Re: What Marx REALLY said about Christianity

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> soilride@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 12/23/00 11:20AM >
I am sure that I will get attacked by talking of God and Marxism so much
from both Marxist and Christian camps.  Marxists because of religion, and
Christians because of Marxism.  But the above statements is what I feel and
is unlike the majority of Christian thought.  Albeit what I have to say
about my faith, I am more determined than ever to bring end to the greatest
sin of all, that of social injustice that exists anywhere.  In order for me
to do this, I will have to knock down the wall that bourgeios christians
have built up.

((((((((((((

CB: Herbert Aptheker has a book _The Urgency of Marxist-Christian Dialogue_ ( 
circa
1965) which discusses the differences and commonalities.

Engels and Marx called Christianity the perfect religion for capitalism. On the 
other
hand,  Engels did historical research on the early Christian church as a 
revolutionary
movement against the Roman Empire. Actually, it eventually succeeded in 
overtaking
Rome, but was corrupted into ruling class ideology thereby. Then it became the 
main
ruling ideology of the European Middle Ages.

The actual text of the New Testament has sources of class liberationist 
inspiration
because it was for its time an ideology for the slave class in the Roman 
Empire, and
has liberating language and ideas thereby. However, there is a limit to this, of
course, because it is revolutionary for the era of the year 0 (zero) and there 
are
many ruling class overlays from several subsequent ruling classes on the 
original
liberation movement text. The emphasis on people being as sheep is extremely
counterrevolutionary, for example.

As others have said, male supremacy is a major reactionary aspect of Biblical 
text
based Christian churches and practices.