www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Marxism and Christianity

Dear Friends,

In a Russian-language article on "www.pravoslavie.ru" today there is a discussion about the current efforts of some Russian communists to link Marxism up with Christianity.

The article disparages such a theoretical venture and goes into the differences between the two, saying that Marxism and communism can never be said to dovetail with Christian ethics.

For example, Marxism is based on a materialist foundation, it exalts the role of the human instinct, it disparages, as part of the bourgeois system of moral control of the lower classes, the idea of Original Sin etc.

I remember in university when a number of Catholic professors accepted a form of "Christian Marxism" and the Liberation Theology.

One writer wrote about the "obvious correctness of Marxism" and the minimum "etiological differences" between Marxism and Christianity.

To me, it is amazing that the Church in the former Soviet Union is going through something similar - yet its position is one of negating Marxism and communism to the letter.

Alex

Well, Alex, there is a Christian socialism which is not at all Marxixt and which developed especially in Britain in the 19th Century. This was most apparent in the founding of the Labour Party in Britain and the influences of the Welsh Methodist chapels and the preaching of social justice. It is a great tradition which again has nothing to do with Marxist materialism. As Harold Wilson once said about Labour "it owes more to Methodism then Marx"

Perhaps they should translate Hillaire Belloc's "The Servile State" into Russian. I think they would find his ideas about Catholic distributivism extremely enlightening as I did.

It is interesting to read the literature of Belloc and Chesterton on distributionism, because they are strict critics of both capitalism and communism. Yet, in doing so, they can recognize some of the truth which is in Marxism, and even suggest that socialists like William Morris actually were in agreement with their economic-state views.

What is often the case is that people considers Marxism wrong (properly), but do not understand where and how it was right. It is the general truth that error is often a truth taken to an extreme, and removed from all other truths. If you look to Marxism, it is easy to see that it does have legitimate points and criticisms of capitalism and the way it had become oppressive to the poorer in societies. Charles Dickens' novels demonstrate quite well the horrors often inflicted upon the underclass, and it should not surprise us that they would therefore become attracted to the utopian vision that Marx suggests.

Modern day liberation theologians, when incorporating Marxist critique, try to do so by re-integrating the truths inherent in Marx with the rest of the truths of the Gospel. Some I would say do so more successfully than others. Some get trapped into Marx's materialistic worldview, but others go beyond that, and use Marx as a tool, and one which has been baptized. Is it any different from when theologians turned to Aristotle, and used Aristotle as a tool? Perhaps, in the sense that Marx is post-Christian. But in this sense, it means Marx incorporated more of the Christian truth in his message than he might care to recognize, and so should be easier to fix and baptize his views.

A very interesting book which demonstrates many of the Christian undertones of Russian Communism, which is a different creature than Marx's to be sure, is Berdyaev's "Origins of Russian Communism." Yet when you read it, you can also begin to see how even what is good in Marx is infused with a spirit which is at home with a Saint John Chrysostom or St Basil.

Which leads us back to the distributionists. Some have even called them crypto-Marxists, because they do engage in many of the same criticisms as the Marxists did. There was even a famous debate between Chesterton and Shaw entitled, "Do we agree?" with Belloc as the moderator. While we can and must recognize that Belloc and Chesterton do transcend the Marxism, because they transcend the empirical materialism of a Marx, it really does seem that they can help demonstrate the way which a liberation theologian can take the truths in Marxist critique, and put them back into the Christian teachings of Social Justice.

Henry, that reminds me of one great Belloc quote "Industrial Capitalism and its attendant parasite" - you can guess what the atttendant parasite was.

Belloc was indeed perhaps even more frequently the cause of scorn and derision of the conservative capitalists of his time (Chesterton as well but less frequently). Without fail he always held his own.

I think perhaps it is a bit of a stretch to carry that into liberation theology. Belloc called for distribution and redistribution, if necessary. Perhaps empirically there may be some similarities to Marx, but those cease rather quickly beyond the empirical.

The liberation theologians basically attempted to christianized Marx into an activist manifestation, fully agreeing with his bringing down of the "structures" which is foreign to Belloc.

And noone except Belloc could write this:

Just caught the typo.

My caffeine-deprived synapse gap...

Dear Brian,

Yes, of course!

