The Early Church Was Not Socialist, by Paul Kengor

By Paul Kengor, Crisis Magazine, April 19, 2021

Paul Kengor is Professor of Political Science at Grove City College, executive director of the Center for Vision and Values. He is the author, most recently, of The Devil and Karl Marx (TAN Books, 2020).

“The early church was a socialist church.”

So said Rev. Raphael Warnock in 2016, four years before the citizens of Georgia elected him a U.S. senator.

It’s a strange statement, least of all because the description “socialist church” is an oxymoron. Not only would the Church fathers be puzzled by it, but so would socialism’s fathers. “Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms,” stated Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno, “no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.” ….