Does Socialism Have to be Godless?

No, as, Catholics, blacks and women have shown.

CT reviews  a new book on that question here:  https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/november-web-only/spiritual-socialists-vaneesa-cook.html

It's curious to me how premodern Jews and Christians forbade the charging of interest (usury). For example, see Exodus 22:24; Leviticus 25:36-37; Deuteronomy 23:20-21; Ezekiel 18:17; Ezekiel 22:12; Nehemiah 5:7; Psalm 15: the first Council of Nicea and the Third and Fourth Lateran councils. But as the meaning of usury changed (from "charging interest" to "charging exorbitant interest,") the door was opened for modern capitalism, which depends on interest-bearing loans.

Today, capitalism has so captured the modern Christian mind that the many take it to be ordained by God. For them, the thought of any other economic system is tantamount to heresy and a "threat to democracy." They cannot conceive of "democratic socialism," and so defend capitalism and attempts to regulate it as 'un-American," reciting mantras about how Capitalism has raised the standard of living.

In 2011, Sandy Goodmanwrote about "the almost blind faith that Friedman’s followers and most other present-day economists have in Adam Smith’s 'invisible hand.' They believe that the free market, unimpeded by government, will almost inevitably produce good outcomes. This kind of thinking substitutes theology for economics. And many times, it just isn’t true." https://www.huffpost.com/entry/whatever-happened-to-the_b_135191

There are socialists who deny God, and there are capitalists who do so as well. (Exhibit A: His Stable Genius of Unmatched Wisdom.) The Spiritual Socialists show us a different way.