might use the term proto-socialism – to show that their position is no postmodern novelty. The collectivism recorded in Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:44–5; 4:32, 34–5) is seen as the first fruits of a new order of society, the application of Christ’s denunciations of selfishness and materialism, the immediate consequence of the ministry of the Holy Spirit which began at Pentecost; it was the realisation of brotherhood and justice. The church community represented not a disparate conglomeration of individuals but, as the Apostle Paul described it, a body of many members all working towards the same goal (1 Corinthians 12:12–27). In this community ‘[t]here is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3:28). These truths are reflected in the sacraments of the church, especially communion, which speaks of collective unity and togetherness.
Radical and socialist Christians often accuse the institutional church of not living up to this grand creed, at the same time as noting the individuals and the movements that have. Samuel E. Keeble, the British Wesleyan Methodist, quotes freely from the early church fathers, first pointing to the words of Tertullian: ‘We who mingle in mind and soul have no hesitation as to fellowship in property.’ Cyprian is then quoted, commanding that Christians should ‘imitate the equality of God in the common gifts of nature, which the whole human race should equally enjoy’. ‘The unequal division of wealth,’ writes Ambrose of Milan, ‘is the result of egoism and violence.’15 Ambrose is also quoted by the American Catholic John C. Cort: ‘God has ordered all things to be produced so that there should be food in common for all, and that the earth should be the common possession of all. Nature, therefore, has produced a common right for all, but greed has made it a right for a few.’16 Keeble refers to the warnings of Augustine of Hippo Regius about private property: ‘Let us, therefore, my brethren, abstain from the possession of private property, or from the love of it if we cannot abstain from the possession of it.’17 Augustine’s condemnation of economic injustice is, says Cort, ‘the cornerstone of Christian socialism’.18
Radical movements of the late medieval and early modern periods are also co-opted into this account of a radical tradition. The peasants’ uprisings of fourteenth-century England and sixteenth-century Germany, including figures such as John Wycliffe, John Ball and Thomas Muntzer, are held up as examples of prophetic opposition to the corruption of state and church, as is the Diggers movement of the seventeenth century, which declared the earth a ‘Common Treasury’ for all mankind.19 Denominational differences account for whether the precapitalist guild economy and the monasteries of Roman Catholic Europe, or the modernising zeal of the magisterial reformers – Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli – are held up as part of the back-story of religious socialism but, in either case, the social conscience and opposition to economic exploitation of Catholics such as Thomas Moore and Protestants such as Hugh Latimer are cited by way of proof that Christianity has not always gone hand-in-hand with the spirit of capitalism.
These movements are just some of those making up a thread of radicalism, which underpinned the American and French revolutions and informed the liberal and socialist ideologies that developed throughout the long nineteenth century. Radical movements were often secular in nature, such as the attempt of the French Revolution to depose Christianity and install in its place a state religion devoted to the worship of Reason, possibly in an attempt to fulfil the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract.20 Yet there was always a religious component, calling attention to a message of brotherhood, collectivism, equality, justice and liberty, which had seemingly been forgotten by both secular radicals and the conservative-minded established churches. These movements constitute both the prehistory and philosophical foundation of the Christian Left. The term Christian Left should not be taken to signify a mirror image of the US religious Right. Rather, the phrase is here used to encompass broad and disparate political-theological trends which may be summed with the terms radical and socialist. This, as we shall see, encompasses many different movements and ideological positions.
This book considers the Christian Socialism of the UK; the religious socialism of continental Europe; the Social Gospel, civil rights and black liberation movements, and ‘red-letter’ evangelicalism of the United States; the liberation theology of Latin America, as well as of Africa and the Middle East; feminist, womanist and LGBT+ theologies of liberation. Some of these focused more on economic socialism or social democracy; others on progressive, intersectional or identarian politics. Each movement is itself diverse, and there are many others outside the scope of these pages, which have made their own significant contributions. One of the things the author has discovered in studying radical and socialist Christianity is that there are always movements and individuals that are accidentally overlooked or not given the consideration they perhaps deserve. Some readers may be disappointed to find that movements or persons with which they are familiar have been omitted or neglected. As John Cort commented upon beginning his own account of Christian Socialism, ‘[i]n a book of this ambitious, arrogant scope, it is inevitable that much will be missed or neglected’.21 Nonetheless, this book provides a concise and accessible introduction to the key traditions of the radical and socialist Christian Left.
Notes
1 1. Joseph Maybloom, ‘President Donald Trump’s photo op in front of St John’s Church’, Ecumenica, 13, 2 (2020): p. 231.
2 2. Ibid.
3 3. Harriet Sherwood, ‘White evangelical Christians stick by Trump again, exit polls show’, Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/06/white-evangelical-christians-supported-trump.
4 4. Matthew Teague, ‘“He wears the armor of God”: evangelicals hail Trump’s church photo op’, Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/03/donald-trump-church-photo-op-evangelicals.
5 5. Paul LeBlanc, ‘Bishop at DC church outraged by Trump visit: “I just can’t believe what my eyes have seen”’, CNN, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/01/politics/cnntv-bishop-trump-photo-op/index.html.
6 6. ‘New England Episcopal bishops respond with one voice to President’s “cynical” photo-op’ (2020).
7 7. Francis Johnson, Keir Hardie’s Socialism (London: ILP, 1922), p. 12.
8 8. Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston MA: Beacon Press, 1983), p. 23.
9 9. Stewart D. Headlam, The Socialist’s Church (London: G. Allen, 1907), p. 8.
10 10. James Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism (London: G. Allen, 1907), p. 38.
11 11. Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation (Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books, 1973), p. 35.
12 12. Jonathan Schneer, George Lansbury (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), p. 1.
13 13. Robyn J. Whitaker, ‘Trump’s photo op with church and Bible was offensive, but not new’, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/trumps-photo-op-with-church-and-bible-was-offensive-but-not-new-140053.
14 14. Woody Guthrie, ‘Jesus Christ’, https://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Jesus_Christ.htm.
15 15. Samuel E. Keeble, Christian Responsibility for the Social Order (London: Epworth
