Re: I had yet another person tell me that Jesus was a socialist
The operative phrase being "limited experience".
In my not limited experience, having been to many different kinds of churches across the nation, what Incredulous said is true. It seems you even grant in later, so this little dig just seems vindictive. Perhaps you should work on loving.
You know, I am always hearing people say things like "we need to go back to the first century church". Try it.
It's incompatible with American's capitalist way of living isn't it. People are too concerned with being comfortable themselves, too busy building bigger barns are they not? They're only trying to be secure in this life, what's the matter with that?
My first mission was a home church, the original churches were home churches. What I found out was that regardless of what they say, people want a building that looks like a modern church building. They want the stained glass windows, heat, and air conditioning. They want a parking lot. Those things cost money.
None of that is modeled or advised in the New Testament. So why do you say Socialism is incompatible with Christianity, when the very lifestyle that most Christians in America adopt is incompatible with it? Log before the speck, eh?
Does this sound like the above?
All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,
Christianity now follows the Roman Catholic Model, of a Church as an institution rather than a group of people, takes and hordes wealth that is then lavishly spent on cathedrals while the peasants live in squalor. In America, there are loads of parasitic and vampiric models of Christianity, in which wealth is being extracted from people WHO HAVE NEEDS, and those with lavish wealth only give to the church as an institution and not to each other to ensure that no one remains in need.
And is this followed? Most of the churches I have seen keep the wealthiest tithers on the elders or council of the church.
Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. 3If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
5Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? 6But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? 7Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?
Those poor in the eyes of the world have been chosen to inherit the kingdom? Tell that to all the wealthy Christians in America who are given favored seats.
In the Bible, the rich exploit the poor, but in America that is a lie of Socialism.
I don't care. I can celebrate on the hood of a car, outdoors, indoors, makes no difference to me. But if you want the creature comforts, somebody has to pay for them.
You make it sound like any configuration is compatible with what is taught in the Bible. Want a super mega church with the latest gizmos and a robust staff? Ignore the poor, and make your church as upper middle class as possible to attract attendees. That's what the Holy Spirit needs I guess to do its mojo.
I know that when I was a person of faith, such gatherings were hollow to me. I couldn't get the image of the poor not just in the community, but the rest of the world, out of my head. If churches and pastors weren't about their own glory, and actually believed some of the good content in the New Testament these would be rather transformational communities. So much for being sojourners though, Christians don't look like they are on a mission, they just want to be comfortable and secure like anyone else. Look at how many of them live in this country, as if such a lifestyle was necessary. As I remember Francis Chan once saying, "some people care more about a standard of living, than they do about other people really living." That's American Christianity in a nutshell.
