Christianity & Generosity - was Jesus a Communist, Distributist, or Radical Mutualist?

”Our desire is… that there might be equality… The goal is equality.” (2 Corinthians 8:13-14)

Christianity, as expressed in the New Testament, is a laudable proponent of generosity, due largely to the identity of Jesus himself as an heroic, self-sacrificial role model of altruism. Yikes! He legendarily donated his own life and suffering to humanity by literally-or-mythologically subjecting himself to whip-scourging, thorn-crowning, and hands-and-feet crucifixion, with side torments like vinegar sponge in a wound, Roman jeering, and shouldering a ponderous wooden cross barefoot up the stony Gethsemane hill.

I’m an atheist ex-Catholic, with skepticism that Jesus even ever existed, so my attitude regarding this is occasionally snarky. But seriously, if we view the Passion as Mel Gibson portrayed it, as a gift from the Savior, we have to admit it was a bloody generous offering. Maybe he inherited his virtuousness from his Dad? Almighty God the Father, the Proto-Patriarch, the first one-third of the Trinity, was also divinely charitable, asserts the Christian creed, because He “so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.” (John 3:16) Of course, I frown, he did orchestrate the entire horror of “sacred” filicide.

The Gospels and Epistles contain multiple Jesus aphorisms and anecdotes that ask his believers to be unselfish with their cash, particularly to the poor. The twelve apostles were concerned that Jesus was going to give all the meager contents of their money bag to the poor (John 13:27-29) even though he promised them they’d be richly, spiritually rewarded if this happened. Examples of his philanthropic advice are below:

• “When you give a feast, invite the poor, the cripples, the lame, and the blind.” (Luke 14:13)

• “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)

• “Give to him that asketh of thee; and from him who desires to borrow from thee, turn thus not away.” (Matthew 5:47)

• “Lend ye, expecting nothing… and your reward shall be great.” (Luke 6:35)

• “God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Corinthians 9:11)

• “A generous person will be enriched.” (Luke 11:41)

• “Sell what ye possess, and give alms.” (Luke 17:33)

• “If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.” (Luke 6:29)

Jesus didn’t praise the quantity of money donated, but the personal cost an individual makes, in the episode below:

• “Jesus… saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in the two very small copper coins. ‘I tell you,’ he said, ‘this poor widow has put in more than all the others [who] gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all the had to live on.’” (Luke 21:1-4)

Jesus was annoyed by heavily-publicized contributions; he prefered quiet, anonymous giving:

•. “…when thou do alms, let there not be a sound of trumpets before thee as hypocrites do in synagogues and in streets that they may be glorified by men… [instead] thou shalt do alms… in secret, and they Father, who sees it in secret, will reward thee openly.” (Matthew 6:1-4)

Jesus didn’t just talk the talk, he walked the walk via helpful activities. In Matthew 4:23 he “heal(s)… all manner of disease among the people.” In Matthew 14:19 he feeds a multitude of 5,000 admirers by miraculously distributing five loaves of barley bread and two small fish. At Golgotha, he charitably absolved his executioners with the near-death utterance, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Matthew 23:34)

Jesus was the epitome of charitableness, and his believers strived to emulate his compassionate lifestyle. Early Christians, reports St. Paul, “had everything in common. They sold [their] property and possessions to give to anyone in need…(Acts 2:45) …No one claimed that any of their possessions was exclusively their own. Everything was common property and for the use of all.” (Acts 4:32). Wealthy elites joined the cult after renouncing their avarice. Zacchaeu, a tax collector, pledged half his wealth to the poor and repaid everyone he had cheated at the rate of 400 percent. (Luke 19:1-10)

The Xtian commies even had a prayer that begged God to give them Jesus’s radical generosity:

• “Heavenly Father… Give us the heart of Jesus so we can serve others… Please remove any remaining selfishness that comes in the way of us helping others in need…” (Galatians 6:10)

Poor believers helping the even poorer was pervasive. Congregations in Macedonia and Achaia were desperately destitute, but they nonetheless “were pleased to make a contribution” to even poorer co-religionists in Rome. (Romans 15:26) In the port of Jaffa, an elderly woman disciple, Tabitha, was praised for helping the poor by making them clothes. (Acts 9:36-42)

If Jesus was alive today, he would definitely be an anti-billionaire socialist (like Thomas Piketty, Bernie Sanders, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortes). His eat-the-rich stance is evident in verses such as:

•. “You cannot serve both God and Money.” (Matthew 6:24

•. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.” (Matthew 6:19-21)

•. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24-26)

•. The rich should “be generous and willing to share.” (1 Timothy 6:18)

•. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Mark 10:16-21) — Jesus says this to a rich young man.

In this essay’s headline, I insinuate that Jesus’s ideology can be categorized as a specific leftist political philosophy, but I’m not going to pursue that because it reminds me of The Life of Brian argument between the “People’s Front of Judea” the “Judea People’s Front” and the “Judean Popular People’s Front.” It’s enough for me to just insist that anyone who seriously believes the teachings of Jesus has to share his ambition for global egalitarianism, i.e., equal world-wide wealth equity.

Jesus’s devotion to charity continued after his departure by multiple saints and near-saints who mirrored his compassion for the sick and the poor. Mother Theresa, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Nicholas of Myra (aka Santa Claus), St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Katherine Drexel, and Dorothy Day are a few prime examples. The last-mentioned was also co-founder of Distributism.

C.S. Lewis, arguably the most influential Christian writer in the last 100 years, was a firm believer, like the nailed Jesus, in giving-until-it-hurts. He states:

•. “…the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare… If our giving does not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say it is too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot because our commitment to giving excludes them.” (from Mere Christianity)

Finally and unfortunately, I need to mention a grievous flaw in Jesus’s promotion of generosity: he lacked revolutionary optimism and resolve.

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:21) is a sad, weak surrender to state exploitation. He could at least, like Quaker war tax resisters, have protested the Roman government’s seizure of individual finances for military conquest and colonization.

Additionally, when Jesus was getting perfumed by a woman in Bethany (Matthew 26:6-13) and his apostles complained that the luxurious cost of the ointment was wasteful and would have been better spent on the poor instead, the pomaded Christ retorted, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.”

“The poor you will always have with you” (?!?!?!?!) is a very cynical and disappointing remark, from someone who advertised himself as a change-maker.

I hope for a better world than that.