Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #christiansocialism, aggregated by home.social.
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I've released an ebook version of Christianity and the Social Crisis. It's free to download, read, distribute, whatever.
I've updated the text, added some footnotes, but have left the arguments as-is.
You can find it here: https://books.naughtybaptist.com/social-crisis
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism #HumanMadeProject
#askfedi Looking for web-annotation solutions, or other options
Boosts appreciated!
I finished my first pass of getting the text of Christianity and the Social Crisis, by Walter Rauschenbusch, cleaned up wit the goal of making a nice ebook version.
I'd like to get more eyes on it, to proofread and spot any formatting errors, etc. My thought would be to have a simple way for people to add comments to the HTML in some distributed capacity.
I want to use open and free solutions for this.
So, the asks:
1. Would you like to proofread? Let me know!
2. What are good options to let multiple people (but not very many people, I imagine) add notes to html?
#fedihelp #books #christianity #socialism #christiansocialism
I think I enjoy this book so much because of the humor that randomly appears:
"
The championship of social justice is almost the only way left open to a Christian nowadays to gain the crown of martyrdom. Theological heretics are rarely persecuted now. The only rival of God is mammon, and it is only when his sacred name is blasphemed that men throw the Christians to the lions. "
8/8
"The force of the religious spirit should be bent toward assetting the supremacy of life over property. Property exists to maintain and develop life. It is unchristian to regard human life as a mere instrument for the production of wealth. "
7/
On the call to preachers:
"The ministry, in particular, must apply the teaching functions of the pulpit to the pressing questions of public morality. It must collectively learn not to speak without adequate information; not to charge individuals with guilt in which all society shares; not to be partial, and yet to be on the side of the lost; not to yield to political partisanship, but to deal with moral questions before they become political issues and with those questions of public welfare which never do become political issues. They must lift the social questions to a religious level by faith and spiritual insight."
6/
He allows that unions can be as violent as owners. But adds:
"Few will care to assert that in the bitter conflicts waged between labor and capital the wrong has always been on one side. Yet when the law bares its sword, it is somehow always against one side. The militia does not seem to be ordered out against capital."
5/
On the idea that mines (for example) are stewards of resources, not owners:
"It is preposterous to think that an individual or a corporation can ever have absolute ownership in a vein of coal or copper. A mining company owns the holes in the ground, for it made the holes; it does not own the coal, for it did not make the coal. The coal is the gift of God and belongs to the people. "
4/
I loved this one:
"Our political parties, at least in their local administration, are largely held together by the cohesive necessities of common plunder."
3/
"Moreover, it is only when society arrives at wealth and power that "grafting" comes to pay. In a poor and savage community the individual has so little that the only way to get wealth without work is by downright robbery of the weak. As the average of wealth rises, and the aggregate of wealth becomes more enormous, a mere "rake-off" is enough to enrich the grafter. Hence in a savage community we have robbers and bandit chiefs; in a civilized community we have a parasitic class who live in idleness and splendor by converting to their own use some kind of intrusted wealth or delegated power. "Grafting" is a highly perfected modern sin. Its essence is not stealing, but the corruption of a steward by one party and the betrayal of trust by a second party, who together profit at the expense of a third party, most frequently the public. "
2/
I've finished with the initial conversion of the OCR'd pages into markdown for Christianity and the Social Crisis, by Walter Rauschenbusch. Still a fair amount of work to do to get it into good shape for an ebook, but I'm happy with the progress.
As has become my habit, I noted down some quotes from this chapter to share.
1/
OK, I've edited as much as I'm going to tonight, so closing this thread down.
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism
15/15
Speaking against the idea that preachers should stay away from social issues, for some may say they are meddling or outside their purview:
"Balance was hardly the distinguishing quality of the Old Testament prophets, and yet they are commonly supposed to have been good for something."
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism
14/
"Others can talk from the point of view of economic and political expediency; does the minister talk from the point of view of the eternally true and right?"
