Michał

Gomułka

[MARXISM: LAZY MAN’S

LOGIC]
It is impossible to analyze Marxism through a Christian ethical lens without mentioning

Liberation Theology. Much of what is seen today in the so called Christendom all around the

world is result of faulty exegesis which is brought by reading the Bible through personal eye

glasses. As to these eye glasses they shall be called Marxism/socialism. These two terms will be

used interchangeably throughout the paper. The thesis for this paper is that socialism/Marxism

according to the Christian Ethical worldview is a faulty system and that those who try to defend

Marxism by using the Bible and make remarks that Jesus was a socialist only prove how ignorant

they are of what the Bible teaches as a whole and show their inadequacy of correctly interpreting

the Bible; eisgesis. The core of the paper will present specific definitions as necessary for

defining, showing faulty interpretation of the “opposing camp” of those who seem to see Jesus as

a “socialist”, exposing Liberation Theology and lastly showing how Christianity sees socialism

based upon correct hermeneutics, exegesis and Biblical historical backgrounds.

A proper definition of Marxism says that it is a system that calls for a classless society

where all means of production are commonly owned.1 This is rather a simple definition but let‟s

examine what I.M Zvarevashe says about Marxism in his article and how he defines it:

Marxism may be described as: (1) a doctrine of a mass movement, which

combines revolutionary fervor with a sense of history and the conviction that it
holds the key to the explanation of patterns for social and economic change.
Marxism or rather what Stalin called "Marxism-Leninism" is a simplified
amalgam of aspects of the thought of Marx, Engels and Lenin. It became the
political and economic doctrine of Soviet-based Communism and of those states
which took the USSR as their model. This Marxist teaching, complete, self-
sufficient and contained in a canon of sacred texts was supposed to be upheld by
the masses. Its exposition was reserved to officially, approved interpreters. (2)
Marxism can also be considered as a method, a way of tackling practically and
1
West, Charles. “Should Christians Take Marxism Seriously Anymore?” International Bulletin of
Missionary Research 24 (January 2000): 2-7.

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 theoretically fundamental problems of existence and transformation — social,
political and economical. Marxism is “a way of life", an "orthopraxis", rather than
mere "orthodoxy.”2

What is most interesting about this definition is that it is called a system of beliefs and a

way of life. It would be proper to mention that I.M Zvarevashe is a Jesuit priest in Zimbabwe

who worked hard against “materialistic socialism.” In his article Zvarevashe makes many helpful

statements about Marxism in general. First, Marxism aims at the production of the means to

satisfy certain necessary human needs such as clothing, food, drink and development of

intelligence. A true Marxist will not be at home in a capitalistic society, he will feel alienated.3

What true Marxism does is to make labor in a sense as something that does not have any value at

all. This is how Zvarevashe describes it:

Marx, as a revolutionary economist, is interested in underscoring the importance

of labor. Labor produces much value, but labor is not paid adequately for the
value of what it helps to produce, but is not given a subsistence wage. The
difference between the value that labor produces and what is paid to the worker, is
regarded by Marx, as surplus value. This surplus, the capitalist, the owner of the
non-human means of production, appropriates through sheer exploitation.
Marxism urges that in order to remove exploitation, it is necessary to abolish
private ownership of productive property, to "expropriate the expropriators", and
let the state own and control all the means of production. Marx believed that, as
feudalism was overcome by capitalism, similarly, capitalism would eventually be
overcome by communism.4

According to the paragraph above that has been quoted the basic aim of Marxism is to

create a classless society where all the means of production and what is produced would be

2
Zvarevashe, I.M. “Marxism Verses Christianity in Africa.” AFER 41 (Spring 1999): 126-144.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid

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owned by the government thus eliminating capitalism. How does this play out in practice one

might ask? Is it possible to have a classless society where all would be paid the same, have the

same amount of goods? What about the government that distributes the goods to the society, do

they have to obey the Marxist system, will they be faithful to the Social Manifesto? These are all

question worth of investigating but only in the light of Scriptures. As it was mentioned in the

introduction many socialists try to put Jesus Christ in the Marxist camp as the one who would

bring a change and a reform. Even the Jewish people were waiting for a revolutionary Messiah

that would come with the sword, kill Cesar and inaugurate his kingdom on earth as a haven for

the Jews, the chosen people. This is what one of the radical socialists says about Jesus and

Marxism:

