Christian communism

Christian communism is a theological view that the teachings of Jesus compel Christians to support religious communism. Although there is no universal agreement on the exact dates when communistic ideas and practices in Christianity began, many Christian communists argue that evidence from the Bible suggests that the first Christians, including the Apostles in the New Testament, established their own small communist society in the years following Jesus' death and resurrection. Many advocates of Christian communism and other communists, including Karl Kautsky, argue that it was taught by Jesus and practised by the apostles themselves. This position is also held by some historians.

There are those who hold the view that the early Christian Church, such as the one described in the Acts of the Apostles, was an early form of communism or Christian socialism. The view is that communism was just Christianity in practice and Jesus was the first communist.

Christian communism was based on the concept of koinonia, which means common or shared life, which was not an economic doctrine but an expression of agape love. It was the voluntary sharing of goods amongst the community. Acts 4:35 records that in the early Christian Church in Jerusalem "[n]o one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but shared everything in common." The pattern helped the early Christians to survive after the siege of Jerusalem and was taken seriously for several centuries. While it later disappeared from church history, it remained within monasticism and was an important supporting factor in the rise of feudalism. This ideal returned in the 19th century with monasticism revival and the rise of religious movements wanting to revive the early Christian egalitarianism. Because they were accused of atheism due its association with Marxism, they preferred communalism to describe their Christian communism.

The early Church Fathers, like their non-Abrahamic religious predecessors, maintained that human society had declined to its current state from a now lost egalitarian social order. Several historians view the early Christian Church, as described in the Acts of the Apostles (specifically the omnia sunt communia reference in Acts 2:44-45 and Acts 4:32-35), as an early form of communism. Among Christian communists, the view is that communism was just Christianity in practice and Jesus was a communist. Later historians across several centuries supported the reading of early church communities as communistic in structure.

From the High Middle Ages in Europe, various groups supported Christian communist and rural communalist ideas, and these ideas were also occasionally adopted by reformist Christian sects. An early 12th-century proto-Protestant group originating in Lyon known as the Waldensians held their property in common in accordance with the Book of Acts but were persecuted by the Catholic Church and retreated to Piedmont.

Around 1300, the Apostolic Brethren in northern Italy were taken over by Fra Dolcino, who formed a sect known as the Dulcinians, which advocated ending feudalism, dissolving hierarchies in the church, and holding all property in common. The Peasants' Revolt in England has been an inspiration for "the medieval ideal of primitive communism", with the priest John Ball of the revolt being an inspirational figure to later revolutionaries, and having allegedly declared that "things cannot go well in England, nor ever will, until all goods are held in common."

During the 15th century around the year 1420, a radical Hussite faction in Bohemia known as the Taborites established themselves in Tábor. The group sought to live a life similar to that of the early Church. All possessions were held in common, they declared the rejection of their king, and the ruling lord. Additionally, they declared equality among both men and women. This resulted in women receiving education for the first time. Ultimately, the encampment lasted until 1437.

In the 16th century, English writer Thomas More, who is venerated in the Catholic Church as a saint, portrayed a society based on common ownership of property in his treatise Utopia, whose leaders administered it through the application of reason.