During Christmas break, I finished reading the book, Christ’s Alternative to Communism, by E. Stanley Jones. While there are many points for discussion from the book, I came away with one over-arching theme.
The whole premise or program of the kingdom of heaven revealed to us by Christ in the New Testament of the Bible is based on self-denial. Jesus repeatedly brought conversations, parables, expository sermons, commands, and His own life example back to self-denial. E. Stanley Jones handedly denounces an economic system based on competition, for it necessarily becomes favorable to those who have at the expense of those who do not have. It is, in essence, the antithesis of self-denial.
While criticism of the results of a competitive economic system is a primary focus in the Communist Manifesto, the whole premise or program of Communism is founded on covetousness, envy and greed. The lower class is stirred to action against the upper class, and the driving cause is to take (covet, envy) the wealth of the upper class and redistribute it to the lower class. The former upper class is then excluded from participating in society. This underpinning of Communism is the achilles heel and a key reason why Communism has never succeeded. Anything based on evil is doomed to fail even before it is given an opportunity to work out.
There is no reforming the premise or program of Communism, including socialism, democrat socialism, and all forms of Marxism. Its underlying and driving motivation is the upheaval of the upper class for the benefit of the lower class. Along the way, Communism creates the appearance or illusion of installing a more cooperative economic system which mirrors Christianity. Unfortunately, those identified with the wrong class are excluded wholesale, and as the wealth transfer makes its way through the workings of Communism, those in power are corrupted by the allure of wealth (the natural result of envy, coveting and greed).
E. Stanley Jones has criticism, and likely a just and righteous criticism at that, of a competitive (capitalist) economic system. However, Jones continued to turn the discussions back to self-denial as the basis for the success of any community. Acts chapter 4 in the Bible ends with the scene of everyone having sufficient resources because those who owned possessions shared them freely. Even in a scene such as this, the self-denial cannot be ignored.
What is the basis for our self-denial? Communism would have us believe that forceful redistribution is the answer for the ills of capitalism. However, Jesus Christ taught us that love must be at the foundation of our actions. Jesus taught in Matthew chapter 22 that the two greatest commandments are love for God and love for neighbor. This love compels us to cooperate – first to make diligent use of our time, talents and resources (even if and especially when it builds wealth) and second to share of our resources, even with our enemies – something Communism abhors.
From this, we must deduce that making a profit is not evil in and of itself. The evil of profits stems from the love of money which only serves to enhance the divide between the rich and poor. This is true even as Communism, socialism and Marxism play out. Thus, being driven by love for God we maximize the time, talents and resources with which He has entrusted us, and being driven by love for neighbor we freely share of the resources we have been given by God, without regard for the other person’s status in society.
If we are to accomplish anything as Christians, self-denial must be fundamental to our day-to-day demeanor, and there is perhaps no better method of demonstrating self-denial than to make use of our resources to maximize sharing with those in need. With love for God at the heart of everything we do, we would then have no fear of the methods or results, and evil in our communities would subside.
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