In order to provide a response to the question: How should we address ideological Marxism? – we need to first consider what the term Marxism means, how it originated, and how we can differentiate it between its economic and cultural applications. Without a clear understanding of ideological Marxism, the church will be otherwise defenseless when it is confronted by economic and cultural Marxists or deceived into adopting it. In fact, the younger generation of Christians are increasingly becoming Marxists because they mistakenly believe that it is compatible with the Christian worldview. It is not, it cannot be anymore antithetical to the Scriptural world-and-life view in its structure and direction.
Economic & Social Marxism
In the late 1700s to the early 1800s, socialism emerged as a political-economic model as a response to the oppression of the poor by wealthy landlords. It proposed an end to private property, the abolition of currency, and that “people should share in common the benefits of their work by having necessities distributed to all as they need them.”[1] This led to a social experiment by Robert Owen in the nineteenth century, an early activist for Scottish socialism. He built a community in New Harmony, Indiana, which would live according to these socialist principles, but to his surprise, the result was mostly negative. Christian scholar Mark L. Ward writes that:
The people of New Harmony, although they had come there at Owen’s invitation, balked. Owen’s system for distributing the common goods was complex and inefficient, and the people set up a black market. Too many of the people were idle anyway, and not all the kinds of workers needed to make the community work were interested in joining Owen’s experiment.[2]
The socialist community splintered and collapsed, it wouldn’t function as intended, and in the end, people preferred the capitalist economy. It wasn’t a surprise to German philosopher Karl Marx (1818-1883), Owen’s social experiment was doomed to failure because, he argued, socialism could only be achieved through class warfare with revolution as its climax. This is what happened in Cuba, with Marx’s socialist theory the island fermented a revolution and imposed a socialist economic model. To this day, banners of La Revolucion are still posted throughout the countryside and in municipal cities as the state coercively imposes its ideology on the upcoming generations.
According to Marx’s ‘class warfare’ scheme, it was the bourgeoisie (the upper-class employers) who were in conflict with the proletariat (the lower-class workers) because of the capitalist economic system. Capitalism, as per the Oxford dictionary, is “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.”[3] Marx predicted that, as owners and investors charged more for a product than its cost of productivity, and as they shared in its profits while the employees received nothing more than their wages, economic crashes and rising unemployment would culminate in a revolt against the capitalist system. What would then follow is the establishment of a socialist system where private property would be abolished and every person shared all things equally, eliminating the economic classes of bourgeoisie and proletariat.
However, Marx’s prediction fell flat on its face. Instead of the revolution emerging from the bottom up, that is, the common people revolting against the higher economic classes, we instead find the revolution emerging from the top down, such as in the case of Vladimir Lenin in communist Russia. This was a state-enforced economic and political change, not a people-led revolution. The same could be said about Cuba. For those familiar with Cuban history, La Revolucion had little to due with the capitalist system and more to do with defending the illegal and illegitimate dictatorship of Fidel Castro.[4] It was only after the revolutionaries had won the political seats of the state that a totalitarian socialist government was established with the ideological and financial help of the Soviet Union. The irony is stunning when you consider that Castro first begun as an advocate for democracy.[5]
The failure of economic Marxism is evident in recent history, with Cuba and Venezuela serving as present-day examples. The Venezuelans under Hugo Chavez, and now Nicolas Maduro, are themselves on the verge of a total collapse of society.[6] And while Cubans are fairing a bit better than before (when the Soviet Union withdrew their funding in 1991, Cubans were left hunting street dogs for food)[7] they still suffer extreme poverty while tourists shower their money into the state’s pocket at resorts and excursions. The truth is, the more Ibero-american states consider the socialist alternative, the more people will suffer as a result of Marx’s ideology. For those who want a better understanding as to the real world implications of this ideology, read George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, two allegorical books, one satirical the other dystopian, written by a former socialist who became disillusioned with Marx and his political-economic theory.
Christians need to be wary of economic Marxism; contrary to popular thought in the South, it is not something compatible with the Christian worldview, nor a model that could be ‘baptized’ or reformed in any way. Its underlying presuppositions are antithetical to God’s Scriptural revelation, and thus spell destruction and deterioration. Consider, for example, that Marxism divides people into two classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. We may be able to distinguish between someone who is rich and well off, and someone who is poor and in need, but that doesn’t mean that there exists two (or more) economic classes. How would one even determine the threshold? If my annual salary is over a certain amount, am I rich or middle class? Who determines the standard of what class I belong to? The rich can become poor the next day, and the poor the rich, the bourgeoisie the proletariat, and the proletariat the bourgeoisie, a person’s economic conditions can change. Marxism, however, divides man into two classes based on their economic welfare in order that it might create and provoke conflict between the two. As the cultural commentator P. Andrew Sandlin writes in his critique:
It is this class conflict that produces cultural progress. Marxists have always believed that life is everywhere filled with opposing forces, and the collision of these forces brings a higher, better reality… So conflict is a good thing, and the elites should be fostering conflict everywhere.[8]
Two things need to be said here, firstly, Marxist theory suggests that under the capitalist system, man is not truly equal, and by equal it is not meant fair and equal rules, but equal in economic conditions. Man’s equality is based on his economic condition in relation to his neighbor’s. However, this concept of equality is antithetical to Scripture. Man’s equality is not based on his economy. Consider Proverbs 22:2 which states: “The rich and poor have this in common: The LORD made them both.” Man’s equality is based on him being created in the imago Dei, the image of God. Whether one is rich or poor, an employer or an employee, we are all equal to one another as descendants of Adam and Eve, all subject to the rule of law and God our Creator. To demand strict uniformity is absurd, not to mention impossible, each person is unique as a person, just as their living conditions are unique in and of themselves.
