Few would deny any longer that communism--Marxism-Leninism and its variants--meant in practice bloody terrorism, deadly purges, lethal gulags and forced labor, fatal deportations, man-made famines, extrajudicial executions and show trials, and genocide. It is also widely known that as a result millions of innocent people have been murdered in cold blood."

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Christianity and Communism?

 

from http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/readings/law/christianity.shtml

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Let us now examine the question of the relationship of Christianity with Communism more precisely, to that particular form of communism which has now

 

appeared as an attempt to realize the ideas of socialism. This form of communism emerged in history as a sworn and bitter enemy of Christianity. For its

 

part, Christianity recognizes it as completely alien and inimical with itself.

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The history of the Church in apostolic times reveals that, in those times, it had its own Christian communism and the faithful held everything common, as

 

the Acts of the Apostles says. Even now, this Christian communism exists in the form of Koenobitic monasticism. Both the concept and reality of communal

 

property is a bright, idealistically elevated type of Christian inter-relationship, examples of which have always existed in the Orthodox Church.

 

How great is the difference between such Christian communism and Soviet communism! One is as far from the other as the heavens are from the earth.

 

Christian communism is not an independent self-motivated goal to which Christianity might strive. Rather, it is an inheritance bred of that spirit of love by

 

which the Church has breathed from the first. Moreover, Christian communism is totally voluntary. No one says, "Give us what is yours, it belongs to us,"

 

rather, Christians themselves sacrificed so that "none of them considered any of their possessions to be their own."

 

The communalism of property in Soviet communism is a self-motivated goal which must be attained no matter what the consequences and regardless of

 

any considerations. The builders of this type of communism are attaining it by purely violent means, not balking at any measure, even the slaughter of all

 

those who do not agree... The bases of this communism are not freedom, as in Christian communism, but force; not sacrificial love, but envy and hatred.

 

In its struggle against religion, Soviet communism goes to such excesses that it excludes even that most elementary justice which is recognized by everyone.

 

In its class ideology, Soviet communism tramples on all justice. The object of its work is not the common weal of all the citizens of the state, but only the

 

interests of a single class. All the remaining state and social groupings of citizens are "thrown overboard," outside the care and protection of the communist

 

government. The ruling class has no concern for them.

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The Social Gospel:  The 21st Century

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In the United States, the Social Gospel is still influential in mainline Protestant denominations such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the

 

Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church; it seems to be growing in the Episcopal Church as well, especially

 

with that church's effort to support the ONE Campaign. In Canada, it is widely present in the United Church and in the Anglican Church. Social Gospel

 

elements can also be found in many service and relief agencies associated with Protestant denominations and the Catholic Church in the United States. It

 

also remains influential among Christian socialist circles in Britain in the Church of England, Methodist and Calvinist movements.

 

In Catholicism, liberation theology has similarities to the Social Gospel. In the Anglican Church, the social gospel has found expression in pacifism.

 

 

Christian socialism

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_socialism

 

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Christian socialism generally refers to those on the Christian left whose politics are both Christian and socialist and who see these two philosophies as

 

being interrelated. This category can include Liberation theology and the doctrine of the social gospel. The term "Christian Socialism" is used in this sense

 

by organizations such as the Christian Socialist Movement (CSM), a specifically Christian grouping affiliated with the British Labour Party.

 

 

Christian socialists draw parallels between what some have characterized as the egalitarian and anti-establishment message of Jesus, who — according to

 

Christian Gospel — spoke against the religious authorities of his time, and the egalitarian, anti-establishment, and sometimes anti-clerical message of most

 

contemporary socialisms. Some Christian Socialists have gone as far as to become active Communists (see Christian communism).

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Quotes on Communism by influential people:
 

"Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both." - John F. Kennedy

"Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak." - Pierre Joseph Proudhon

"A common danger tends to concord. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence." - Pierre Joseph Proudhon

For us in Russia communism is a dead dog. For many people in the West, it is still a living lion." - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

"When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use." - Joseph Stalin

"Let's not talk about Communism. Communism was just an idea, just pie in the sky." - Boris Yeltsin

"Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy." - Mao Zedong

"I am a communist because I believe that the Communist idea is a state form of Christianity." - Alexander Zhuravlyov

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During his 1945 election campaign Winston Churchill stated that:

...a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom. Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state. It will prescribe for every one where they are to work, what they are to work at, where they may go and what they may say. Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.
 

...a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom.
 

• Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and

• the .

• It will prescribe for every one where they are to work,

• what they are to work at,

• where they may go and

• what they may say.

• Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely.

• No socialist system can be established without . They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance

 

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