Communism WITH Christianity

So, a friend of mine and I were talking about communism the other day, and got onto the topic of how certain aspects of communism could easily work with Christian teachings, such as caring for the poor, loving your neighbor as yourself, etc. (we also got on a more silly conversation about how communist symbology could be given Christian meanings: red=Christ's blood, hammer=Christ as the carpenter, etc..).

So, what would happen if Communism had not been atheist in nature?

Eckener said:

So, what would happen if Communism had not been atheist in nature?

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Then it wouldn't be Communism. And no, that isn't a flippant answer. Communism is a thoroughly materialistic doctrine. The forces of history and class function as natural forces in their own right. It contains no room for the dynamic supernatural Person which is God as believed in by Christians.

hairysamarian said:

Then it wouldn't be Communism. And no, that isn't a flippant answer. Communism is a thoroughly materialistic doctrine. The forces of history and class function as natural forces in their own right. It contains no room for the dynamic supernatural Person which is God as believed in by Christians.

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That's correct insofar as Marxism goes. But there's a long tradition of Christian socialism that could have been more successful than in OTL. Latin America would be particularly fertile ground for this sort of thing.

Considering how "flexible" the doctrine of Communism has been applied (successfully so far) in China, I see no reason why it couldn't be remoulded to incorporate Christian beliefs.

"Render unto Caesar (the state) what is Caesar's and render unto me what is mine" said Jesus. So from the Christian perspective there doesn't seem to be any apparent conflict.

The real question is whether any totalitarian form of government can accommodate an alternative source of authority, especially a foreign one (eg. the Vatican).

It's worth remembering that during WW2, Christianity was accepted back into Russian culture by the Communists.

hairysamarian said:

Then it wouldn't be Communism.

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*Ahem*



You were saying?

guess no one has ever heard of the Diggers and Levellers

or you know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_communism

Eckener said:

So, a friend of mine and I were talking about communism the other day, and got onto the topic of how certain aspects of communism could easily work with Christian teachings, such as caring for the poor, loving your neighbor as yourself, etc. (we also got on a more silly conversation about how communist symbology could be given Christian meanings: red=Christ's blood, hammer=Christ as the carpenter, etc..).

So, what would happen if Communism had not been atheist in nature?

Click to expand...

In much of the world, Pre-Marxist Utopian Communism took on Christian overtones (Saint-Simonist Technocracy was adapted by Edward Bellamy, among others, into the doctrine of Nationalism), or else ideologies similar to socialism were introduced as corollaries to Christian social teaching (Roman Catholic Liberation Theology in mid-century Latin America in fact invoked Marxist concepts, drawing rebuke from the Vatican by the 1980s). Communism need not be inherently atheistic in nature--it is only circumstances that led to it. The secularization of Europe at the time of Marx's writings probably influenced the materialism of Marxism, and the association of the rather corrupt Church hierarchy with land-owners in much of the less developed parts of Europe and Latin America led Communist movements there (in Russia, and in Spain, and in Latin America) to take on anti-clerical trappings, which soon became active denunciation of religion itself.

To bring about Christian Communism, one would probably have to start in the United States (where industrial society and literacy were developed sufficiently to enable such a movement, but where Christianity had in fact rebounded from the loss of support during the Enlightenment). Perhaps Upton Sinclair might hit the hearts of the people more effectively if he includes more references to the incompatibility of capitalism with Christian teachings. Or perhaps one would have to start in the working-class Catholic immigrant populations. Or perhaps have Europe experience its own Great Awakening, and have the socialist movements there more obviously Christian-based.

And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.

And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.

Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.

As tormsen said.
For all their pretense of being "scientific socialism", like any other school of philosophy, Marxism got first their ideal of society, their concept of what made society advance, and then they tried to make it all fit with the preconceptions of the ideology advancers.

The idea of communism, as a class-less society, and the structure of such society, the abolition of private property, the worker control of the means of production... needs not to arrive from materialist dialectic. It could be taken from a re-reading of the life of the early church.

