I.
Introduction
The
reality of a Marxist-Christian dialogue extends as far back as the theory of
Marxism itself. Marx’s theory contained
within it a specific critique of the Judeo-Christian tradition, as well as the
theistic perspective in general. The
philosopher Merold Westphal makes this point clear in his examination of Marx’s
critique of religion.[1] Christian theologians have also been critical
of Marx’s theoretical perspective. Throughout
the history of this dialogue a small number of Christian and Marxist thinkers
have recognized the importance of one another’s critiques, and have
incorporated them into their own philosophies.
Unfortunately, this amicable dialogue has remained limited in
scope. Most lay believers are only
superficially aware of Marx’s philosophy, and are suspicious of it. The same is true of the majority of
self-professed Marxists. They know little
about the Bible and the Christian faith, and often this is the result of
contemporary Marxist polemics against both.
It is my contention that both Christians and Marxists can gain something
from a more positive exchange of ideas.
In this essay, I will
attempt to demonstrate the some of the benefits to be gained from such an open
examination of each perspective. I will
begin with the positive insight(s) that Marx’s critique provides Christianity. I will then move onto the beneficial aspect
of the Christian analysis of Marx’s perspective. Finally, I will conclude with a discussion of
what both Marxists and Christians can learn from Anabaptist theology. In each of the first two sections I will
attempt to provide a brief summary of why an open dialogue is necessary for the
aims of both positions.
II. What Christians Should Learn
From Marx
A. Why Dialogue is Necessarily Beneficial
for the Christian Position
The critique of
religion provided by Karl Marx is perhaps the most pertinent for the modern
Christian community. Most Christians
would do well to familiarize themselves with at least some of the basic
concepts of Marx’s work. This is true
for several reasons. First, even though
the Soviet Union has collapsed, the communist-materialist philosophy remains
the cultural backdrop for a large number of people. As the philosopher Peter Kreeft has pointed
out, Marxism completely change the trajectory of Western culture and
philosophy.[2] Second, there is currently a revival of
Marxist theory within European philosophical circles and Western academia. Recently a number of books have been
published defending the original claims of the Marxist perspective.[3] Indeed, several of the more popular figures
in global academia have embraced one of the various forms of Marxist theory.[4] If Christians desire to have meaningful
conversations with these individuals a familiarity with Marx’s fundamental
ideas is necessary. Third, it is
important for Christians to become familiar with the Marxist critique because
it provides the community of believers with a means of discerning problems with
the ways that their faith has been expressed in material-relational terms. Merold Westphal has made this abundantly
clear in his book Suspicion and Faith: the
Religious Uses of Modern Atheism.[5] Finally, it is my contention that there are
certain aspects of the Christian faith that the Marxist critique can help the
community of believers recover.
B. The Positive insight(s) that Marx’s
Critique Provides Christianity
The most important
lesson which Marx’s critique provides to the Church is that the material aspect
of human existence is important to human spiritual[6]
development. It can be argued that at
least since the time of Augustine, the concept of a separate substance called
“the soul” has been important to Christian theology.[7] This idea has persisted into the contemporary
period. While there is nothing harmful
in the “soul” concept itself, it has been used to twist certain aspects of the
Christian gospel. It will be helpful to
examine the work of a few prominent liberation theologians in order to clarify
this point.
The Latin American
theologian José Miranda has written a great deal about this subject. In his book Marx and The Bible: A Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression he
discusses what he perceives as the negative effects of theological
dualism. For Miranda this dualism
results in anti-messianism. He
demonstrates that the Christian idea of the soul or self is often set in
opposition with the natural world.[8] The soul, which Miranda refers to as the “I,”
is tied to another realm commonly referred to as “heaven.” This necessarily denies any concept of the
“Kingdom of God” which manifests itself in the present, material world. According to Miranda, however, at least part
of the Kingdom of God must be manifest in history and in the material world,
and so must speak to our material existence.
He makes this clear when he states that “[t]he biblical communication of
understanding, the word, evangelizing, does not proclaim eternal and general
truth, but rather a historic fact.”[9] To clarify this point even further it is
necessary to quote at length from Miranda’s book:
The generative nucleus of all
solipsism, the true ironclad refuge of the “I,” consists in keeping the eschaton perpetually in the future. There is no authentic, enjoining otherness if
the moment of justice for the entire world has not arrived. Only this unrepeatable and uncategorizable fact
constitutes an “other.” Only this can
deliver us from the chains in which “this world” has us captive.[10]
In other words, the eschaton holds a certain significance
for our present, material existence. The
message of the Bible is applicable to our own historic epoch.
