Are Christians Supposed to Be Communists?

From The New York Times-

It was in 1983 that I heard the distinguished Greek Orthodox historian Aristeides Papadakis casually remark in a lecture at the University of Maryland that the earliest Christians were “communists.” In those days, the Cold War was still casting its great glacial shadow across the cultural landscape, and so enough of a murmur of consternation rippled through the room that Professor Papadakis — who always spoke with severe precision — felt obliged to explain that he meant this in the barest technical sense: They lived a common life and voluntarily enjoyed a community of possessions. The murmur subsided, though not necessarily the disquiet.

Not that anyone should have been surprised. If the communism of the apostolic church is a secret, it is a startlingly open one. Vaguer terms like “communalist” or “communitarian” might make the facts sound more palatable but cannot change them. The New Testament’s Book of Acts tells us that in Jerusalem the first converts to the proclamation of the risen Christ affirmed their new faith by living in a single dwelling, selling their fixed holdings, redistributing their wealth “as each needed” and owning all possessions communally. This was, after all, a pattern Jesus himself had established: “Each of you who does not give up all he possesses is incapable of being my disciple” (Luke 14:33).

More here-

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/opinion/sunday/christianity-communism.html

China is becoming hooked on the opium of the people

From The Spectator-

One afternoon in August 1978, Geoffrey Howe and Leon Brittan were flying from Beijing to Shanghai. They were on the last leg of what was for both of them the first of many official visits to China. Soon they would be ministers in Margaret Thatcher’s first government, but at the time they were still in opposition. As first secretary in the British embassy, I was accompanying them, and I told them that I had heard on the grapevine that Holy Trinity’s Anglican cathedral in Shanghai was in the process of being reopened after 12 years in which every place of worship in China had been closed, and every faith persecuted. ‘Roger, that cannot be right,’ Geoffrey Howe declared; ‘this is a communist country.’ But we asked our Chinese hosts about it, and within an hour of landing we were ushered into the soaring Gothic cathedral. Over dinner, the deputy mayor of Shanghai assured us that the reopening was in line with government policy. The Reform Era was getting underway.

Since then, China has moved from zero tolerance of worship to more than 350 million believers in Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam.

More here-

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/05/china-is-becoming-hooked-on-the-opium-of-the-people/#

Mikhail Gorbachev admits he is a Christian

From The Telegraph-

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Communist leader of the Soviet Union, has acknowledged his Christian faith for the first time, paying a surprise visit to pray at the tomb of St Francis of Assisi.

Accompanied by his daughter Irina, Mr Gorbachev spent half an hour on his knees in silent prayer at the tomb.

His arrival in Assisi was described as "spiritual perestroika" by La Stampa, the Italian newspaper.
"St Francis is, for me, the alter Christus, the other Christ," said Mr Gorbachev. "His story fascinates me and has played a fundamental role in my life," he added.

Mr Gorbachev's surprise visit confirmed decades of rumours that, although he was forced to publicly pronounce himself an atheist, he was in fact a Christian, and casts a meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1989 in a new light.

Mr Gorbachev, 77, was baptised into the Russian Orthodox Church and his parents were Christians.

More here-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1582213/Mikhail-Gorbachev-admits-he-is-a-Christian.html

Episcopal Pastoral

From Time Magazine 1953. It would seem that there was a bit of the prophetic in the hysteria.

From Williamsburg, Va.. where they had met in special session, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church issued a pastoral letter to their 2,545,000 church members reviewing "the state of the church today." First, said the bishops, there are some causes for thanksgiving. Among them: the "steady and continuous" gain in the number of Episcopal communicants (1.72% in the U.S. between 1951 and 1952); the general increase in church membership in all denominations. But most of their words were devoted to Christian grounds of concern. Despite church gains, they warned, "the outlook for Christianity and for the world from a Christian point of view has rarely been more serious." "Communism, with its philosophy of materialism." the bishops said, is Christianity's greatest avowed enemy. But equally dangerous is "another form of totalitarianism which deifies the state, expressing itself in various forms of national state socialism." The bishops suggested that the U.S. might have some unwitting state deifiers behind recent "broad generalizations and accusations" against the churches—presumably those made by members of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Said the bishops, quoting a speech by Presiding Bishop Henry Knox Sherrill: "We are against trial by uninformed public opinion, against accusations by hearsay . . . The church is equally opposed to what may be described as 'creeping fascism.' "
The rest-

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,860154,00.htmlv