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism
13/
SO MUCH to say about ministers not being puppets for a politcal party, but for standing up for social issues because Christ calls us to.
"A minister has no business to be the megaphone of a political party and its catchwords. He should rather be the master of politics by creating the issues which parties will have to espouse. Questions are usually discussed a long time before they become political issues. Old political parties are controlled by conservative forces and will take up progressive measures only when it is necessary to retain their followers or outbid another party. The time for the pulpit to do its best work is before a question is torn to tatters on the platform."
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism
12/
On a minister's bias towards businessmen over workers:
"If he attends the dinners of the Chamber of Commerce, he must take socialist street meetings as an antidote. Socialism has fully as much claim on his intellect as Robert Browning."
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism
11/
The saying of Mirabeau is as true as any other historical maxim, "When the people have complained, the people have always been right."
[apparently not an exact quote, but close enough]
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism
10/
This definitely still rings true, almost 120 years later:
"Men who first begin to discuss social wrongs are likely to launch into personal invective against prominent individuals. This tendency is in part a product of our religious individualism. We have always been told that if only all individuals were regenerated and lived right, all social questions would be solved. Consequently when we see wrong done, we feel that it must be due to the personal wickedness of individuals. "
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism
9/
"There are preachers who undertake to discuss the largest social questions with the air of a specialist and the knowledge of a tyro^[a beginner, or a novice]. I knew a man who preached a course of sermons on social questions after reading his first book on the subject. He may have been equally rash in discussing the ways of the Almighty, but God is patient and does not talk back."
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism
8/
"But such a view of our professional life would bring it under religious scrutiny. If a man’s calling consisted in manufacturing or selling useless or harmful stuff, he would find himself unable to connect it with his religion. ... As soon as religion will set the kingdom of God before it as the all-inclusive aim, and will define it so as to include all rightful relations among men, the awakened conscience will begin to turn its searchlight on the industrial and commercial life in detail, and will insist on eliminating all professions which harm instead of helping, and on coordinating all productive activities to secure a maximum of service. That in itself would produce a quiet industrial revolution. "
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism
7/
On the sancity of work:
If now we could have faith enough to believe that all human life can be filled with divine purpose; that God saves not only the soul, but the whole of human life; that anything which serves to make men healthy, intelligent, happy, and good is a service to the Father of men; that the kingdom of God is not bounded by the Church, but includes all human relations -- then all professions would be hallowed and receive religious dignity. A man making a shoe or arguing a law case or planting potatoes or teaching school, could feel that this was itself a contribution to the welfare of mankind, and indeed his main contribution to it.
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism
6/
This one is so needed:
"And when politicians and social exploiters have to deal with the stubborn courage of men who pray about their politics, they will have a new factor to reckon with."
Makes me think about -- and mourn! -- how easily evangelicals have gone along with Trump and Christo-facism
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism
5/
"To repent of our collective social sins, to have faith in the possibility and reality of a divine life in humanity, to submit the will to the purposes of the kingdom of God, to permit the divine inspiration to emancipate and clarify the moral insight -- this is the most intimate duty of the religious man who would help to build the coming Messianic era of mankind."
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism
4/
OK more than 2 posts here. Too many quotable things in this chapter. Partly sharing, partly putting them here so I can find them later.
#Christianity
#ChristianSocialism
#Socialism
3/
He follows that with this line, which I love:
"Macaulay said that the doctrine of gravitation would not yet be accepted if it had interfered with vested interests."