In
response to Miranda’s theological materialism some have argued that Pauline
theology appears to support a dualistic worldview. Paul frequently refers to the opposition that
exists between “the spirit,” and “the flesh.”
Miranda responds to this criticism by insisting that this reading of
Paul takes for granted the Platonic view of spiritual substance.[11] Miranda reads the spirit/flesh passages in
Paul in a manner similar to that of H.D. Wendland, Otto Michel and
Bultmann. He views these references as
demonstrative of Paul’s view that new form of justice has entered into God’s
creation.
With regard to the body, Paul is
diametrically opposed to Platonism. He
desires and expects the liberation of our bodies (Rom. 8:11, 13). The body must be a weapon of justice (Rom.
6:13). And this is not only our bodies;
all creation is in anxious expectation of liberation (Rom. 8:19, 21). Paul does not derive evil from the flesh nor
from what is corporeal.[12]
A question remains
still remains to be asked. One is lead
to wonder how this false, dichotomous view of nature has been allowed to
continue in theological circles if Miranda’s reading of the scripture is
correct. He derives his answer from a
direct reading of Marx. Miranda believes
that the error of theological dualism continues because it is an ideology that helps
the powerful justify injustice and sedates the demand for justice among the
oppressed.[13] He indicates that the real “immorality” of
the West is its anti-messianism, derived from its Platonic reading of the bible
in the interest of maintaining the socio-economic status quo.[14] Miranda asserts that “there is nothing that
the West fears so much as our being convinced that the kingdom of God has
come.”[15]
Through Miranda
the larger community of believers is given a tangible example of the potential
for the positive influence of Marxism on Christian thought. There are benefits for the Christian
community if it remains open to what Merold Westphal[16]
has called the Marxist “hermeneutic of suspicion.” If it does so then it can gain access the
material concept of justice present in the Bible. In this way, Christian laity and theologians
alike can avoid the paralysis of “static metaphysics” and move into the
“concrete utopia” of the Gospel of Jesus.[17]
II.
What
Marxists Should Learn from Christian Theology
A. Why Dialogue is Necessarily Beneficial
for the Marxist Position
This dialogue is
not entirely one way. There are also a
few criticisms that the Christian community can provide Marxists that will
enable them to resolve some of the contradictions within their ideology. Several contemporary Marxists have already
recognized this. Consequently, a number
of books have recently been published in which Marxist philosophers and
scholars attempt to incorporate Christian concepts with Marxist theory.[18]
One of the more
robust proponents of a Marxist recovery of the Christian tradition is the
Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek. He
has written several books on the subject of Christianity. In each of these texts he is trying to
describe the importance of Christianity in relation to Marxism and
philosophy. Perhaps the most intriguing
of these is the book The Fragile
Absolute: Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For.[19] Žižek’s main thesis throughout the course of
this book is that postmodernism has made positive political commitments and
philosophical projects appear spurious.
He indicates that this is because the postmodern critique of Modernist
epistemology has left the various Enlightenment philosophies empty. Roland Boer clarifies this point in Criticism of Heaven: On Marxism and Theology:
In his debates with Butler and
Laclau, Žižek perpetually returned to this point, although with myriad
variations. More fundamental than any
political act, or truth-event, is the yawning void, the moment of radical
negativity that destabilizes any act. So
what is the authentic political act?[20]
For Žižek the answer ultimately
resides in a materialist recovery of the Christian concept of love, or αγαπε (agape).
Žižek’s
incorporation of Christian love into the Marxist political project is a bit
difficult to understand. It requires an
examination of The Fragile Absolute
in its entirety. The problem that he is
attempting to address is much more important for the current discussion. It reveals the fact that many have found the
Marxist endeavor to be as untenable as other Enlightenment inspired schools of
thought. Merold Westphal points out that
Marx, as a “son” of the Enlightenment attempted to salvage certain
characteristics of God with the “ersatz god” of “secular Reason.”[21] In other words, Marxism has, like other
Enlightenment critiques of religion, undermined its own project.[22] In removing fundamental theological
categories, Marxism has removed any solid footing on which it could previously
stand.
B. The Positive
insight(s) that Christianity Provides the Marxist Critique
Žižek’s
work has provided Marxists with a novel attempt at incorporating elements of
Christianity into Marxism. He is not,
however, alone in this attempt. Many
other Marxists including Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Louis Althusser, Alain
Badiou and Theodor Adorno have made similar attempts.[23] Each of these individuals attempted to
recover a different element of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Each of these attempts further confirm that
Marxism lack the necessary telos to
give its own political project anything beyond a theoretical direction. The “concrete utopia” which Bloch is
searching for remains perpetually in a distant future.[24] Here one is left to wonder what, if anything
in Christian theology can help Marxist overcome this impasse. The question that was examined in Žižek’s
work remains.
