The Socialist Ideal: Some Soul-Searching Constraints

Socialism makes demands on a world that does not have the necessary presuppositions.

Humanity is moving in a direction where evangelicals who think in terms of social responsibility need to examine the pros and cons of socialism—whether it be at home, in the countries where they serve in missions, or even on a global scale.

The socialist option comes to North American evangelicals with the underground tremors sent out by Latin American liberation theology. Although unclear about the degree of their allegiance to concepts of Marxism, liberation theologians all seem to recommend some kind of socialism as the way out of today’s polarization of rich and poor.

But even in North America, the heartland of capitalism itself, we see John Kenneth Galbraith, the celebrated economist, proclaim “the socialist imperative” as the way to head off “the mounting economic crisis.” Small wonder that one finds the subject of socialism on the programs of this year’s conferences of both the American Society of Christian Ethics as well as the Ethics Section of the American Academy of Religion.

There may be a deeper reason for the return to prominence of this concept, which was so widely debated in the nineteenth century. Whereas on the national level we may have achieved, through decades of struggle, a certain—perhaps uneasy—balance that provides a framework for the different strata of society to live together, on the global scale an economic order is still largely lacking, so that the unmitigated law of supply and demand still works in favor of the strong and oppresses the weak. It is this imbalance that prompts socialist solutions today just as in the more limited situations of the nineteenth century.

Should Christians be socialists? A number of questions that surface with the renewed encounter of Christianity and socialism were recently discussed in public by two of the most eminent Protestant theologians of Germany, Helmut Gollwitzer and Eberhard Jüngel. Gollwitzer, until his recent retirement the systematic theologian at the Free University of Berlin, argued in his book The Capitalist Revolution that the quest for economic growth, the inherent law of capitalism, inevitably collides today with the “limits of growth” dictated by resources and ecology. Therefore, the Christian as a responsible person could no longer support the individualistic, competitive, and chaotic mode of production in capitalism. It is clear that Gollwitzer has already drawn the further conclusion: a Christian must be a socialist, advocating a collectivized, planned economy.

Eberhard Jüngel, perhaps the most influential of today’s younger generation of German theologians and a professor at Tübingen University, agreed that the growing forces of production also meant growing possibilities of destruction that need to be restrained through responsible decision. However, socialism was but one, not the only way to improve the social situation in applying liberty and justice. Any programmatic imposition in this matter would therefore have to be fought as a violation of Christian freedom.

What do evangelicals think about socialism? Some reject it without discussion. Others, who earlier emphasized the call of the gospel toward social responsibility, began to explore the demand made by the Lausanne Covenant of 1974 of Christians in affluent circumstances: “to develop a simple lifestyle in order to contribute more generously to both relief and evangelism.” They now feel led beyond this personal appeal and range of charity and preaching, into the wider field of reform of social structures. They begin to think in categories of “human development and social change.”

There is a consensus emerging among some young evangelicals that says capitalism is no longer the way. And with this rejection of capitalism, socialism will no doubt soon be on the horizon as the alternative. It needs a detailed and rational examination, not a wholesale emotional acceptance induced, perhaps, by blackmail provoked by the sins of our capitalist past.

We must first ask: What kind of socialism? Pol Pot’s socialism in Kampuchea (Cambodia) with its merciless execution of equality between town and country on the lowest common denominator of poverty and privation, or the social democracy of the Fabian Society of G. B. Shaw and the Webbs? There are so many shades of socialism that we must insist that the offer of any be identified. We have seen most of the “really existing” forms of socialism removed from the list of accepted socialistic utopias. Student revolutionaries deny Russia the right to call itself socialist. Leftist European intellectuals’ flirtation with the Cuban model has grown cold since they found out it had little room for intellectual and artistic freedom. Yugoslavia today is experimenting with elements of the market economy, and the same seems to be true for China, which no longer qualifies as a haven for dreams since its realities have been laid open. In consequence, “socialism” today is often a lofty ideal whose representatives are not keen on detail and concrete design. Nevertheless, it is here that we must demand plain speech and unambiguous layout.

Next to the question of the contours of socialism comes the problem of motivation. Common ownership presupposes a good amount of selflessness. The more comprehensive a concept of socialism, the more motivation it will demand of participating individuals. Where would it come from? In 1956 a study group set up by the United Nations found that the kibbutz was the least exportable of Israel’s different types of cooperative villages, simply because it presupposed a commonality of outlook in its members, which could not normally be found elsewhere.

Exactly this is true of the common life of the Christian brotherhood. What is accepted in the church cannot in full be made mandatory for society. It is here that socially conscious evangelicals need to keep biblical distinctions clear. The dangers that befall the theologically careless are obvious: one begins with setting up a high ethos for the fellowship of Christ’s disciples, pointing to the “communism” of the early church (Acts 2:42–47) or to Luke 4:18–19 interpreted as Christ’s prediction of a Year of Jubilee and the redistribution of possessions among believers. At first this is strictly limited to the church: in a sense they are already practicing the disciplines of the life to come. Then, however, someone claims that Christ is Lord of all realms of life, including society, and common ownership is proclaimed a paradigm for the world. Thus the borderline between church and world is ignored, and we make demands on the world for which it does not have the necessary presuppositions. Christ said, first make the tree good, then its fruit will be good.

Therefore, we will have to examine carefully just what of Christian ethics is applicable in the wider field of society. Due to Christian sobriety in the assessment of human nature, there can be no uncritical acceptance of far-flung programs of socialism for the whole of society. Beyond that, we will do well to remind ourselves that there can be no healthy or lasting change of social structures without a change in people. That is what Christ came for in the first place. Therefore, one might suggest that a reversal of the formula “human development and social change” is called for: human change, and so, social development.

Klaus Bockmühl is professor of theology and ethics, Regent College, Vancouver, Canada.

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