Jesus' teachings and Marx's writings are about personal and group responsibility
in working towards establishing and maintaining just and sustainable
communities. Marx had faith in the impending revolution and the radical social
change and inversion it would bring about. Jesus taught his followers to question
assumptions about social issues through reversals in which he challenged them to
change personal behavior in order to enact larger social change. Both Jesus and
Marx ask us to consider what the world would be like if we inverted dominant
power structures and social practices in the name of justice, and both believed that
revelation would lead to social revolution.5

Megan Davis who is quoted above has an idea that Christianity and Socialism can go

hand in hand yet this mode of thinking presents one major difficulty that must be addressed and

that is Theology. What is the assumption of Christianity? There is one God who created

5
Davis, Megan. “Teaching Social Justice in Corporate University: Deploying the Teaching of
Jesus and Marx in an Era of Unchecked Capitalism.” Council of Societies for the Study of Religion Bulletin
37 (Fall 2008): 20-25.

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everything, He is a true being who is unseen, exists in three persons, all three persons are God

and there is only one God. God the Father sent His Son to redeem the lost race of Adam, was

crucified for our sins, was buried and on the third day He rose again, ascended into heaven, is

seated at the right hand of God the Father and will come back again to earth in a glorified body

visible to all. This is just a short excerpt from the Nicene Creed. What does Marxism say about

God?

Taking up the ideas about religion that were current in post-Helegian circles,
together with the thought of Feuerbach, Marx considered religion to be a product
of human consciousness. It is a reflection of the situation of a person, who either
has not conquered himself or herself and who has already lost himself or herself
again. Marx contended that religion is "an opium of the people".6

An opium for the people? This is how Karl Marx described religion. This man of course

was an atheist. Can there even be a similarity between Christianity and Marxism? Can light and

darkness dwell together? There is no similarity at all. Marxism first and foremost is an atheistic

system that eliminates God from their ideology. Zvarevashe says that teaching of Karl Marx

could be summarized that all of life is a struggle between those that have and those that have not.

Peter McMylor talks about five social principles taken from Matthew 25:31-35 which he says

that they describe Jesus‟ socialistic tendencies:

(1) That not only individuals but whole societies were to be redeemed „and before
him shall be gathered all the nations‟. (2) There are real forces of evil at work in
the world which generate real pain and suffering and are able to prosper because
of a lack of pity or compassion.
(3) It is the business of God to judge. It is not the business of humanity to
distinguish the „sheep from goats‟, here and now. (4) It is the task of human
beings to show mercy in practical ways in order to set some limit to the lack of

6
Zvarevashe, I.M. “Marxism Verses Christianity in Africa.” AFER 41 (Spring 1999): 126-144.

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 mercy in the world; „I was in prison and ye came unto me‟. (5) In this world we
meet God in the shape of those in need and we can never know for certain when
we are being so confronted.7

Again it is clear that some serious eisgesis is present within this text. First of all the ones

who were in prison refers to believers and no other group of people. What is at stake is taking the

Scriptures and using them for something that it was never meant for, it is forcing one‟s own ideas

upon the text and thus eventually raping the text. It needs to be stressed that the primary concern

of Jesus was not to make immediate social changes here on earth but rather to inaugurate His

kingdom as a process. In a realistic Socialistic world no one is allowed to make more than

others, what they have is controlled by others (government) and no one can go higher above the

masses even if they want to. Marx says that this world is made of those people that have and

have not. One important statement needs to be made that Jesus Christ never said that having

wealth is bad but rather that if wealth takes the place of God in your heart then it is wrong

(Matthew 6:19-34).

A serious misunderstanding is made by those that use the Bible to show that Jesus Christ

really was a socialist and that He stressed socialistic ideas. The remaining part of the paper will

deal with the Bible and what it says about an economic system like socialism/Marxism and

Liberation Theology. Before proceeding further it will be helpful to summarize what has already

been said. First, Socialism is atheistic in nature thus it cannot be Christian either. These two are

opposed to each other as light to darkness. Second those who try to use the Bible in order to

7
McMylor, Peter. “Marxism and Christianity.” Theoria: A Journal of Social & Political Theory
55 (June 2008): 45-66.

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propagate Marxism make major exegetical errors of reading into the text and forcing their own

ideas upon it. Third but not least Marxism forces “uniform performance” on all meaning that

even if there are people who are capable of exceeding in business and making more are forced to

stay chained to the government who forces them to only make what is considered as the equal

quota for all, to have surplus would be to create capitalism and they do not want it.

One serious misinterpretation is made by those that take Matthew 20:1-16 and try to say

that Jesus out-socialized the socialists by saying that the last will be first. What is happening in

the parable anyway? Jesus is basically teaching here that it does not matter if one person is saved

for 50 years and another person is saved for one day, it does not change their status, they are

saved. It is not teaching about rewards but rather about salvation which is equally given to those

who believed for a long time or just believed in the last minute. Jesus said to the thief on the

cross who just believed in Him that today he will be with Jesus in Paradise.

