Program / Course 19: Modern Challenges / Lesson 5.1
What you will learn
- State Marx’s claims about religion in a form he would recognize, including the famous passage on opium.
- Explain the idea of ideology and the materialist view of history.
- Identify what is true in the critique, including the church’s record of supporting the powerful.
- Give the main Christian replies and note where they differ.
The big idea
Karl Marx held that religion is a product of human conditions, not their cause. People who suffer in an unjust world make a heaven, and the comfort that religion gives is real but also keeps them from changing the world. He wrote that religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature and the heart of a heartless world, and also the opium of the people. A fair reading hears both halves. The critique has real force where churches have blessed injustice, and it fails if it is taken as proof that God does not exist.
Key terms
- Historical materialism
- Marx’s theory that the way a society produces goods, and the classes that result, shape its laws, politics, ideas and religion.
- Ideology
- In Marx, a set of ideas that presents the interests of the ruling class as natural or universal, and so helps keep it in power.
- Alienation
- In the early Marx, the condition of workers separated from the products of their labor, from each other and from their own human nature.
- Base and superstructure
- Marx’s picture of the economy as the base, and law, politics, religion and culture as a superstructure resting on it.
- Opium of the people
- Marx’s phrase, from 1843 to 1844, for religion as a painkiller of the oppressed. In his day opium was a common medicine as well as a drug.
- Liberation theology
- A movement, begun mainly among Latin American Catholics in the 1960s and 1970s, that reads the gospel as God’s concern for the poor and calls for social change.
- Class
- A group in society defined by its relation to the means of production, such as owners and workers.
Background
Karl Marx (1818 to 1883) was a German philosopher and economist who wrote with Friedrich Engels. He began as a student of Hegel and was influenced by Ludwig Feuerbach, who argued that God is a projection of human qualities. In 1843 and 1844 Marx wrote an introduction to a critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. In it he says that the criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism, and that the critique of heaven must become the critique of earth.
Later writings, such as the Communist Manifesto of 1848 and Capital, set out his theory of history as a story of class conflict. Religion appears in them as one part of the superstructure, and mostly as a tool of ruling classes. Marx wrote little systematically about religion in his mature work. His followers built on the idea to form movements, some of which suppressed churches when they took power, as in the Soviet Union and China.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: What Marx said in the famous passage
The passage is often shortened to religion is the opium of the people. In the text, Marx says that religious suffering is at once the expression of real suffering and a protest against it. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. He then says that to abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness.
Read in full, the passage is not mere contempt. Marx took religion to be a response to real pain, and he wished to remove the pain. His criticism was that comfort given in the mind can excuse injustice in the world.
Step 2: Ideology and the economic base
Marx held that ideas do not float free. In each age the dominant ideas are those of the dominant class. A religion that teaches obedience to the master, or that rewards the poor in heaven, serves the owners on earth. He cited cases, such as clergy who defended factory conditions or slavery.
The theory is a claim about explanation. It says that to understand why a belief is held, look to the interests it serves. It does not by itself say whether the belief is true. This distinction is taken up in the final lesson of this module.
Step 3: What is true in the critique
The historical record supports part of Marx’s charge. Churches in many places defended slavery, quoting Scripture, and many clergy blessed colonial conquest and existing order. Christians have used the promise of heaven to urge the poor to bear injustice patiently, and some pastors have used Romans 13 to silence protest. Some of the strongest early critics of this were Christians, from the prophets to the Quaker and evangelical abolitionists.
The charge also touches ordinary religion. Anyone who has used the phrase it is God’s will to avoid hard action has seen how comfort can become an excuse. A Christian should admit it.
Step 4: The Christian replies
The first reply is historical. Christianity has also inspired movements against injustice. The abolition of the slave trade in Britain was driven by Christians such as William Wilberforce and John Newton, and the American civil rights movement drew heavily on churches. The Bible itself contains strong protest against the powerful (Amos 5:24, James 5:4). Marx’s assumption that religion always serves the rulers is therefore too simple.
The second reply is philosophical. Marx’s theory is a causal story about where religion comes from. It does not show that the beliefs are false, and it applies equally to atheism, which might also serve interests. The third reply is that Marx’s own predictions failed. Religion did not wither away when capitalism was altered, and states that tried to abolish it produced brutal persecution. Marxists respond that the societies named did not fulfill Marx’s design, and that later Marxists, such as Ernst Bloch, found hope in religion.
- Does this passage explain why someone believes, or show that the belief is false?
- Who benefits from the teaching in this case?
- Is there evidence that the same religion has also moved people to resist injustice?
- Does the critique apply to the person’s own beliefs?
- What would a Christian need to change to answer the charge in practice?
- Have I read the whole passage and not the slogan?
Examples
A sermon that soothes
A nineteenth century preacher tells factory workers that their poverty is their lot, and that God will reward them in heaven if they do not complain. The factory owner, who sits in the front pew, approves. Marx would say this is ideology. A Christian should say that it is a distortion of the gospel and also admit that such preaching occurred. (A constructed example.)
