Karl Marx - the illegitimate stepchild of Christianity!
by Harry Staiti
In the aftermath of the religious wars that devastated Europe for
centuries in the name of Christianity and God, weary children of
conscience began to raise their voices, attempting, creating,
espousing new ideologies which were separate from the terror of
their fathers.
From one of these youthful visionaries arose a dreamy, utopian
ideal of the state. The voice, coming from one who himself had
been circumcised from the politics of self that this selfishly
intoxicated, segregated world promises its young princes - this
voice called for a revolutionized, radicalized, indeed,
secularized image of the state.
His name was Karl Marx and he was searching for the City that had
no God.
Karl Mark gave impetus to Marxist Communism through his own life
experiences and from his study of history. The Marxist ideal was
born out of the heart of "Christian" Europe and was itself
dependent upon Biblical Christianity's ideology and social ethic.
Marx once wrote:
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart
of a heartless world, the soul of a soulless environment.
Can there be any doubt Marx is the topic of his own words? It may
be this heavy hearted sigh of the "oppressed" in a "heartless,"
"soulless environment" may be best understood by considering it
came from a Jew in "Christian" nineteenth century Europe.
Hearing the poetic words as from the mouth of a dispossessed,
disinherited, practically assimilated Jewish youth of the
Christian state and understanding the heritage that Christian
Europe offered Jews of the early nineteenth-century enables one to
comprehend the force and weight of Marx's view toward religion.
Ironically, it was "Christian" Europe which gave birth to this
verse to be penned and later, his view of the ideal, utopian
state.
Although Marx was Jewish, his father had him baptized at the age
of six. This action was necessary in Christian Europe, even for an
a-religious man such as Marx's father, in order to maintain the
social and economic status of the Marx family:
The motives were more social than religious. For his father could
hardly retain his legal post in the Prussian civil service without
conforming, and had received baptism some seven years earlier,
shortly before Karl was born).
Voices such as Bruno Bauer sought to effectively deal with this
civic inequality that Jews suffered in Germany and Britain.
In 1843 he published two essays in which he reasoned that the
plight of the Jews was directly attributable to the Christian
character (or lack thereof) of the state.
Bauer suggested that the solution for a utopian and equal state
lay, not in that Christians repent and begin acting in line with
the "golden rule," but rather, that religion, all religion should
be abolished:
If Jews are to find equality they must surrender their
Judaism while everyone else surrenders their Christianity.
Although the whole idea was not widely accepted, the atheistic
thought for which Bauer posited was catching on in the
intellectual circles of Europe.
Marx formally identified himself with this strain of thought and
its atheism by the summer of 1841 at the age of forty-three and by
the following year, he was forcefully printing his atheism while
editor of the newspaper Rheinisch Zeitung.
Claiming that "Religion lives from the earth," Marx began
challenging people to turn their attention to earthly concerns.
This period would eventually develop into the formidable years of
Marx's social-political theory.
Marx, sounding curiously like Dr. Maslow, felt that the ideas of a
people come out of their immediate "material life-process."
Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and
their corresponding forms of consciousness, no longer retain the
semblance of independence.
They have no history, no development; but men, developing their
material production and their material intercourse, alter, along
with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of
their thinking.
Marx observed that great movements and ideological shifts, even
Christianity itself, the dye on the fabric of Europe's tamed land,
was the work of the masses.
It was for this very reason that Marx set out to make religion
vanish apart from preaching or philosophizing.
Rather, Marx looked to achieving his ideology through a social
revolution, a revolution of the masses against the oppressive
authorities against which he had struggled his whole life:
government, capitalism and the religion of the State. The
alienated would now seek salvation apart from the salvation of the
state.
Marx's work and thought, along with fellow communists of the
nineteenth century, were pivots from the era of the monarch to the
modern age.
After Marx, the formulations of political and social thought could
be openly considered apart from religious talk and the
"Christian-eeze" of the previous centuries.
With this secularization came criticism from the ruling classes,
and so it should. They had much to lose if the working class, the
disenfranchised and the downcast, were to leave their servitude.
But these same authorities created the "monster" in Marxism that
they would later come to despise and fear.
Why wait to give attention to the child of the state until it
grows up, threatens and shakes its fist at the Father? Christians
in the Christian age in Christian Europe had ample opportunity to
be Christians to Marx and the Marxists who would eventually raise
the red banner of godless ideology. In the day in which Marx
propagated his ideology, can anyone really say that there was a
politically and civicly united, cooperative effort to build God's
Kingdom here on earth?
If alienation is all that was offered to those who did not fit the
model of Christian Europe in the nineteenth century, then why
should Christian Europe be surprised when figures such as Karl
Marx arise?
Marxism is Christianity's loveless child, out of wedlock and
without father - God.
Karl Marx's "religion that lives from the earth" is now realized
in the twentieth century, and is there any less conspicuous
oppression in the world than established communist countries?
The voice of the oppressed has now become the roar of the
oppressor.
In North Korea, South East Asia and Tienanmen Square, Maoist
Marxism oppresses all who do not vow allegiance to the God-state.
In the Old Soviet empire, Marxist-Leninism kept unity through
tyranny and oppression of its own working classes it sought to
liberate.
In all forms of communism, the Marxist ideal of the non-God state
has remained.
Christians now find that they are themselves to be the alienated
class within atheistic communism!
Although it might be said that Marxism is a religion within
itself, even a Christian heresy, what needs to be addressed
further is that it was the "Christian" governments, peoples and
churches who did not meet the needs of their under-classes, racial
minorities, ideological and religious outcasts. Due to their
apathy or their total indifference, "Christian" Europe must
acknowledge that they failed a generation who sought political and
ideological satisfaction.
And this is not beyond happening again! Today, modern,
understanding, compassionate people who call themselves by the
Name of Christ should thoughtfully consider the effects of a
previous generations' actions before they neglect another ethnic
minority, blink at impropriety to the poor, turn away from the
needs of the sick and abandon the elderly to flourescent halls of
despair.
This type of ungodly action is the father of godless ideologies
such as Marxism.
It spawns it, nurtures it throughout a lifetime, then, turns its
head at the cry, Abba!
This must not continue.
Today, Christians have need, if not compassion, to awaken to
social and political evil that exists everywhere in America, and
speak the Voice of Conscience whenever change may be made. When
personal peace and personal affluence become the main objectives
in any individual or society, that society is ripe for a
dictatorship.
History has proved this to be the case in Russia, the Soviet
Union, North Korea, Cuba, Algeria and smaller factions throughout
the world.
Yet, our television preachers in America reach the masses with the
Gospel of "Peace" and "Affluence," especially appealing to the
poor! Christian political organizations participate in the
legislation that results in cuts of funds for the elderly and
de-emphasize funding for America's challenged children, all the
while attempting to retain divine sanction through the claim,
"that's my taxes!"
Christians today must realize that neglect creates a rioting mob
around the ivory tower.
In the aftermath of the religious upheavals that devastated Europe
for centuries, and the total social change that occurred after
materialistic, post war (WW II) America, in the name of
Christianity and God, weary children of conscience need to raise
their voices, attempting, creating, espousing new Christian
methodologies and meeting the needs of all Americans today.
God's people need to attend to "the sigh of the oppressed
creature, the heart of a heartless world, the soul of a soulless
environment" and might be well served to learn from the past,
segregate from the false ideologies that the world promises its
selfish rulers and attempt to sincerely build the Kingdom of
Heaven while there is still time on this earth.