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism
2/2
Editing the final chapter of Christianity and the Social Crisis by Walter Rauschenbusch
In writing on the need for "social repentance" he talks of how people do not want to believe that they are making money from harming others. His response? Move on past them:
"In the early part of the nineteenth century, when tiny children in England were driven to the looms with whips, and women lost even the physical appearance of womanhood in the coal mines, the owners insisted that English industry would be ruined by the proposed reform laws, and doubtless they thought so. If men holding stock in traction companies assert that municipal ownership is un-American; if the express companies say that parcels cannot be carried below their own amazing rates; if Mr. Baer in the midst of the coal strike assured a minister that "God in his infinite wisdom had given control of the property interests of the country" to him and his associates and they would do all things well-- we must simply allow for the warping effect of self-interest and pass on to the order of the day."
#Christianity
#ChristianSocialism
#Socialism
1/2
"Above the entrance of an Eastern penal institution the motto has been inscribed, 'The worst day in the life of a young man is when he gets the idea that he can make a dollar without doing a dollar's worth of work for it.' That is good sense, but how would that motto look on the walls of the New York Stock Exchange or the Chicago Produce Exchange?"
-- Walter Rauschenbusch, in Christianity and the Social Crisis
"Paul lived under a hostile government and in view of the speedy end of the world. We live under our own government, free to think and speak as we will; we look backward on nineteen centuries of Christian history, and we look forward to an indefinite continuance of the present world. Yet it still passes as a clinching argument for Christian indifference to social questions that Paul never started a good government campaign. "When two do the same thing, it is not the same." We cling to the letter of primitive Christianity and are false to its spirit. We have turned the eagle-minded Paul, one of the greatest champions of freedom and progress in all history, into a personified code of law and precedent that bids us ever remain where he stood. We have thrust the steel driving-rod of an old locomotive between the spokes of a new locomotive. There is the grim humor of human life! "
-- Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis,
Walter Rauschenbusch, in Christianity and the Social Crisis, spends a lot of time talking about the revolutionary power of the #Gospel, and the #Church as a whole.
Then, chapter 4 is titled: Why Has Christianity Never Undertaken the Work of Social Reconstruction?
Which is a a great question. There's a lot to it, but this paragraph in particular struck me:
Moreover, these early Christians were subject to the same limitations of human nature to which we all are prone. They, too, were creatures of custom. Before slavery was abolished in our country, there were millions of genuine Christians, honestly willing to see and do the right in other matters, to whom it seemed a preposterous proposition that slavery is incompatible with Christianity. To them it was a necessary and fundamental human institution, like the family or the school. To-day there are very few Christians who realize that it is a crying wrong to hold land idle for speculation in cities where men’s lungs are rotting away, overgrown with tuberculosis bacilli for lack of air; few who realize that it is a flat denial of Christianity to take advantage of the needs of your fellow-man to buy his labor cheaply or sell him your goods dearly. These things seem to us a necessary and inevitable part of the structure of society. If, therefore, the early Christians accepted the universal institution of slavery as part of the social universe; if it was centuries before we hear any straight declaration against the principle of slavery in the Church; and if the Church itself became a great slave-owner in the later days of its wealth -- need we be surprised who have had nineteen centuries of Christian influences upon us and who are still so blind to wrong?
"It is impossible to have a man sit by you as your brother and let him go hungry while you feed. Therefore as a usual thing we do not let him sit by us or we deny that he is our brother."
-- Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis
"If the kingdom of God is the true human society, it is a fellowship of justice, equality, and love. But it is hard to get riches with justice, to keep them with equality, and to spend them with love." -- Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis
Getting a lot out of editing this into an ebook. Such a great work
#Christianity #ChristianSocialism #Socialism #ProgressiveChristianity
The Anglo-Catholic Socialist Collective are hosting a meeting tomorrow evening at 7pm BST to plan their (hybrid) September catchup.
If you're a leftist/progressive Christian and you'd be interested in giving a short talk, or contributing with food, helping with promotion etc., why not come along and share your ideas!
Registration available here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvc-6grTMrH9BSi3PbqcYpfcRBiJ_4sHmY
Feel free to share!
