The early Christians were sustained by a principle inaccessible to a mere human ideology like socialism: God’s grace, i.e., His Love. Only with God’s grace can a man go out of himself, overcome the disordered, sinful, and selfish inclinations of his fallen nature, and put the good of the other always, everywhere, and consistently before his own. Christianity was all about “one heart and one mind” the primacy of the spiritual: their faith in Jesus Christ. The Christians of Acts 4, impelled by divine grace, forgot about themselves in order to put others’ needs first. There was probably an underground movement against the rigid royal polytheistic complicated religion that demanded strict rituals and observance based on the social status
The Great Awakening, a series of revivals that swept through the American colonies in the 18th century, was a pivotal event in the country's religious and social history. The Great Awakening characterized by its emphasis on personal conversion, evangelism, social engagement and missionary work also laid the groundwork for various social justice and reform movements in America. The movement's emphasis on personal morality and social responsibility helped to inspire efforts to address issues like slavery, women's rights, and temperance. Many of the leaders who emerged during the Great Awakening went on to play key roles in these movements, using their faith as a catalyst for social change.
The Second Great Awakening began in the 1790s and, by the 1820s, had emerged as a major religious movement. Unlike previous intellectual and deism movement during the First Awakening it was generally inclusive of everyone, the message was spread to men and women, to rich and poor, and among slaves and free blacks alike. Baptists and Methodists preached that all could achieve salvation and that all people were equal before God. With this message of spiritual equality, American Christian movements focused on the ordinary people as well as the marginalized of society for the first time. The message held the greatest appeal for those without power in society. Far more women than men were converted during the revivals of the Second Great Awakening. For some women, church membership and the new Christian message offered more personal power and greater personal freedom, as becoming active in the church was considered to be acceptable feminine conduct. The early message also empowered African Americans, free and enslaved. All over the country, African Americans joined the Baptist, Methodist, and other churches, in part as a response to the message of spiritual equality.
The widespread poverty in Victorian Great Britain in 1800s during the Industrial revolution, prompted great minds such as Ludlow and Maurice to start thinking about ideas for "the New Socialism that must be Christianized". The Christian socialist movement in mid-Victorian was aimed at bringing working class brotherhood, cross-class partnership under Church etc.. to make the Church relevant to the workingmen and aim for social reform against the ills of capitalism. Maurice and Ludlow were also strongly influenced by Lechevalier, a French utopian socialist, Saint-Simonian and Fourierist, who propounded a view, which Maurice and Ludlow fully accepted, that “Christianity represented the true essence of Socialism as expressed in the principles of association or co-operation,” and “that the Church must concern itself with the problems in trade and industry where modern unbelief was rampant.” (Christensen 116). The Christian Socialists also appealed to the justice and charity of the rich, and criticized laissez-faire capitalist competition and proposed profit sharing between capitalists and workers as a way of improving the condition of the working class in a just, Christian society. The Christian Socialists stressed the pre-eminence of personality over all material conditions. For Christian Socialists socialism was a means and not an end; the end being the full development of an individual's inherent capabilities. To that end Maurice organized discussions with members of the laboring classes, for whom he expressed his sincere appreciation and respect. In order to alleviate poverty among the laboring classes, Ludlow contributed to the passing of the Industrial and Provident Societies' Act of 1852, which provided for the creation of co-operative societies and mutual businesses in England. Thomas Hughes, Edward Neale, Lloyd Jones, and other members of the Christian Socialist group contributed to the establishment of the London Co-operative Store, with Lloyd Jones (1811–1886), a socialist, union activist and advocate of co-operation, as manager. Some of the late offshoots of mid-Victorian Christian Socialism included the Guild of St. Matthew as a parish communicants' society which may be regarded as a direct descendant of mid-Victorian Christian Socialism. Subsequently, the Christian Social Union, founded in 1889, became an offshoot of the Guild of St. Matthew. In the autumn of 1886 the newly-established Christian Socialist Society began holding public meetings in Bloomsbury, London, and in 1906, the Church Socialist League was formed. Many Anglican clergymen openly identified themselves as Socialists, and believed that Socialism meant Christianity in its modern industrial development. They openly supported the GSM. One of its members, the Reverend Charles W. Stubbs, Dean of Ely, wrote in the 1890s about the urgent need for the “social mission of Christ's Church.” (Phillips 80). Interest in socialist ideas was not only limited to the Anglican Church. Other denominations and the British Catholic Church also expressed interest in social issues. The Methodists started the Forward Movement in 1891, and the Baptists formed the inter-denominational Christian Socialist Society (1886-1892), which had a more militant programme calling for the public control of land, capital and all means of production, distribution and exchange.Christian Social Brotherhood (1898-1903) was a Nonconformist successor of the Christian Socialist League. A Unitarian minister, John Trevor (1855-1930) created a socialist Labour Church movement in 1891. The Socialist Quaker Society (SQS, 1898-1924) was the longest-lasting Nonconformist socialist organisation, which aimed to educate members of the Society of Friends about socialism and promoted it as a solution to current social problems.
References
- Were the First Christians Socialists? by Kevin DeYoung https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/canons-dort-gift-faith/
- The Earliest Christians Were Not Proto-Socialists. By John M. Grondelski https://www.newoxfordreview.org/the-earliest-christians-were-not-proto-socialists/
- Sin and Socialism: The Development of Realism in Christian Socialist Thought by Joel Gillin
- Christensen, Torben. Origin and History of Christian Socialism 1848-1854. Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget I, 1962.
- Phillips, Paul T. Kingdom on Earth: Anglo-American Social Christianity, 1880-1940. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.
