Economist and historian Lawrence W. Reed has been hearing people say “Jesus was a socialist” for fifty years. And it has always bothered him. Now he is doing something about it. Reed demolishes the claim that Jesus was a socialist. Jesus called on earthly governments to redistribute wealth? Or centrally plan the economy? Or even impose a welfare state? Hardly. Point by point, Reed answers the claims of socialists and progressives who try to enlist Jesus in their causes. As he reveals, nothing in the New Testament supports their contentions. Was Jesus a Socialist? could not be more timely. Socialism has made a shocking comeback in America. Poll after poll shows that young Americans have a positive image of socialism. In fact, more than half say they would rather live in a socialist country than in a capitalist one. And as socialism has come back into vogue, more and more of its advocates have tried to convince us that Jesus was a socialist. This rhetoric has had an impact. According to a 2016 poll by the Barna Group, Americans think socialism aligns better with Jesus’s teachings than capitalism does. When respondents were asked which of that year’s presidential candidates aligned closest to Jesus’s teachings, a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” came out on top. Sure enough, the same candidate earned more primary votes from under-thirty voters than did the eventual Democratic and Republican nominees combined. And in a 2019 survey, more than seventy percent of millennials said they were likely to vote for a socialist. Was Jesus a Socialist? expands on the immensely popular video of the same name that Reed recorded for Prager University in July 2019. That video has attracted more than four million views online. Ultimately, Reed shows the foolishness of trying to enlist Jesus in any political cause today. He writes: “While I don’t believe it is valid to claim that Jesus was a socialist, I also don’t think it is valid to argue that he was a capitalist. Neither was he a Republican or a Democrat. These are modern-day terms, and to apply any of them to Jesus is to limit him to but a fraction of who he was and what he taught.”

Christian Socialism arose in England in the mid-nineteenth century as a response to the philosophy of 'political economy' - now commonly called neoliberalism. Seeking not institutional change or nationalisation, but a reform of the moral underpinnings of society, it refuted the assumption that people are essentially selfish, competitive individuals seeking nothing but personal happiness. Although they did not deny the presence of selfishness, its proponents believed that the social nature of humankind lies deeper than such egotism and conflict, and pursued a society built on this belief. Less prominent now than at the time of its inception, Christian Socialism nevertheless continues into the twenty-first century, its goal nothing less than a new society built upon the virtues of equality, fellowship, cooperation, service and justice. Philip Turner's careful exposition traces the history of this strand of Anglican political thought and restores confidence in its message for the future.

"This full-scale study of Christian socialism, from the beginnings of the Jewish-Christian tradition through the present day, argues that socialism, per se, is basically Christian"--

The triumph of the New Right and the collapse of Communism forced the Left to redefine socialism. Some discovered an alternative in the Christian Socialist tradition, which became much better known when Tony Blair and other noted figures described how their political beliefs derived from their Christian faith.

Who was Jesus? And how was this first-century political revolutionary, whose teachings are meant to lead the way to freedom, turned into a meek and mild servant of the status quo? How is it possible to profess a belief in Jesus, yet ignore the suffering of the poor and the needy? Just how truly faithful to the vision of Jesus are the many politicians who claim to be Christian? These are the kinds of questions Obery Hendricks, a biblical scholar, activist, and minister, asks in this provocative new book. In this day and age of heated political debate, Hendricks’s The Politics of Jesus stands out as much for its brilliant re-creation of the life and mind of Jesus of Nazareth as for its scathing critique of modern politicians “of faith.”