A sermon that stirs
A pastor in a mining town reads the Magnificat and James 5 to his congregation and helps them to organize a fair wage appeal. Marx’s theory has trouble with this case, since religion here moves against the owners. (A constructed example.)
Different perspectives
Marxist
Marxists hold that the main point of the critique is that religion has a social function that must be examined, whatever its truth. Some later Marxists, such as Antonio Gramsci and Ernst Bloch, took religion more seriously as a source of hope and popular culture. Marx himself said that the aim is not to attack believers but to remove the conditions that make illusions necessary.
Catholic
The Church rejected atheistic communism, as in Pius XI’s Divini Redemptoris (1937), and also criticized unrestrained capitalism, beginning with Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891). Catholic social teaching holds that work has dignity and that the poor have a claim on the community. Liberation theology, represented by Gustavo Gutierrez, adopted some Marxist analysis, and the Vatican criticized parts of it in 1984 and 1986 while endorsing the preferential option for the poor.
Orthodox
Orthodox churches suffered under Marxist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe, and the critique of religion was lived as persecution. Orthodox thinkers such as Nicholas Berdyaev and Sergei Bulgakov, who had been Marxists in youth, moved toward Christian faith and wrote of the spiritual poverty of both capitalism and communism. They also admitted that church ties to the tsarist state had harmed the church.
Protestant
Protestants answered in several ways. Some held that Christians must act for justice, as in the Social Gospel of Walter Rauschenbusch. Others, such as Reinhold Niebuhr, used Marx’s insights on power while rejecting his atheism. Some conservatives saw Marxism as a rival religion and a threat. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr. are often cited as Christians who used the faith to resist injustice.
Why it matters
The charge that religion keeps people quiet is one of the most common reasons that thoughtful people give for leaving the church or never entering it. It deserves a serious answer, and part of the answer is a better practice of justice. Even a student who rejects Marx’s atheism can learn from his insistence on looking at who benefits.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Marx simply said that religion is a drug and that believers are fools.
Correction: Marx saw religion as an expression of real suffering and a protest against it. His criticism was aimed at the conditions that produce it, and at its use to justify them.
Misunderstanding: The critique has been refuted by the failure of communism.
Correction: The failure of Marxist states counts against Marx’s predictions and politics. It does not remove the question whether churches have served the powerful.
Misunderstanding: Christianity has always sided with the rulers.
Correction: It has often done so, and it has also inspired resistance, from Ambrose against Theodosius to the abolitionists and the civil rights movement.
Misunderstanding: Christians who care about social justice are Marxists.
Correction: Christian concern for the poor is found in the prophets, the Gospels and the Fathers, long before Marx. Some Christians have used Marxist tools, and the churches disagree about it.
Knowledge check
What did Marx mean by calling religion the opium of the people?
He called religion the sigh of the oppressed creature and the heart of a heartless world, and also the opium of the people. He meant that it expresses real suffering and consoles it, but that the consolation can dull the wish to change the conditions. He thought that religion would fade when the injustice that needed it was removed.
What is ideology in Marx’s thought?
It is a system of ideas that presents the interests of the ruling class as natural or universal, and so helps preserve its position. Marx held that in each age the dominant ideas are those of the dominant class. Religion could serve as ideology when it taught the poor to accept their lot.
Give two Christian replies to Marx’s critique.
First, Christianity has also inspired resistance to injustice, as in the abolition of the slave trade, and the Bible contains strong protests against oppression. Second, even if religion serves interests, that does not show its beliefs are false, since a theory about the origin of a belief does not decide its truth. A fair reply also admits that churches have often supported the powerful.
What did the Catholic Church say about communism and capitalism?
It condemned atheistic communism, as in Divini Redemptoris of 1937, and it criticized unrestrained capitalism and the exploitation of workers, beginning with Rerum Novarum of 1891. Catholic social teaching affirms the dignity of work and the claim of the poor. Liberation theology, which borrowed some Marxist analysis, has been debated and in part criticized.
Think it through
- Where have you seen religion used to keep people from asking for change?
- What would a church look like that answered Marx by its deeds?
- Why does it matter to read the whole passage and not only the phrase?
- Does the question who benefits apply to your own convictions?
Independent assignment
Reading Marx in full
In your notebook, read the introduction to Marx’s critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right, in the library. Copy the passage on religion in your own words, and then write 400 to 600 words giving his argument as he would, one point where it is strong and a Christian reply. Do not send it.
Further study
- Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction Read the introduction and the passage on religion in full.
- Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief Read selectively for the reply to Freud and Marx.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fallacies Use for the genetic fallacy.
- John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood Read the treatise on the priesthood for Chrysostom’s account of the pastor’s duties, including care for the poor.
- Amos 5:24 Let judgment run down as waters.
- James 5:4 The hire of the labourers cries out.
- Romans 13:1 Governing authorities, to be read alongside Acts 5:29.