Here
it is instructive to return to the work of José Miranda. His work, representing a concrete combination
of Christian theology and Marxist critique provides insight in the case as
well. In his book Marx Against the Marxists, Miranda acknowledges the problem
described above. In general, it is
Miranda’s position that Marxism is finds itself floundering because many of its
proponents place too great an emphasis on the empirical elements of Marx’s
thought. This is especially clear in the
chapter titled “A Free Subject.”[25] In this chapter Miranda points out that Marx
had a positive view of human freedom. It
is this view of human freedom within history that enabled Marx to write the
eleventh of his theses in response to Feuerbach.[26] What has been referred to as the
“determinist” elements of Marx’s thought were distorted by later disciples,
such as Lenin and Stalin. These
individuals portrayed the Marxist view of history in an unyielding, mechanistic
way. According to Miranda, however, this
was a crude simplification of the Marxist view of history and human agency.[27]
This point is
emphasized when Miranda discusses Marx’s relationship to the Judeo-Christian
concept of eschatology. In the chapter entitled “The God of
Historical Eschatology,” Miranda makes this relationship explicit. Here he illustrates aspects of the Marxian
critique that betray a theological bent.
Miranda suggests that Marx embraced a view of history that more closely
reflected the Christian, or Hegelian view.
To do so he includes a lengthy quote in which Marx evokes the image of a
“shrew Spirit,” or Geist who directs
human history toward the hoped for communist utopia.[28] Miranda concludes this chapter with another
quote in which Marx again appears to betray a religious sentiment:
It is impurity of heart and
imagination feeding on frivolous images of the omnipotence of evil and the
impotence of good. It is the imagination
taking pride in sin, the impure heart shrouding worldly pride in mystical
images…It is despair of one’s own salvation that turns personal frailties into
frailties of humanity in order to exonerate its own conscience of them…It is
hypocrisy simulating a God without believing in his reality, in the omnipotence
of good.[29]
Here Miranda makes
a clear connection between Marx and certain aspects of Christian theology. In this case it appears as though Miranda is
in agreement with Gillespie and Žižek.
To the extent that Marxism insists on pursuing a static, scientistic
view of humanity and history it looses its telos. It appears as though the most important thing
that Marxists can learn from Christianity is that the most important elements
of the Marxist critique are “rooted in the Gospel.”[30] This is especially true of the Marxist
concept of a messianic end to history. It
is important to note, however, that a Marxist recovery of the important social
and ethical elements of the Gospel cannot be made piecemeal. The failure of different Marxist attempts has
made this clear.
III. The Positive Insight(s) that Marxist and Christians Can Derive
From the Anabaptists
I would like to
conclude by making a few remarks regarding some insights that both Marxists and
Christians can learn from Anabaptist theology.
What both parties could benefit from is the high Christology of the
Anabaptist tradition.[31] Within Anabaptist Christology one finds a
solution to the problems that have plagued both Christianity and Marxism.
There is a
resolution to the Platonic dualism that has infected Christianity since at
least the time of Augustine. The Jesus
of the New Testament that is emphasized by the Anabaptists does not speak of an
immaterial Kingdom of God. In fact he
insisted in his prayers and sermons that the Kingdom “had come near.”[32]
The personal God
revealed in Christ also eschews the problems associated with an over
scientistic and empirical Marxist view of history. In the person of Christ the a definite telos is found in the historical
process. A proper eschatology is
recovered.
Sources Cited
Agamben, Giorgio The Time that Remains: A Commentary on the
Letter to the Romans (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press,
2005).
Ali, Tariq The Idea of Communism: What Was Communism? (San
Francisco: Seagull Books, 2009).
Andrews, Dave Christi-anarchy: Discovering a Radical
Spirituality of Compassion (Oxford: Lion Publishing, 1999).
Arnold, Eberhard Salt and Light: Talks and Writings on the
Sermon on the Mount (Rifton, New York: Plough Publishing House, 1977).
Badiou, Alain Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism
(Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2003).
Badiou, Alain The Communist Hypothesis (London: Verso,
2010).
Bloch, Ernst Atheism in Christianity (London: Verso,
2009).
Boer, Roland Criticism of Heaven: On Marxism and
Theology (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009).
Boer, Roland Rescuing the Bible (Oxford: Blackwell
Publications, 2007).
[1]
Merold Westphal, Suspicion and Faith: The
Religious Uses of Modern Atheism (New York: Fordham University Press, 1998),
123-210.
