Mark Driscoll says you can’t be a “Bible-believing Christian and a socialist.” He also declares, “I am a capitalist becase I am a Christian.”
He clearly doesn’t know church history and hasn’t absorbed the book of Acts.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, socialism is a “social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources.”
Mark Driscoll (screenshot)
There have been and continue to be hundreds of Christian groups who practice Christian and socialist teaching. I offer four examples of such movements and America’s most renowned Baptist theologian, Walter Rauschenbusch, as rebuttal of Driscoll’s ignorance.
The New Testament church
The New Testament Church would have been surprised by Driscoll’s statement. Luke informs us in Acts chapter 4, “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.”
The Hutterites and Anabaptists
Hutterites are Christians and socialists. They are a communal branch of Anabaptists. Today, there are about 50,000 Hutterites who mostly live in Western Canada, the upper Great Plains of the United States, Central Washington and Northern Oregon.
Some American Christians, like Driscoll, might be surprised to know many Anabaptists were Christian socialists. And the Anabaptists were the precursors of the Baptists, including the most MAGA of all Baptists, the Southern Baptists.
Will Campbell offers the most profound expression of Christian socialism in Cecelia’s Sin. One of the protagonists, an Anabaptist named Cecelia says: “We will not baptize our young. We will not swear. We will not bear the sword for them. … And we share our goods. … It is for that that they hate us the most.” The next day Cecelia became a martyr. In her words, “I would die for my Lord anywhere, but I am happy the Lord will let me die in Amsterdam.” Ceclia was a Christian and a socialist.
Koinonia Farms
Clarence Jordan
Koinonia Farms, in Americus, Ga., founded by Southern Baptist Clarence Jordan, presents a double dosage of rebuke to preachers like Driscoll. It practices a communal life and racial reconciliation. Jordan founded the farm in 1942 after graduating from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, as a place where Blacks and whites would work together, live together and eat at the same table. In the Deep South, where many churches were strong supporters of segregation, it was considered a radical attempt to live out the Christian life.
Jordan once asked his brother to represent Koinonia Farms in court. His brother wanted to become a member of the Georgia Supreme Court. Clarence reminded his brother they both had been baptized in the same river together. Still, his brother refused. Finally, Clarence told his brother, “I don’t think you are a follower of Jesus. I think you are an admirer.”
Jordan gave his entire life to promoting and protecting Koinonia Farms. His Cotton Patch Gospel remains a powerful contribution to the faith.
Walter Rauschenbusch
Walter Rauschenbusch
Walter Rauschenbusch, Baptist pastor and theologian, was the most prominent of the Social Gospel Christians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Evangelicals were committed to the gospel and its social implications. They would not recognize today’s MAGA evangelicals.
Among his writings, the most prominent is Christianity and the Social Crisis. His social doctrine remains so revolutionary and gospel-centered that American evangelicals attack him as if he were still teaching classes at Rochester Theological Seminary. His sermon pamphlet, Dare We Be Christians, testifies to the power of his Christian faith. Some of his critics suggest he was a registered member of the Communist Party, but I have not found any documentation of the claim.
I am proud to follow in the steps of Rauschenbusch. He, for me, is the most important Baptist theologian in our history. And the Anabaptist theologian James McClendon keeps him daily company.
Movements, men and women of faith, deeply embedded in Christianity and socialism bear witness to the Lord who will one day gather the nations and judge all by how they have treated the poor, the sick, the weak, the hungry and the destitute.
Driscoll is welcome to his outrageous opinions. After all, everybody’s got opinions. And some of them are not worth speaking out loud. God will judge Driscoll as God already has judged those faithful Christian socialists who have departed to glory.
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.