Communism as Christian Heresy
Claire Berlinski, Ed. ·
Dec 25, 2010 at 3:43am
Communism, Toynbee argued, is a species of Christian heresy. Is that true, do you think? In what sense would you argue that it's true, if you agree?
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Jun '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
I agree. Communism is based on the idea of an earthly utopia, which will be achieved when man attains perfection. Perfection to the communist means a purely altruistic being, one who gives all to the collective while taking only what he needs. To the Christian a perfect man is without sin, which he sees as impossible this side of heaven. Communism therefore falls into the Tower of Babel style heresy in which man tries to bring heaven to earth. Political salvation is always achieved through group action. Thus it is the party that saves the individual by saving itself. There is no group salvation in Christianity if we take the adage "What does it profit a man to gain the world if he loses his soul" as truth. A Christian must form an individual and personal relationship with God to be saved, he cannot form a collective relationship with God. There is also the known paradox of earthly good. Any good we do must come at someone's expense, just ask the Kulaks. To a Christian each soul/individual is precious. To a Communist only true believers are precious, and then only if they remain believers.
Sep '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
Toynbee is playing fast and loose with the definition of heresy, unless you want to side with Eric Voegelin that all these ideologies are really political philosophies arising out of Gnosticism. A book which I know that Mark Steyn and I have both read: The Drama of Atheist Humanism by the late Cardinal Henri de Lubac, SJ covers this ground well by thoroughly milling the works of Feuerbach (influenced Marx), Nietzsche and Comte and crediting Dostoevsky with the only adequate response.
I think of Marxism as a Hegelian inspired philosophical twisting and perversion of Christianity but I wouldn't call it a heresy. Marx wasn't a bishop who broke away and started declaring his fellow co-religionists anathema. But then again...
May '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
I think Toynbee was partly right. As a historian, he was looking at an "actually existing" situation, and the moral claims of Communism certainly have an appeal to people raised in a Christian society. But I think DNA trumps culture (or, essence precedes existence). There is something deeper going on. There is a strange nostalgic appeal to "commune-ism". Apparently the Pilgrims tried it and they were not reacting to capitalism. Anyone can come up with a heresy. Coming up with a heresy that has traction is a different story.
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BTW, my theological complaint about left-wing intellectuals is that when they give up believing in God, they give up believing in Satan too. There's the rub.
Oct '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
Nov '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
Communism would have to develop a good deal more to rise to the level of a Christian heresy.
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
What elements of Christianity must a heresy preserve to be a Christian heresy, as opposed to simple "not Christian?" I realize there's no specific answer to this, I'm just wondering if there are general principles. Obviously communists don't claim to be Christians of any kind, so the claim doesn't rest on that.
Sep '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
Didn't Marx say that religion is the opium of the masses? Communism would then be a secular or philosophical alternative to Christianity, or any other religion, rather than a heresy of any religion.
Dec '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
All new ideas are combinations of old ideas (see Duggan, Strategic Intuition). In particular, new religions evolve from and combine ideas from existing religions. In that sense, it would be surprising if the secular religion of communism was not a variation on the predominant religion of the time.
Dec '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
Having attended a class at my Catholic parish given by a Christian socialist organization (they would not cop to that description), I would describe the Christian Left as idolaters more than heretics. They are enamored with their virtue and worship the god of the state as the source of the "common good." BTW, I am not equating communism and socialism - just grouping them on the Left.
Oct '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
I think you see this view of Christianity in liberation theology. These people see their Christian mandate as addressing "the needs of those who are injured and oppressed, and also works to change the structures and ongoing processes of injury and oppression." I think they see communism as the answer that addresses these injustices and those that stand in their way as evil. As all above have pointed out, there are severe shortcomings to this form of Christianity.
Sep '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
Heresy is a technical definition refined through canon law over a long period of time. Obviously, its a different definition now than when the Europeans were in a pre Reformation world, but the quick and dirty answer is that (I only speak for the Latin Rite Catholic world) a baptized, professing believing Catholic Christian, having received all the sacraments, been properly instructed in the faith and morals of the church and having reached the age of maturity (under canon law) obstinately and willfully repudiates a binding dogma of the faith.
Sep '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
The principle of "we" in communism is a heresy taken from the church, itself a heretical response to the claims of first-century Christianity not coming true. For me, all (Western) collectivist social movements derive from the church's heretical focus on perfectionism in this lifetime, both in Old World Catholicism and New World Protestantism, especially Methodism.
Nov '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
Charity is a Christian virtue, but leftist priests, pastors and preachers pervert and betray their faith by making Charity a prerogative of the State. That is the source of the "heresy." It might be more accurate to say that Communism is a corruption of Christianity.
