By Karyn Carlo
I am a Christian socialist adult-Sunday-school teacher. Does that sound weird? Maybe it’s because the loudest Christian voices in our country right now are those of the stridently capitalist Christian nationalists whose version of God and the Bible we on the Left want nothing to do with. These “Bible believers” cite Christian scripture to justify racism, white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and U.S. exceptionalism, and we are sick of it. It is no wonder that many democratic socialists, along with others on the Left, have abandoned religion altogether in favor of a more secular vision of the future.
But I think that is a mistake. Along with the Qur’an, the Bible is the most widely read book in the world, and it is one of very few popular texts that speak of good news for the poor and freedom for the oppressed. In fact, it was written by the poor and the oppressed and speaks to their hope of liberation. Its major themes are not hatred and intolerance but love and justice. That’s why I teach Sunday school. It is our text!
Let’s look at some of the key concepts.
Beloved Communities
The Beloved Community is a term often associated with Martin Luther King, Jr., but that has its origins in the early church. (For background, look at Acts 2,4, 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.)
Described in the book of Acts and in the letters of Paul, these faith communities give us a glimpse of what life together was like in the early Jesus movement. Then, as now, those who believed in love and justice while living in a hateful and unjust world faced interpersonal conflict, disagreed about doctrine and belief, and struggled to be true to their core values. Nonetheless, they were able to find lasting hope in the crucified and risen Christ and spread that good news to the world around them. In this way they bore witness to the nature of the moral universe and its ultimately bending arc.
Cooperative Economics
Acts 4:32-35:32–Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.³³With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.³⁴There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.³⁵They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
When I teach this to the adults in the Sunday school, I ask the following questions:
- Why do you think the believers chose to do this?
- Can you imagine yourself doing the same?
- Is this what we would call socialism? Why or why not?
- Where do you see this kind of practice happening today?
- Why is it important that it be based on love ?
- Do systems like this really work? Why or why not?
- How would you describe love- and justice-based economics today?
- Is that what we practice or are changes needed?
Just as studying and questioning some of the foundational texts, such as Marx’s Capital is important for today’s socialists, so, too, is interrogating our own foundational religious texts. If you’re in a Christian church, your potential study group probably already owns the book.
Karyn Carlo is a liberation theologian who received her M.Div. and Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary. Parts of this article are excerpted from her forthcoming book entitled The Arc of the Moral Universe: Love Justice, and the Bible (REBEL FAITH PUBLISHING, 2026).
absolutely not.