In fact, in the 19th century, Henry Morgan's "London Labour and the London Poor", the four volume sociological magnum opus about the victims of industrialization there, demonstrated how much the Catholic Church was involved with social action.

The investigator was told that the London poor had no religion, but if they HAD to have one, they would "all become Catholic tomorrow."

This was because the Protestant missionaries brought them bibles and pamphlets. The Catholic missionaries brought them food and blankets.

So you say there's "Methodism in the madness" of social conscience, do you?

Alex

Dear Henry,

I think the Church in Russia still has vivid memories of persecution by the anti-religious Soviets to even consider Marxism in ANY kind of positive light.

Yes, there is the issue you raise, that of "baptizing" an outside philosopher, such as Aristotle et al.

But Orthodoxy at least would also strenuously deny that baptizing Aristotle was a positive development for the Church - a kind of "adapting to the world" rather than "witnessing to the world."

Having been a good student of Marxist sociology, I really don't see what positive contributions to Christian witness the liberation theologians have made - other than to try and be compatriots with the Marxist guerilla movements in Latin America.

For me, the fundamental issue is Marxism's critique of Christianity as a simple tool of the upper classes to create a world-view to make the lower classes subject to false consciousness etc.

That is really central to Marxism and the Marxist view of religion as a superstructural element within the context of historical materialism.

Some political theologians say the etiological differences between Christianity and Marxism can be resolved by, for example, saying that where Marxism says the environment ABSOLUTELY determines human outcomes, one can make this "agree" with Christianity by saying that the environment "CONDITIONS" human outcomes.

Marxism gave rise to the autocratic states of the Soviet system et al. For those who suffered under them (not including, of course, Western thinkers), uniting Christianity with Marxism is like trying to make Nazism more palatable.

Alex

Alex,

People sometimes confuse Marxism with its particilar criticisms of Christianity -- without looking to the situation and reasons why Marx himself felt that Christianity needed to be criticized. Even those criticisms have an element of truth in them, which is why the sting so much. We can see a similar criticism in the writings of Vladimir Solovyov:

"I shall not dispute those who at the present time maintain a negative attitude towards the religious principle. I shall not argue with the contemporary opponents of religion -- because they are right. I say that those who at the present time refuse religion are right, because religion appears in reality not what it ought to be. [...] Contempoary religion represents a very pitiful thing: properly speaking, religion as the dominating principle, as the the center of spiritual attraction, does not exist today..." (Lectures on Godmanhood, Lecture 1).

By understanding and recognizing the critiques are correct, there is then the ability for a true reformation and restoration of what religion could and should be. By understanding that Marx's critique centered upon a problem of his time, where indeed religion was often being used as an opiate, to blind the people from their suffering by promises of another life without even believing that life, in the here and now, should also be full -- that the faith is incarnational and not gnostic -- meant that religion had indeed become a tool for oppression and not liberation. Marxism has often been criticized as doing the exact same thing: promising a better future, some escatological end not realized now. Indeed, it is often seen that Marxist eschatology is fundamentally united with the religious eschatology of its time, although with one benefit neglected by religion of its time: it still saw that action must be taken to improve the situation, and not just let the powers that be remain unopposed in their oppression.

Sergius Bulgakov, who went from Marxist to Christian, realized the problems of Marxist ideology lay in its incomplete understanding of the world, and its prophecies were unfulfilled because they failed to grasp the whole. Yet, even in his Philosophy of Economy: World as Household one can note that what he saw was good and true in Marxist thought, what attracted to him and many others to Marxism, still held true. We must incarnate the faith, and Marxism by becoming materialistic, required an incarnation -- but of a kind which ignored the spirit. It was a dead end because it had cut itself off from the process of Godmanhood (to follow Solovyov), when it could have been a great tool for an incarnational, realized Christianity which took seriously the incarnation and its ramifications to the world: we are not to abandon the world, but transform it.

Henry has made some excellent points.

Indeed Bulgakov did not take a "sour grapes" approach and eschew all he had considered as a Marxist, rather he saw that intrinsically there were objective criticisms made that absolutely had to be dealt with in the realm of the religious sense and its relation to life conditions in general. While those are objective observations not just under the ownership of Marx, it was he who brought some of them to light in a different way.

The incarnational and transfigurational aspects and possibilities of Christianity are still there, were and are always there to both he and Soloviev. But I think this is where Christianity makes a grave departure from Marxism ultimately.

