Acts 2:44

And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all as any man had need.

COMMUNISM

This writer has seen Earl Browder's greasy little tract in the Library of Congress in which he declared that "We communists are only doing the thing commanded in your Christian Scriptures, and which you do not have the guts to do!" He went on to quote the above verses. Even the Red Dean of Canterbury, only a few years ago, identified communism with this passage; and how about that? All right, HOW ABOUT IT?

To begin with, there were certain unique conditions in that New Testament situation that are not matched in modern times anywhere at any time. Furthermore, it must be remembered that the New Testament experiment lasted but a short while, was not undertaken upon the basis of any command of Christ or the apostles, and that there was never any teaching whatever set up with a view for perpetuating what is in view here. Most importantly of all, the experiment failed, human nature proving then, as it ever has, an insurmountable obstacle forbidding the success of any such society.

However, we shall waive all the differences just noted, for the sake of an objective contrast between the so-called "Christian communism," as in Acts, and the organized ungodliness which today would be very pleased to identify itself with the sacred Scriptures.

In the book of Acts, the disciples were all in the temple praising God; in communist camps, people are all together blaspheming God, denying Christ, and desecrating every holy thing.

In the book of Acts, holy men gave into the treasury of a common fund. The collectivists known as communists rob, plunder, expropriate, and confiscate the goods of all men, doing so by violence and force. See any difference here?

Christians, through love, parted their goods unto all men. Communists part all men from their goods. They are enlarging their horizons and are in the process of parting all nations from their goods, South Vietnam being the latest in a long bloody list.

Christians enjoyed the fellowship of the saints from house to house. The communists spread terror from house to house, as their dreadful secret police move from house to house at night to plunder, to kill, to deport, to confiscate, and to murder. See any difference?

Over the camp of the Christians is raised the banner of the cross of Christ, emblem of the world's salvation; but over the camp of the communists flies the hammer and sickle, perverted variations of the sword and the club, the red banner of anti-religion, robbery, rape, and revolution.

Christians give. Communists take. Christians love. Communists hate. Christians worship. Communists blaspheme. One of these societies is of God. The other is of Satan, of hell, and destruction. See any difference?

Another notable difference in the Christian experiment with so-called communism and the collectivist madness of modern times is in the fact that the Christians individually retained the means of production.

Dr. Kenneth H. Hunter, an outstanding economist of Washington, D.C., and former professor of economics in American University, said:

The so-called communism in Acts, to the extent it might be called that, was a communism of distribution, not of production. The means of production were still owned and retained by the individual. In my opinion, there is no fallacy of modern collectivism that has deceived more people than the glib catch-phrase, "from each according to his ability; to each according to his need." The fallacy is that in the collectivist society, the individual has absolutely nothing whatever to say either about his ability or his need. All vital decisions are made for him by the Party through the endless inefficiency and red tape of its infinite bureaucracy.

So much, then, for the so-called communism of Acts. It bears exactly the same relation to world communism of today that a collection plate bears to a gun in the hands of a robber.