May '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
As I see it, communism is not so much a heresy as an explicitly anti-Christian pseudo-religion. So, it derives from Christianity like a heresy. But whereas a heresy deviates in some respect from the doctrines of the faith, communism is a whole of its own--a totalizing view of reality that sets out to defeat and displace Christianity and its influence in the world.
Sep '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
Claire the book you want is Christian Brotherhood written by then Cardinal Ratzinger in the 60's:
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger Written over three decades ago, Cardinal Ratzinger's profound treatise on the true meaning of Christian brotherhood is perhaps even more timely and important now as a clear statement on the biblical grounds for cooperation among believing Christians. In treating Christian brotherhood from the perspective of salvation history, Ratzinger opens up the meaning of both the Old and New Testament in this most essential area. After establishing the distinctively Christian sense of brotherhood (vis-ˆ-vis Judaism, Hellenism, Stoicism, the Enlightenment, and Marxism)
Anyway, a fascinating, and underrated book and a brilliant examination of our question.
Jun '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
Isn’t the point of religion to find salvation/redemption through religion? With Christianity that salvation is, at least in earthly terms, clearly defined. Indeed, it is so clearly defined that Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great tries to pin the mass murders of the twentieth century not so much on religion, but on religiously inspired zeal. He, in effect, argues that it was not Communism that was at fault, but the pseudo-religious zealotry that couldn’t be divorced from its past pogroms that perverted the purity of socialism. Of course he’s playing dodge-ball with megalomaniacal madness in an attempt to avoid the certain accusation that without God no human action is beyond the pale, but it’s a good story. Communism and religion share one element: they both point to a utopian future. The difference between them, however, is stark. Even though both have a Somewhere-Over-the-Rainbow quality to them, Christianity charges its votaries to save souls and not the world, while Communism charges theirs with saving the world but not the souls. And therein lies the rub, for contrasted against communists Christians are selfish even bourgeois in their world view.
May '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
I agree with much of what Hitchens says on this issue. To be specific, he argues that the centuries of religious repression employed by the Czars and the Romanovs produced an almost irretrievably ignorant, servile, and abject citizenry. This, Hitchens argues, facilitated socialist totalitarianism. I don't find anything wrong with this argument of his.
Aug '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
It is certainly true that Liberation Theology is a Marxist based heresy of Christianity. It can be equally argued that Hegelianism with its view of a historical spirit moving toward freedom can be seen as a Christian based heresy. The dialectic has a visible Manichean feel to it -- thesis and antithesis providing the movement of history -- but that leaves out the importance of synthesis in the dialectic, something that isn't Manichean at all.
Reading Marx's On the Jewish Question and noting the number of Jewish academics who supported the spread of Marxist philosophy, one cannot wonder if Marxism is a Judeo-Christian heresy more than a Christian one. If one grants for a moment that Christianity is itself a Jewish heresy then the heresy lies further back historically than the dawn of Christianity.
Traditionally Christianity's primary focus is on rewards beyond those in life though there are millenarian messianic movements, and Judaism has the concept of tikkun olam which focuses on perfecting the world (immanentizing the eschaton if you will). Maimonides rejected the idea of improvable human nature in his writings, and the Catholic church views millenarian movements as heresy.
Short answer. Yes. Marxism is Christian heresy.
Jun '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
Nothing wrong with this argument? What about the Chinese peasants murdered or the Cubans executed or Pol Pot's devastating reign of terror. Were the foregoing creeps marinated in centuries of religious repression?
What about responsibility? Was the Russian revolution led by the ignorant peasants or was it lead by the "vanguard of the revolution?" Was it the ignorant peasants' idea to collectivize the farms? Or was it that mass murdering creep, Stalin, who had that blinding flash of insight. The cause of revolution might, and often does, lie in the past, but the actual management of the enterprise and the commensurate responsibility for it lies with the murdering creeps at the head of the Godless parade of fools. Don't try to pin this excess on religious repression, that canard just won't fly.
Nov '10
Re: Communism as Christian Heresy
That is a critical political point, as well. Conservatives believe that human nature is flawed and immutable — which is why our Founding Fathers were obsessed with checks and balances. Liberals, however, believe that human nature is nothing but spiritual Play-Doh — infinitely malleable, infinitely perfectable, waiting only to be manipulated by eager social engineers.
Whereas Christians believe that Man was created by God, in His image, liberals believe that Man can be molded into the image of a good socialist citizen, as required by progressive dogma. And it is dogma, in the religious sense of the word.