[2]
Peter Kreeft, Socrates Meets Marx: The
Father of Philosophy Cross-Examines the Founder of Communism – A Socratic
Dialogue on the Communist Manifesto (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003),
14-16.
[3]
See Alain Badiou’s The Communist
Hypothesis (London: Verso, 2010), Slavoj Žižek’s edited volume entitled The Idea of Communism (London: Verso,
2010), David Harvey’s The Enigma of
Capital and the Crisis of Capitalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2010), Tariq Ali’s The Idea of Communism:
What Was Communism? (San Francisco: Seagull Books, 2009), or Roland Boer’s Criticism of Heaven: On Marxism and Theology
(Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009). The
last volume would be of interest to anyone interested in a contemporary
analysis of the Marxism critique and use of Christian theology.
[5]
Merold Westphal, Suspicion and Faith: The
Religious Uses of Modern Atheism (New York: Fordham University Press,
1998), 123-210.
[6]
This term is somewhat problematic because in most Western Christians it
automatically conjures up a Cartesian, or Platonic dualism. According to both of these perspectives, each
human being is made up of two separate and exclusive substances: Spirit (or
Mind) and Body. However, due to the
predominance of spiritual language in theological discussions it is difficult
to think of a different term to use here.
It must be noted that this dualism is not what is intended. See Nancey Murphy’s work Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006).
[7]
See Key Thinkers in Christianity
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 24-34 eds. Adrian Hastings, Alistair
Mason and Hugh Pyper, along with The
Christian Theology Reader (Oxford: Blackwell Publications, 2001), 395-402
ed. Alister E. McGrath.
[8]
José Miranda, Marx and The Bible: A
Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books,
1974), 249.
[9]
Ibid., 248.
[10]
Ibid., 249.
[11]
Ibid., 224-229.
[12]
Ibid., 226.
[13]
Ibid., 201-285. See also Miranda’s book Marx Against the Marxists (Maryknoll,
New York: Orbis Books, 1980).
[14]
Ibid., 249.
[15]
Ibid., 249.
[16]
Merold Westphal, Suspicion and Faith: The
Religious Uses of Modern Atheism (New York: Fordham University Press,
1998), 13.
[17]
Both of these terms are taken from Ernst Bloch’s Atheism in Christianity (London: Verso, 2009). In this book Bloch attempts to extract the
messianic portions of the biblical narrative that can be used by Marxists when
discussing the concept of a “communist utopia.”
See pages 54-57 in particular.
[18]
See Alain Badiou’s Saint Paul: The
Foundation of Universalism (Stanford, California: Stanford University
Press, 2003), Giorgio Agamben’s The Time
that Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans (Stanford,
California: Stanford University Press, 2005), Jacob Taubes’ text The Political Theology of Paul
(Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2004), Roland Boer’s Rescuing the Bible (Oxford: Blackwell
Publications, 2007) and Slavoj Žižek’s book The
Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (Boston: MIT Press,
2003).
[19]
Slavoj Žižek, The Fragile Absolute: Or
Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (London: Verso, 2009).
[20]
Roland Boer, Criticism of Heaven: On
Marxism and Theology (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009), 356.
[21]
Merold Westphal, Suspicion and Faith: The
Religious Uses of Modern Atheism (New York: Fordham University Press,
1998), 226.
[22]
This is essentially the thesis of Michael Allen Gillespie’s book The Theological Origins of Modernity
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).
In this book, Gillespie suggests that the epistemological crises that
have accompanied the advent of postmodernism are the result of the Modernist
realization that transcendent grounds are needed to make their positions
tenable.
[23]
Roland Boer, Criticism of Heaven: On
Marxism and Theology (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009).
[24]
Ernst Bloch, Atheism in Christianity
(London: Verso, 2009), 54-57.
[25]
José Miranda, Marx Against the Marxists
(Maryknoll, New York: Orbis books, 1980), 52-68.
[26]
This is Marx’s famous statement that “[t]he philosophers have only interpreted
the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.”
[27]
José Miranda, Marx Against the Marxists
(Maryknoll, New York: Orbis books, 1980), 52-69.
[28]
Ibid., 281.
[29]
Ibid., 282-283.
[30]
Ibid., 197-264.
[31]
See Eberhard Arnold’s Salt and Light:
Talks and Writings on the Sermon on the Mount (Rifton, New York: Plough
Publishing House, 1977), Dave Andrews’ Christi-anarchy:
Discovering a Radical Spirituality of Compassion (Oxford: Lion Publishing,
1999), and Vernard Eller’s Christian
Anarchy: Jesus’ Primacy Over the Powers (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock
Publishers, 1999).
[32]
Mark 4:17
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