There is one parable that teaches about rewards and those that have more, more will be

given to them and those that have little, even the little that they have will be taken away from

them. In Matthew 25:14-29 Jesus teaches about the parable of the talents. The gist of it is that

those that were given money and used them well and made more money were given even more.

Yet the one worker who did not do anything with what was given to him had his portion taken

away from him and was cast out! The teaching of this parable shows that there are rewards. Jesus

gives gifts to man that they ought to use for the sake of the kingdom and on the last day they will

be given rewards according to that what they had done. Socialism of course would abhor such an

idea because it is against those that have and those that have not.

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 If I may for a second interject my own personal opinion even though I know this is

unethical for a research paper and I might have points taken off, I would like to speak up on this

issue. Marxism to me seems like an economical system that was invented by a lazy man who

happened not to enjoy hard labor and was much envious of those that happened to work and

make something out of themselves in this world. Marxism is a system invented by a jealous man

who thought that those that try hard in life and earn should be put down for their efforts and kept

back in the cage from growing and becoming better than others according to his own judgment.

In the end socialism is “anarchical communism” because it is the “government” who exploits the

masses and actually gets to go up to the top where the rest of the society stays in the dock. This is

just my personal opinion. Now as to Liberation Theology and what it is:

The term 'liberation theology' means different things to different people. The term
is most frequently associated with Latin America. In the minds of many
conservative theologians, it is identified with Marxism, violence and
antiestablishment revolution. In a wider sense, however, 'liberation theology has
been used to include the liberation movements in Asia and Southern Africa.
Liberation theology rose to prominence in Latin America in the 1970s and its
commitment is to make theology relevant amidst poverty, suffering, oppression
and injustice. Its main theme is derived from the biblical notion of liberation with
particular reference to the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt and its
bondage.8

Thus from Uchegbue‟s definition of liberation theology it can be understood that it has to

do with power and revolutions. This type of theology is popular in the Latin America where the

Roman Catholic Church is fighting against the oppressive governments trying to create freedom

for the oppressed masses. Again from what has been said before Jesus never intended to

8
Uchegbue, Christian. “Liberation Theology as a Double Polarity.”Asia Journal of Theology 22
(April 2008): 14-25.

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inaugurate a revolution, He came with one purpose to die and to rise again in order to save His

people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).

What needs to be mentioned as it had been before is that Marxism in nature is

Atheistic and Christianity is theistic thus it is impossible to have liberation theology, it

makes no sense!

The question of theism and atheism is a dividing line between Christianity and
Marxism. The term 'Marxism' and, in fact, Karl Marx's theory of religion,
essentially suggests atheism just as the term "Christianity essentially suggests
theism." In other words, there cannot be Marxism without atheism, otherwise it is
no more Marxism, just as there cannot be Christianity without theism, otherwise it
is no more Christianity.9

The above quote points again to the reality that Marxism and Christianity cannot exist

together, it is just not possible. What about the fact that Liberation theology proponents use

violence? Uchegbue does a great job in order to explain this:

Although the common reference to Jesus as a revolutionary can be accepted in the

sense that He promulgated standards and values totally opposed to those
conventionally accepted in the society, it must be maintained that Jesus was not a
revolutionist, for while He criticized, condemned, resisted and rejected the unjust
power structures of His day, he did not take up arms or join with the 'guerrilla
group' of the Zealots. His caution to Peter at Gethsemane against the use of the
sword (Matt. 26:51-52) is very illustrative of the fact that Jesus never supported
violence.10

Thus it is clearly seen that Jesus was not a revolutionist in any sense but rather that he

was against violence while here on earth. This is different when speaking about the second

coming where there will be just retribution given to those that do not know and do not obey God.

9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.

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 In conclusion, Marxism is a faulty system because it is not theistic but rather atheistic.

Liberation Theology is a faulty representation of Marxism because you cannot have a theistic

system that uses atheistic ideas as a core of its value system. Those that try to argue that Jesus

was a socialist only show their ignorance of the Bible and proper hermeneutics. Socialism is a

“lazy-jealous man system” that exploits those that desire to strive for success and become

someone. Jesus Christ never said that being rich is bad but only if that money becomes your God

then it is wrong. A true ethical Christian analysis of Marxism says what Jesus said in Mark 4:25,

“For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has

shall be taken away from him”, now this is a true capitalistic statement!

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