Secondly, what Marx propagates, in violation of the tenth commandment, is that man must be envious of his neighbor, he cannot take delight in the gain of another person, he must either receive equal gain or destroy the gain of his neighbor, and in the case of Marxist theory, it’s the latter that’s realized. The general notion of everyone sharing property as a result of the abolition of private property means that the state must intervene to properly allocate the equal shares of the people, but that means that the people don’t own or share anything, everything is owned by the state, and thus the rich, the beneficiary, and the profitable is the state. As Ward writes:
Socialism has roots in the democratic ideal of equality, but state-enforced socialism tends to become very undemocratic… it ends up making people even poorer by taking away from them one of the few things of value that they own – their land.[9]
I have heard both millennials and Generation Z say that if “Jesus were to have lived in this time period, he would have been a Marxist.” This is equally as blasphemous as saying that Jesus is one of many gods. Jesus specifically taught that the rich – presupposing economic differences in a capitalist system – are to use their capital for the benefits of the poor (Matthew 19:21), upholding the Old Testament view that the wealthy are to serve for the welfare of the surrounding peoples (ie., Lev. 19:9-10; 23:22). He also did not demonstrate any envy or hatred for the rich, but instead demonstrated the same mercy and compassion as he did to the poor (Luke 19:1-10).
Whereas Marxist ideology labels the possession of private property as something “evil,” God calls the right to private property “good.” Consider, for example, that the eighth commandment states “You shall not steal” (Ex. 20:15). The commandment presupposes private property and wouldn’t make any sense if there was no such thing. Laws pertaining to the protection of private property rights are also listed in biblical law (Ex. 21:33-33:14). Therefore, any “Christian” attempting to adopt Marxist ideology would be in contradiction to the word of God, attempting to synthesize God’s wisdom with the folly of man, and calling what God calls good “evil.” No such compromise is tolerable before a holy God who calls his people to have a biblical understanding of the world, including in the field of economics.
Before I proceed, I should make clear for our readers that both socialism and communism are in fact distinct economic models, I do not mean to confuse the two. The reason that it may appear that I use these terms almost interchangeably is because one naturally progresses, if left unhindered, toward the other, but both are unmistakably built on the Marxist worldview. The relationship of these two is explained by scholar Raymond Sleeper who writes:
Socialism is the first phase of communism. The principle of socialism is: from each according to his abilities, to each according to his work… Under communism the basic principle of society will be: from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.[10]
Cultural Marxism
But Marx’s ideology is far from limited to the economic field, it has been developed into a Western Marxism, or “Cultural Marxism.” The original Marxism held that humanity’s problem was mainly economic, but the Western world didn’t buy into it. Economic Marxism was never going to succeed in the West because the proletariat, to use Marx’s term, were happy with their work and living conditions. The likelihood of a bottom-up revolution was non-existent, and this meant that either Marxism had to be discarded, or rearranged in order to appeal to Western minds. As Sandlin wrote:
To win in the West, you needed a Marxism suited to the West, one that took into account Western ways of thinking. Freedom, liberty, and equality, watchwords of the West, were ideas they could commandeer to win the day.[11]
And so came Antonio Gramsci, Georg Lukacs, Jean-Paul Sartre and Herbert Marcuse, the first cultural Marxists, to reinvent the meaning of freedom, liberty, and equality. If economics was the problem for original Marxism, the norms and institutions of society were the problem for cultural Marxism, as it held that these prevented man from living the “good life.” And that “good life” is defined as man’s full-fledged manifestation of his radical autonomy, to be his own god, to paint his own life, to reinvent his own meaning, to make his own reality.[12]
According to cultural Marxist theory, man is restrained by society’s structure from living out his radical autonomy, he is chained by the traditional institutions of the family, church and business. The leadership roles of father and mother, pastors and priests, stakeholders and employers, are weights chained around his neck. It forces him to live a fake and artificial life, alienated from his “true self.” And this is the main thrust of cultural Marxism, in order for man to be free, to be his true self, he must be liberated from the cultural environment that suppresses it.[13] Traditional culture must be done away with, replaced with a new societal structure where one can be free to be a homosexual, a transgender man or woman, a trans-ager (i.e., a middle-aged Toronto man has left his wife and kids to be a little girl),[14] a pedophile, an isolationist, a trans-speciest (i.e., someone who claims to be an animal stuck in a human body), you name it and you can be it.[15]
But how is this manifested? In the same way that economic Marxism is achieved. The human population is divided up into classes or social groups, and then pitted against each other in conflict. Some are the bourgeoisie (the oppressors), others are the proletariat (the oppressed). For example, males are the oppressors, females the oppressed; Caucasians the oppressors, Hispanics (or any other ethnicity) the oppressed; Christians the oppressors, non-Christians the oppressed. But by “oppression” it is not meant abuse, slavery or assault, for these are legitimate forms of oppression, but instead “disrespect, disapproval, or social inequality.”[16] Equality is the end-goal for social classes, and this means not equality of condition, that is, “everybody must play by the same rules,” but equality in results, the rules must be bent so that everyone can get equal results, and thus everyone can be free to be their true selves.[17] This has given rise to affirmative action, or reverse discrimination, as cultural Marxists have infiltrated the political elites to get the state involved in administering coerced liberation. What we are witnessing in the Canadian legislature, for example, with state-mandated speech codes (Bill C-16) relating to a person’s preferred pronoun,[18] is something out of the pages of Orwell’s 1984.
