That’s kind of a strawman considering that’s not at all what Christianity says. Jesus was in favour of taxing the wealthy and talked shit about the rich all the time. You ever hear the story where he trashed a temple because people had set up a gift shop in it? Or the time he said “it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven”.
Christianity caught on because it was popular with the poor.
Christianity says whatever the people in charge say it says. That’s how the Catholic leaders have tons of wealth, Protestant leaders have tons of wealth, Anglican leaders have tons of wealth…really, every sect has money funneling up from the poor to the leaders. But it’s still marketed to the poor the exact same way.
That’s not a problem unique to Christianity. For example: “The Constitution says whatever the SCOTUS justices say it says.” or perhaps you prefer “The news says whatever Rupert Murdoch says it says” or even “Lemmy says whatever the admins say it says.”
Point is, any institution suffers the risk that its leaders could dictate its message or pervert its original intent for their own benefit. But Christianity–like the news, the law, and federated communities–is not a monolith. The Lakewood Church might adopt doctrines that are specially tailored to enriching Joel Osteen and his entourage, but that instance of corruption isn’t an indicator that Christianity–which existed for 1900 years before it–is inherently corrupt or somehow uniquely predisposed to manipulation by conmen.
By all reputable historic accounts, early Christian communities were socialistic, and its popularity among poor and marginalized Jews, Hellenistic Jews, and pagans is largely responsible for its spread during the first two centuries of its existence. The Christian texts we have today still resonate with the poor because their authors wrote them for the poor of their day, and it turns out poverty isn’t terribly different in the 21st Century from the 1st.
The Catholic Church used Christianity to make boatloads of cash. So did the Greek Orthodox Church, the Reformed Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and most other large institutions. So did other institutional religions (and non-religions). That’s not a problem with Christianity. It’s a problem with people. The overwhelming majority of church pastors I’ve known personally had to maintain a separate full-time job, because running churches is not a money-making enterprise unless you’re a corporation, an especially gifted and morally bankrupt businessman, or you inherited it.
All of that is to say that the problem with Christian institutions is the same problem with all institutions: greed. For the love of money is the root of all evil.
It’s not about religion. It’s about class. No war but the class war.
Keep in mind that the US constitution, Rupert Murdock, or Lemmy are not designed to target the poor and encourage them to tithe so that money can be funneled upwards to the leader. Well, maybe Rupert Murdock, but not the US constitution and definitely not Lemmy. There’s a difference between telling the poor that everyone is equal under the law, and telling the poor that if they believe hard enough and give the church 10% of their earnings regardless of their financial status that they will be rewarded in the afterlife or even rewarded maybe possibly while they are still alive.
Protestantism really caught on when leaders realise that church land would become the kings lands after conversion. It created a agricolarchy or farmarchy or whatever you want to call it in Iceland when before the church owned the land. It basically removed all social welfare in the country and passed on ownership to the ruling class which already had a diet-slavery (vistarbandið) for non-land owners codified in law.
Jeasus was not “in favor of taxing the wealthy” he was a full on socialist, if they had the term at the time. He through capitalists out of the temple, he hated the exploiting classes, his solution would have been far beyond “tax the wealty”
Jeasus was not “in favor of taxing the wealthy” he was a full on socialist, if they had the term at the time
I’m confused, are you disagreeing with me? I said the same thing. Jesus was in favour of many of the things we now associate with socialism. They just didn’t call it that at the time.
his solution would have been far beyond “tax the wealty”
Not sure what you mean by this. Jesus was a pacifist. He literally just played along while the ruling classes murdered him. He wasn’t about to start a violent revolution.
Jesus whipped people who were making money off the temple, so he certainly wasn’t a pacifist. This may have happened twice.
He may have known enough not to pick a fight that would be lost, anyway.
Bart Ehrman argues that Jesus’ actual goal was to lead a rebellion that would kick the Romans out of Judea and set himself up as king. That wouldn’t have been too unusual for the apocalyptic preachers of the time.
Taking the wealthy is not socialism, it is at best, a very mild form of social democracy. The ballance of power is not changed the owning class still has all the power as they still own the means of production.
I understand Jeasus was a passifist, and he would not have lead a violent revolution, but he would have advocated the workers runing the show, not just “taxing the rich”
“what Christianity says”
That’s kind of the problem right there. Religion has always been a way to garner money and power along with a smattering of explaining the unexplained. It’s a collection of fairytales with a little spice of real history designed to keep it’s people feeling indebted, donating and coming back. Any thing that requires blind faith should lead you to be extremely suspect about “their message”.
The stories, the psalms, the mass singing, the praise of the long absent mystical deity, it’s all psychological conditioning. The preacher running the guilt trips interspersed with good morale messages, none of this is making any of those people better people.
Christianity did not catch on because it was popular with the poor, it caught on because the people running it are masters of psychological manipulation. The poor don’t stand up Christianity, the congregations aren’t made up of paupers.
Considering the stories about tithing, and Jesus saying that it’s “easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” I think that’s exact what Christianity says.
