Marxist Analysis And Christian Commitment Compatible?

and Christian commitment compatible? Discuss.

Marxist analysis is a collection socio-political theories established in the 19th century by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that attempts to deduce capitalism by suggesting it negatively impacts the working class, which causes them to resort to religious belief to achieve a sense of hope in life. It would appear from this that Marxism views religion in an entirely negative sense because it is only useful as a coping mechanism not as a reality (Marx, 1977, P.131); although it would seem the two cannot correlate, Christianity and Marxist social analysis have several similarities in their theories (Kurian, 1974, P.6). Nonetheless, Marxism ultimately deduces religion to tool of coping but only because

Marxism suggests one genuine resolution for the conflict between man and his own nature (Kurian, 1974, P.10): Communism, which is a socio-political system based on the original Marxist ideology. It contends that society should assert an egalitarian approach amongst civilization with communal ownership of property exercised across everyone as an attempt to promote equality and prevent requirement of a deity (Kurian, 1974, P.11), unlike than economic stratification imposed on the capitalist society that requests religion for comfort. For Christianity, this concept of equality is prevalent in the Bible and religious life because the Church teaches believers to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ (Mark 12:31), because ‘no man is greater than his master,’ nor is a messenger greater than him who sent him in the eyes of the Lord (John 13:16). So, in this sense the Christian commitment to the word of God, in relation to equality, would be compatible with Marxist enforcement of communism as an attempt to establish social egalitarianism. However, this creates a circular argument because religion is partially the reason that man has a conflicted understanding of his nature, so religion cannot provide justification for communism without it being a self-contradiction; thus, the compatibility is diminished

It is predominantly conveyed as negative because of misinterpreted or unexplained statements, such as Karl Marx’s famous declaration of religion as a “sigh of the oppressed creature” (Marx, 1977, P.131), which would firstly appear as an insult rather than a praise for humanity’s initiative. Furthermore, there are elements of Marxist analysis of society that appear compatible with how Christians are supposed to commit their life to society; however, as Marxism highlights, the capitalist society can be seen to overpower the Christian religious ethos in terms of promoting equality as previously mentioned. This example would outline Marxist analysis of society as arguably accurate; however, Marxist analysis of religion is predominantly dismissed by believers making their possibility of positive compatibility weak. This is because Marxism suggests religion is a fragment of the imagination (Marx, 1977, P,131), created solely to feel happiness in life, where as a Christian is committed to their belief that God is a reality, not an illusion (Freud, 1932) (Marx, 1977, P.131), and He is not created because He is eternal (Ecclesiastes 3:11); thus, He cannot be in anyway possible a projection of what a human desires because He is existent in His self (Psalm 90:2): He has His own distinguishable nature that is exceedingly different to humanity. Although it has been