In its Soviet form the "system" itself consumed many of the brightest students of Soloviev and Bulgakov, those among the most concerned of their time about the human condition, such luminaries as St. Pavel Florensky and later Alexander Men.

Dear Henry and Diak,

O.K., I'm going to play "Devil's Advocate" here AGAINST Marx (with apologies to Myles ).

I was trained as a Marxist sociologist. I have rejected Marxism and regard it as one among many theories (ever so popular though it is).

I see Marxism as a complete system of thought - and Christian anthropology as a complete system of thought in its own rite .

Can either of you tell me how Marxism contributes to my own perspective on anthropology and sociology grounded in Orthodox Christian theology and principles?

I don't mean where Marxism and Christianity come close to each other.

I mean where Marxism can contribute something that our Christian social perspectives don't already make that contribution.

Whenever you're ready . . .

And please don't be afraid of what I'll say in response. I had a substantial lunch today

Alex

Dear Diak,

Yes, the Soviet system did indeed "consume" a large number of Orthodox Christian luminaries.

I won't shock anyone with the details . . .

Alex

Pan Doktor, I'm not waving any flags for Marxism, by any means, actually quite to the contrary. I agree with Belloc in an inherent error of Marxism with its rejection of a religious sense for a materialistic sense (which is also the case for capitalism albeit in a very different way).

Seeing how many of my very favorite saints (as my dear avatar saint and St. Leonid Federov) were martyred and decimated by the Soviet manifestation of that system (including some of my own relatives) how could I be otherwise?

As I mentioned (I thought) quite clearly, Christianity takes a radical turn away from Marxism in its incarnational and transfigurational aspects which both Bulgakov and Soloviev and others after them noticed. At that point the two become rather radically separate and ultimately opposed, as Marxism can never shed its overt fixation on materialism to which Christianity has a quite different view and approach.

Henry did make a good point about Bulgakov to which I agree. Bulgakov saw problems with Marxism, which he was not afraid to comment on. But he also saw a universal desire for the well-being and justice of your fellow human beings in Marx as perhaps not inherently opposed to Christianity, no? Is a concern for the justice of your fellow mankind out of line?

Now how that ontologic philosophical concern gets manifested and carried out in a sociological and economic way is another question entirely and of course is where Marxism takes a tailspin.

I do believe as an Eastern Christian ultimately when these are carried out Marxism cannot in any way benefit Christianity, and in the time since Marx any governmental manifestation of Marxism has become quite opposed to Christianity. That in itseld should an indicator of what it has to offer to Christianity.

And I've read and even heard some first-hand accounts of that genocide... As Schmemann once pondered about Stalin, how could someone from a good Georgian Orthodox family reject his Baptism in such a way?

I posit the most historically stable form of communal society, the longest lasting, and the most completely distributivist is in our own back yard - Christian monasticism. The Wadi Natrun community dates back to the early 300s A.D.

Dear Diak,

Agreed!

I am not suggesting that Marxism is not about the well-being etc.

Perhaps it originally was. We don't have Marx around to find out what he was really about and there are both positive and negative interpretations. I judge no theory - except by its fruits.

Marx himself commented on "Christian Socialism" and disparaged it rather severely, making reference to "holy water" being sprinkled on a hidden bourgeois agenda.

But, from a secular point of view, Marx's insight into the relationship between the worker and what he or she produced was a good one and one that most capitalists today would agree is something that needs to be built into a formula for organizational success.

Marx's categories of economic base and superstructure are useful points of social analysis. Class struggle - this defines many societies today still in a very obvious way.

I once sat in on a lecture given by a former leader of the Japanese Socialist Party.

He basically said that international socialism cannot move forward "without the insights into the human spirit offered by religion."

Marx, like Freud, shared in a rather simplistic, utopian-style world-view that characterized the 19th century and that was reductionistic to an extreme.

Marx had no time for psychology as he regarded it as a tool for atomizing human consciousness that was essentially characterized by social forces.

This was also his conclusion about religion. He felt that Christianity may have, at one time, have been a socially progressive force, but that it was taken over by the upper classes and used as a tool by them to further their own purposes.

At his funeral, Engels affirmed that Marx's view of the world was to free man from what enslaved him to allow him the freedom to work, live and even worship as he saw fit.

Perhaps Engels knew something about Marx that the rest of us don't get from his writings.

Comrade Alex