WHAT MAKES JESUS CHRIST A SOCIALIST?
A Lenten Reflection by by David Michael San Juan
Seriously, Jesus Christ is a socialist.
Never mind that Roman Catholic orders are among the world's richest investors.
Never mind that many filthy rich Christians violate the Minimum Wage Law (which is Biblical; search for the quote on giving what is due to others).
Never mind that today, among the staunchest anti-socialists and leading filthy capitalists have mothballed Bibles on their desks.
PROOFS THAT JESUS CHRIST WAS A SOCIALIST:
1. His father was a carpenter. Yeah, St. Joseph the Worker was a carpenter. [Thus, I think if Jesus were here, he'll be among those who'll sing L'Internationale on May 1]
2. His first close friends and disciples were mostly poor fishermen.
3. 1 and 2 establishes why he loves the poor so much that he fed them in many instances and preached against the greedy rich.
4. He worked miracles for many poor people. For example, he fed thousands of them in a day.
5. He condemned the greedy rich many times and blessed the poor many times too. Remember the Beatitudes and this exhortation: "It is much easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter heaven."
6. He encouraged people to pay taxes ("Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's..."); and we all know that in the Philippines, just like in any Third World country, the poor pay more than the rich; Jesus wants everyone to pay, in fact, he ordered his disciples to pay taxes using the coin he got from the belly of a big fish.
7. He commanded his disciples to preach the good news for free! Yeah! He was a supporter of free education, just like today's socialists {You can go to Cuba and Venezuela; check the Scandinavian system too; while Scandinavia is superficially capitalist, their social policies are socialistic}!
8. He healed the sick for free! Goodness! Fucking capitalist hospitals and pharmaceutical firms would certainly bribe today's governments to immediately arrest Christ in his second coming. But of course, we should not worry because his second coming means the end of capitalism (because his second coming was explicitly mentioned in the Bible as an event that will wipe out evil in the face of the earth).
9. He ordered a rich young man to sell all his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, so as to follow him. [It is worth mentioning that the first Christian communities in Israel and all of the Roman empire practiced a crude form of socialism, in which every new member of the community sells all his assets and the proceeds will go to a common fund from which everyone can take something according to his needs as approved by the community].
10. He's a feminist like any genuine socialist! Among his first disciples were women! Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene...In fact, he chose to show himself to a woman after his resurrection! Christ is among the earliest advocates of gender equality, a typical socialist agendum that fucking neoliberal parties have learned to cherrypick for their own greedy agenda.
Anyway, that's all for now.
There are thousands of reasons and an entire volume might be not enough to provide such details, to paraphrase St. John the Evangelist's remarks on how numerous were Jesus' miracles.
HAPPY HOLY THURSDAY!
PRAISE BE CHRIST FOREVER!
FOLLOW CHRIST, SERVE HIS PEOPLE!
LONG LIVE SOCIALISM!
P.S.
I dislike people who misquote the great socialist Karl Marx on religion. A German friend of mine explained that when Marx said religion was the opium of the people, he meant it in a positive way...Marx wanted to emphasize that in a heartless (capitalist) world, religion provides solace, a heart, a soul to the people...Thus, actually, Marx never meant to condemn religion per se...
FINALLY, to sum it up...JESUS IS A SOCIALIST BECAUSE SOCIALISM IS LOVE.