Economic Marxism is evil because it is antithetical to Scripture, it promotes hatred and envy between economic classes while elevating the state as the god of liberation, cultural Marxism is worse because it promotes hatred and envy between an almost infinite amount of classes, where each man is his own god and these gods rage against one another, resulting in the gradual deterioration of culture and society. And that is precisely what we are witnessing in the West, where, for example, lesbians are now taking issue with the gender-identity movement because transgenderism undermines lesbianism. Which of two oppressed groups are more oppressed? A Canadian man has self-identified as a woman in order to receive cheaper car insurance. What will keep others from doing the same? Students can now obligate their professors to refer to them according to their preferred pronouns, where instead of he or she, it must be zer, zir, ra, me, or whatever they want. How do we know who or what a person is? And these are but three examples out of many that reflect the severe existential crisis of the West. We are on the verge of a cultural implosion.
Let me be clear, there is absolutely nothing in Marxist ideology, whether applied economically or culturally, that is compatible with the Christian worldview. It revolts against God’s created order, it wages war against God’s law, and through the state seeks to redefine God’s creation according to man’s fallen and depraved thinking and to coercively impose that upon all men. There is nothing admirable, nothing sacred, nothing good in Marxism. In fact, Marx was an enemy of God, he hated the Christian church, and it was his end goal to destroy the family of God through the destruction of the covenant institution of the family.[19] His ideology sows discord, strife and destruction. It upends the structure of God’s creation for chaos, and directionally worships the creature instead of the Creator. Christians, root yourselves in God’s word and bring every thought captive to the Lordship of Christ. We need a distinctly Christian worldview that encompasses every aspect of created reality, and it begins first with presupposing the Creator God of Scripture, and the creation of man, subject to God, in the imago Dei.
[1] Mark L. Ward, Biblical Worldview: Creation, Fall, Redemption, ed. Dennis Cone (Greenville, SC.: BJU Press, 2016), 260.
[2] Ibid., 261.
[3] Oxford University Press, “Capitalism: Definition of capitalism in Oxford dictionary (American English) (US),” Oxford Dictionary, 2016, accessed August 4, 2016, http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/capitalism/.
[4] Sergio Guerra Vilaboy and Osar Loyola Vega, Cuba: A History (North Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press, 2010), 73-76.
[5] Ibid., 74.
[6] Kevin D Williamson, “Venezuela reaches the end of the road to Serfdom,” National Review, August 4, 2016, accessed August 5, 2016, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438654/venezuela-starvation-economic-collapse-enslavement-citizens.
[7] This was recounted to me by Cubans during my ministry visit to the island in March 2016.
[8] P. Andrew Sandlin, “What is Cultural Marxism?,” Ezra Institute for Contemporary Christianity. Accessed August 1, 2018. https://www.ezrainstitute.ca/resource-library/blog-entries/what-is-cultural-marxism/.
[9] Ward, Biblical Worldview, 262.
[10] A Lexicon of Marxist-Leninist Semantics, Raymond Sleeper, ed. (Alexandria, VA.: Western Goals, 1983),249.
[11] Sandlin, “What is Cultural Marxism?”
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Kate Ng, “Transgender father Stefonknee Wolschtt leaves family in Toronto to start new life as six-year-old girl,” Independent. Accessed August 02, 2018. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/stefonknee-wolschtt-transgender-father-leaves-family-in-toronto-to-start-new-life-as-a-six-year-old-a6769051.html/.
[15] Siofra Brennan, “Norway woman says she’s a CAT trapped in a human body,” Daily Mail. Accessed August 02, 2018. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3419631/Woman-says-s-CAT-trapped-human-body.html/.
[16] Sandlin, “What is Cultural Marxism?”
[17] Ibid.
[18] See Steven Martins, “Bill C-16, Bill 89 and the Illusion of Reality,” Ezra Institute for Contemporary Christianity. Accessed August 02, 2018. https://www.ezrainstitute.ca/resource-library/blog-entries/bill-c-16-bill-89-and-the-illusion-of-reality/.
[19] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1976), vol. 3, 6.