the origin of the family by friedrich engels

I can’t begin to convey how many times I’ve been asked about it over the years-and not always from opponents. I’ve written about that passage here in articles with titles like “ The Early Church Was Not Socialist” and in other writings. There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need. With great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favor was accorded them all. The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. The other passage from Acts that is most frequently invoked by “social justice” warriors is Acts 4:32-35, which states:

Karl Marx, an atheist and evolutionary racist who hated religion and referred to Christianity as a “hypocritical” faith that preaches “cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submission, humility,” pulled from that line to develop one of his most famous maxims: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

I mention this now because the readings from the Lectionary from last weekend’s Divine Mercy Sunday Mass included one of the passages from Acts that Religious Left Christians often sloppily assume advocates for “communism.” The passage is Acts 2:42-47, which includes this line: “All who believed were together and had all things in common they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to their needs.” And the reading from this Tuesday is Acts 4:32-37. One of the few I can point to is this, from December 2013: “The Marxist ideology is wrong.”Īll of which is to say that when Francis-a pope accused of being a socialist, and who certainly speaks favorably of redistribution, of forms of collectivism, and is very critical and naïve about free markets and what he characterizes as “capitalism”-steps forward during a reading from Acts to point out emphatically that “this is not communism,” he has credibility. I watch Francis for statements condemning communism. His Argentinian colleague, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, chancellor of Francis’ Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, infamously gushed that communist China “best realizes the social doctrine of the Church.”

His China policy, as I noted here five years ago, has been awful. He has not been good on China, on Nicaragua, and on socialist basket cases like Venezuela. Francis, of course, is heavily criticized for being soft on communism.

The origin of the family by friedrich engels