![\"markets](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/766\/2015\/04\/markets-and-morals.png\")
<\/a>As their weekly writing assignment in preparation for seminar, I asked students to select a point of disagreement between the authors (the disagreements were legion), describe briefly the position of each author on the selected issue, then take a side supported by argumentation. Two-thirds of the way through the semester, my sophomores should be able to do this\u2014identify issues, fairly and accurately describe various arguments, and take a position that is both fair to other relevant positions and supported by evidence and argument. So I was disappointed when more than one student ended their essay with something like \u201cI prefer X\u2019s position because Y sounds a lot like socialism.\u201d<\/p>\nSigh. In my comments on such papers, I always include something like \u201cThat\u2019s a description, not an argument. It\u2019s related to another sort of description masquerading as an argument: \u2018I disagree with Z, therefore Z is wrong.\u2019\u201d But I digress. What got me to thinking about this most recently was a story\u00a0from The Acts of the Apostles<\/em>\u00a0that will be one of the Sunday texts in a couple of weeks : 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. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There 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. They laid it at the apostles\u2019 feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need<\/strong>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of my favorite passages from the New Testament\u2014as I read it, I thought of my student. \u201cDude!\u201d I thought, \u201cIt\u2019s a good thing you didn\u2019t hear this\u2014because this\u00a0really<\/strong> sounds like socialism!\u201d In the past I have used this text in class to poke at the unquestioned assumptions carried by students who, often coming from a faith-based upbringing in an upper middle class or wealthy household, believe This passage from Acts<\/em>\u00a0is sometimes linked to the familiar story of \u201cdoubting Thomas\u201d that is tomorrow\u2019s gospel reading from John. In spite of the bad rap Thomas has gotten over the centuries for being the one disciple loser who refused to believe that Jesus had risen until he had seen him and touched him first person (of course, none of the other disciples believed until they had first-hand contact either, but let\u2019s not go there), he is one of my all-time heroes. By both personality and profession I am naturally skeptical\u2013I Why, I have often wondered (and have often asked my students), did the early Christian communities choose to organize themselves economically in the manner described in Acts<\/em>? They are close enough in time to Jesus\u2019 physical presence that undoubtedly some of their members actually knew him in the flesh, or at least knew some people who did. But if the vision is not going to fade, such communities cannot rely on first-hand remembrance of the source. Practices and attitudes reflective of the values the community is committed to must be embedded in the very fiber and structure of the common life of the group. <\/a>Part of my job as a professor is to convince my students that a liberally educated human being earns the right to have her opinions. Unearned opinions are like body parts\u2014everybody has them. Plato lists \u201copinion\u201d low on his ladder representing the climb from ignorance to wisdom. Moving up this ladder one or two rungs from \u201copinion\u201d to something closer to knowledge involves learning that just believing something does not make it true, realizing that disagreement is the beginning of justifying one\u2019s beliefs, not the end. It\u2019s always discouraging to realize that someone can make it to almost half way through their undergraduate college career and not have learned this.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>that somehow their capitalist free-market attachments and their background framework of religious values will fit seamlessly together as if by magic. \u201cThey sound like a bunch of communists!\u201d more than student has remarked in shock, and indeed they (anachronistically) do. Welcome to the lifelong task of trying to live a life of coherent belief and commitment!<\/p>\n<\/a> think that doubt is closer to godliness than cleanliness. Just as I take the great skeptic Michel de Montaigne as a model for how to do philosophy, I consider Thomas as one of my models for how to approach the spiritual life, something I share with many of my spiritual guides ranging from Kathleen Norris, Christian\u00a0Wiman and Joan Chittister to Anne Lamott, <\/a>Rowan Williams and Barbara Brown Taylor. Most homilies about this gospel draw the moral of the story from Jesus\u2019 gentle criticism of Thomas\u2019 attitude: \u201cHave you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.\u201d But there is seeing and then there is seeing<\/strong>. Except for a select few, those who have committed themselves to Jesus in any way have never seen him physically. But without a direct encounter\u2014without truly seeing<\/strong> something worth committing to\u2014faith commitment can easily become sterile religion.<\/p>\n<\/a>At some point, given that a new community of followers of the Way was seeking both stability and faithfulness to the message, someone must have asked \u201cHow would Jesus have organized this community if he were here?\u201d Somebody remembers the parables, another person recalls the Beatitudes, and pretty soon they become a small, primitive laboratory for the Gospel. \u00a0How to truly become Jesus in community form? By putting into action what the man supposedly said and lived. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Shelter the homeless. Love each other as God loves us. This wasn\u2019t church for them\u2014this was life. Most likely their very survival depended on it.<\/p>\n