Religious communism

Religious communism is a form of communism that incorporates religious principles. Scholars have used the term to describe a variety of social or religious movements throughout history that have favored the common ownership of property. The term religious communism has been used to describe a variety of social or religious movements throughout history. The "commune of early Christians at Jerusalem" has been described as a group that practiced religious communism. The teachings of Mazdak, a religious proto-socialist Persian reformer, have also been referred to as early communism. According to Ben Fowkes and Bulent Gokay, Bolshevik Mikhail Skachko stated at the Congress of the Peoples of the East that "the Muslim religion is rooted in principles of religious communism, by which no man may be a slave to another, and not a single piece of land may be privately owned." T. M. Browning described religious communism as a form of communism that "springs directly from principles native to a religion", and Hans Hillerbrand defined religious communism as religious movements that advocated the "communal ownership of goods and the concomitant abrogation of private property". Browning and Hillerbrand distinguished religious communism from political communism, as well as from economic socialism. Additionally, Hillerbrand contrasts religious communism with Marxism, which he describes as an ideology that called for eliminating religion. Donald Drew Egbert and Stow Persons argued that "[c]hronologically, religious communism tended to precede secular [communism]." Other scholars suggested that the traditional political communism, or Marxism, has always been a variety of religion. In Christian Europe, communists were believed to have adopted atheism. In Protestant England, communism was too close to the Catholic communion rite, and socialist was the preferred term. Friedrich Engels argued that in 1848, when The Communist Manifesto was published, socialism was respectable in Europe while communism was not.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (8)

Related lectures (1)

Georges Perec: Life and Works AR-365: Theory and architectural culture

Explores Georges Perec's innovative literary style and his fascination with everyday life, urban spaces, and human existence.

Religious socialism

Religious socialism is a type of socialism based on religious values. Members of several major religions have found that their beliefs about human society fit with socialist principles and ideas. As a result, religious socialist movements have developed within these religions. Those movements include Buddhist socialism, Christian socialism, Islamic socialism, and Jewish socialism. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Online, socialism is a "social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources.

Pre-Marxist communism

While Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels defined communism as a political movement, there were already similar ideas in the past which one could call communist experiments. Marx himself saw primitive communism as the original hunter-gatherer state of humankind. Marx theorized that only after humanity was capable of producing surplus did private property develop. Primitive communism Karl Marx and other early communist theorists believed that hunter-gatherer societies as were found in the Paleolithic through to horticultural societies as found in the Chalcolithic were essentially egalitarian and he, therefore, termed their ideology to be primitive communism.

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.