
Sure they do, in their historic confessions of faith. If Protestantism itself can be blamed for people choosing to act contrary to these things, then likewise can Catholicism be blamed for people acting contrary to its own doctrines. Either is nonsense.

I remember this girl I knew in high school, she had a really christian family, they were all baptists I think. I was over at her house once and I saw a book by Ayn Rand - between the mild disgust I thought about how weird it is for xtians to read Rand

>>4220201
You seem pretty well-versed in this stuff, it's nice to see. Where/how did you learn all this?

Are book ?

>>4221086
Reddit.

>>4219489
>This has been true for most of the duration of Christian history to be honest
This has been true for the whole duration of human history, you idiot.