I said it "could be", not that it necesarily has to be. The official Church has always been too entangled with the "temporal" power structures, so this "communism" might be just a heresy or an offshoot. Unless it's made to appear before the Concilium of Nicea.

jotabe1789 said:

Unless it's made to appear before the Concilium of Nicea.

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Could it work as an active rejection of the Council of Nicaea as the foundation of their ideas during, say, the later Enlightenment to the early Industrial Revolution? There were plenty of Christian heresies that emerged in Europe throughout the years (remember the Baptists started in England, not the US!), maybe a more intellectually minded one starts with rejecting Nicaea as the foundation of their reasoning and argues they are the "true" Christianity because they have rejected the trappings of power and temporal corruption.

Industrial socialist movements didn't just take up anti-clericalism for intellectual reasons, but also for practical ones. Religious institutions are part of the establishment, and even in the United States, worker's movements tended to be very cynical about most religious groups and institutions. The English idiom "pie in the sky" comes from the labor movement as a derision for those ministers who told them to accept their earthly poverty so that they'd be rewarded in heaven--pie in the sky to sate an empty belly on earth.

It would take some tweaking in the idelogical sphere, but it is possible. I can see North Eastern (or Pacific Coast) Americans adopting such an idea. Some Latin American and Central American nations would be a particularly fertile ground for this. I can't see very many European nations locking into this idea though, maybe England, perhaps Poland. Not very many others.

If you want Christian communism, you'll find that it tops out right around 150 members. That example is the Hutterites, who do pretty decently since their internal cohesion is strong enough to emulate market discipline without said market. But they pretty rigorously divide colonies before they hit 150 though, because they understand that limitation.
Distributism might scale a little better--it ever been tried on a larger scale?

I feel I should point out that the Communist Manifesto was not originally Marx's own treatises, but was Commissioned by the Communist League, which itself started out as the League of the Just, which was an explicitly Christian Communist organization.

Eckener said:

So, a friend of mine and I were talking about communism the other day, and got onto the topic of how certain aspects of communism could easily work with Christian teachings, such as caring for the poor, loving your neighbor as yourself, etc. (we also got on a more silly conversation about how communist symbology could be given Christian meanings: red=Christ's blood, hammer=Christ as the carpenter, etc..).

So, what would happen if Communism had not been atheist in nature?

Click to expand...

If memory serves, Marx said that there were only two things the proletariat farmer needs. The Bible and the Manifesto.

CharlesMartell said:

The real question is whether any totalitarian form of government can accommodate an alternative source of authority, especially a foreign one (eg. the Vatican).

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No. Totalitarian regime can't tolerate this, which is why they always picked a fight with organised religion.

Eckener said:

So, a friend of mine and I were talking about communism the other day, and got onto the topic of how certain aspects of communism could easily work with Christian teachings, such as caring for the poor, loving your neighbor as yourself, etc. (we also got on a more silly conversation about how communist symbology could be given Christian meanings: red=Christ's blood, hammer=Christ as the carpenter, etc..).

So, what would happen if Communism had not been atheist in nature?

Click to expand...

YOu might want to read Cardinal Ratzinger's review of Liberation Theology.

In his opinion the Marxist elements really undermined many of the core beliefs of Christianity, but that doesn't stop it from working from a political viewpoint.

A christian Bani Sadr?

Bani Sadr, along with Taleqani and Ali Shariati were the minds that created the fusion of Shia theology and Marxism inspired politics. Somebody could work a similar body of though merging Marxist and Christian tendencies.
Of course, its one thing to conjure up a Christian Bani Sadr, another to come up with a Christian Khomeini.

When I was in school, SCM was sometimes called "Student Christian Marxists". You have Liberation Theology. There is a lot of theoretical overlap.

Sure, it's not going to evolve out of Stalinism, but "Christian Marxists" were pretty common in Latin America and North American college campuses in the 70s.

Somewhere in Latin America, is probably your best bet.

Wasn't it a part of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua? JPII chastised one of their ministers for the Theology of Liberation when he travelled in this country...