#Christianity #AngloCatholic #ChristianSocialism #LeftistChristianity #Organising
I asked the AI model ChatGPT to write a conversation between Jesus and Karl Marx. Sounds like Jesus is interested in socialism and wants to know more
#ai #ChatGPT #christiansocialism #marxism #socialism #liberationtheology
Hearing George call Potter a "warped, frustrated old man" hits so hard every time. https://christiansocialism.com/its-a-wonderful-life-capitalism-socialism/
#ItsAWonderfulLife #Christmas #ChristmasMovies #Socialism #ChristianSocialism
Seems like the paperback edition of my next book Red Enlightenment: On #Socialism #Science and #Spirituality is now available to pre-order!
#enlightenment #communism #acidcommunism #secular #religious #marxism #theology #LiberationTheology #postcolonialism @philosophy #philosophy #cybernetics #AncientPhilosophy #indianphilosophy #ChinesePhilosophy #dialecticalmaterialism #ContemporaryArt #Art #utopianism #ChristianSocialism #engagedbuddhism #metamodernism
A longer list of research interests relevant to #RedEnlightenment
#education #consciousness #psychedelia #ChristianSocialism #engagedbuddhism #meditation #mindfulness #enlightenment #radicalenlightenment #decolonising #decolonizing #historyofphilosophy #ChinesePhilosophy #indianphilosophy #AncientPhilosophy #IslamicPhilosophy #spinoza #anthropology #utopianism #historyofscience #dialecticalmaterialism #deleuze #guattari #postmodernism #Bogdanov #ContemporaryArt #mysticism #activism #markfisher
Love this video by Religion for Breakfast on the history and interpretation of Mark 10:25: 'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.'
In short, don't believe Prosperity Gospel nonsense — the needle was not a gate, it was a literal needle. Jesus very much did say that rich people don't go to heaven.
#Theology #BibleStudy #Jesus #JesusChrist #LiberationTheology #ChristianSocialism
G’day. 👋 A Mastodon #introduction : I’m Jarrod, living on Wadjuk Noongar land 🖤💛❤️ (on most maps as Perth, Australia). A decade ago, in the context of interviewing #BillMcKibben about our #climateemergency, he something to me that haunts me still. Bill said we have a responsibility to enjoy what future generations won’t experience in the same way.
*let that sink in*
So I’ll start with practices for me shaped by this conversation and Dostoyevsky’s words, “Love all God’s creation, both the whole and every grain of sand.” I love talking to the #birds 🦜 and teaching my boys their Noongar names (like Uncle [ ] Garlett taught me). I love #surfing 🏄🏼♂️ #hiking ⛰ #snorking 🪸 #spearfishing 🐠🐬🐟#surfskating (I ride a Holy Toledo #Smoothstar 🛹🏄🏼♂️). Kathleen is my beloved. 🥰 The outdoors is literally a religious experience for me. Oh, talking God-bothering, that’s kinda my neurodiverse hyper-fixation: the transfiguring-nonviolent-liberating-love revealed in Jesus.
That’s lead to some award winning nonviolent trouble-making, a popular podcast with Dr Drew Hart (https://www.patreon.com/InVerse), and other stuff you can checkout here: https://jarrodmckenna.com
#theology: A very Jesus-y #ecojustice cocktail of #Hesychasm #Anabaptism #CatholicWorker #IndigenousTheology non-Marxist #ChristianSocialism #Quakerism #BlackChurch and charismania expressed in #Contemplative prayer, creative
#nonviolence and #solidarity.
So let’s collaborate in what John Lewis called, “good trouble”. 😊
I am an author, writing about Quakers, Theology, & the Bible. I am #Quaker minister and educator. I work at #GuilfordCollege in #Greensboro, NC w my wife & our children.
I have been blogging since 2000 on Xanga & have been active in building online community on many platforms.
My interests are around #Fandom, Participatory Culture, #ChristianSocialism, #QuakerStudies, #Remix, #OpenWeb, #LiberationTheology, & the #PoorPeoplesCampaign.
I enjoy Music, time w my family & riding my motorcycle.