Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Jesus and a Four-Letter Word

Jesus and a Four-Letter Word

Last updated on: September 17, 2024 at 6:00 am by Vance Morgan

0 Comments

Jesus and a Four-Letter Word 2024-09-16T15:13:32-04:00 Vance Morgan

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Next week will be one of my favorite teaching weeks of the semester as I get to give a lecture, then lead two seminars, on the work of Karl Marx. I always feel like a bit of a reprobate when I teach Marx–and that’s a good thing. I get to teach many of the people I was taught as a child to both fear and ignore–Marx is the first of them. My impression growing up was that “Marx” was one of those four-letter words that good Christians never use.

In the dozen-plus years of this blog’s existence, I have made any number of Christians angry. Sometimes accidentally, often deliberately. But there is nothing more certain to piss off certain types of Christians than suggesting that the gospel of Jesus and the gospel of Karl Marx have a lot in common. Around this time of year, I occasionally repost an essay from the past that explores exactly this connection.

Karl Marx and Jesus Walk into a Bar . . .

Suffice it to say that the last time I did this, many readers were not amused. As usual, the majority of negative comments landed on my blog’s Facebook page, ranging from those who complained that Marx was an atheist (your point?) to those who pointed out that millions of people have died because of Marx’s supposed disciples (as if the same hasn’t been true of the supposed followers of Jesus) and several who guaranteed that I was going to hell (always the fallback of those who don’t know what else to say to someone who offends them). Then there were those so offended by the title that they started ranting without even reading the essay.

Jesus would never go into a bar, and Karl Marks (sp.) can’t get out from where he’s being held.

To which I responded

Apparently you are unaware that for his first miracle Jesus turned vats of water into large amounts of the best wine anyone had ever tasted. It wasn’t grape juice.

I couldn’t help myself.

The vitriol, along with my often-snarky responses, would fill several blog posts. But why bother? Far more encouraging is to consider what happens when one engages challenging texts with an open mind and few preconceptions. In my honors course a year ago, we provided the students with a 48-hour online discussion forum after each lecture where students can share their reactions, thoughts, confusions, and insights with each other from the most recent class. My professor colleagues and I do not participate in these forums, but we read them carefully. Early in the evening after my Marx lecture, one of my teaching colleagues sent me an email: “If you need a pick-me-up, read the forum posts from today. I think we are being spoiled with this class!” She was right.

For instance, during my second Marx lecture (the seminars were between the two lectures), I used the story of an early community of Jesus followers from Acts 4 to briefly illustrate the concept of a collective commitment to sharing all things in common rather than owning them individually as private property. One of the students referenced this on the discussion forum. (All forum posts quoted below are edited for length only)

Something that surprised me in lecture today was the example that Dr. Morgan brought up of communist-like economy in Acts. I had never heard of this connection prior to lecture, but after hearing about it . . . it makes sense that this kind of economic system would be supported by the Apostles. Communism ensures that no one is living in extreme poverty and that no one is getting too rich. One of the main messages of the Gospels and Jesus’ word was how the poor were blessed and they should be helped first . . . I wonder why more Christians and followers of similar religions are not followers and supporters of a Communist economy today. If this economic system is more in line with the beliefs of Jesus, why wouldn’t his followers advocate following his teachings in economics today?

When my colleagues and I compared notes from the Marx seminar, the three of us agreed that our students over the past few years have been less resistant to Marx than we had experienced in previous years. I mentioned this to the students in lecture, asking them to think about why this might be the case. One student did just that in her discussion forum post.

Something I wanted to expand on was the misconceptions many of us have about Communism from previous classes, teachers, books, etc. Dr. Morgan mentioned that students tend to be more receptive to learning about Communism now than they were a decade ago. Part of the reason why this is true may be due to the fact that we are far enough removed from historic examples of Communism that we can learn about it as it was originally intended to be without including biases based on how imperfect attempts at Communism have failed historically.

There are many examples in The Communist Manifesto that resonate with modern readers . . . We live in an age where we are still striving to minimize the wage gap between men and women, which is something Marx was advocating for centuries ago. Additionally, Marx is calling for an end to child labor, so that “their children [are no longer] transformed into simply articles of commerce and instruments of labor.” These are just a couple of the many examples of “elements of communism” that have been addressed in present-day society, which may be part of the reason why students are more receptive to learning about Communism than in the past few decades.

Toward the end of class, I asked the students to consider why capitalism did not collapse under the pressure of a workers’ revolution as Marx predicted it would. This question generated an excellent discussion for the last part of class, a discussion that one student continued eloquently on the forum.

I wanted to circle back to Dr. Morgan’s discussion at the end of lecture today about why capitalism did not fail as Marx and Engels predicted. I am inclined to agree with the main reason we discussed in class, which is that capitalism was propped up by the socialist policies that were added to it—minimum wage, social security, welfare, and the like.

I would also like to speak more broadly about the method by which capitalism was saved—compromise. I hope I am not offending anyone by saying that capitalism is, by and large, a system put in place by the wealthy to perpetuate their own wealth at the expense of others. It is terrible, and people started to realize that in the nineteenth century . . . What we have slowly started to see over the course of the last century and a half is the slow ceding of ground from the ‘bourgeoisie’ to the ‘proletariat.’ Minimum wages were introduced and then increased—some states are even as bold as to adjust their minimum wages with inflation. Social security is here and here to stay, and many states have voted to expand Medicare and Medicaid recently.

I am not so naïve as to call what happened in eastern Europe during the Cold War communism as Marx and Engels intended it, but it is the closest we have gotten to communism, and it has a habit—like capitalism—of not going particularly well . . . Capitalism and communism are both just awful. On paper, they are delightful, but you should never meet your heroes. It is a mix of the two that will satisfy the needs of the most people. It will never be perfect—we will never find the platonic form of the economic system—but with the ability to take the best of both systems, even when we don’t agree with every specific element of it, we will get as close as possible to it.

The clear-eyed reflections of my bright and engaged nineteen-year-old sophomores both in person and online never fail to energize me positively when compared to the often self-righteous, judgmental, myopic pronouncements of their elders. Maybe a better world is coming—even if sixty-somethings (and older) such as I will not be here to fully experience it. We can only hope.

Previous Post

September 15, 2024

Comfort is vastly overrated

Next Post

September 20, 2024 Why Being Uncomfortable is a Good Thing

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"Mary did have a choice. And she was able to make it before the Holy ..."

madalyn baumstark

Mary Got To Choose

"i cannot read beyond your recommendations for the books since i like to have a ..."

madalyn baumstark

A Doubting Faith

"AI will never be able to utter with honesty, feeling, or humility, the greeting: "Namaste".It ..."

madalyn baumstark

AI and Human Dignity

"They do. I'm sure you could find discussions of the same topic from any of ..."

Vance Morgan

AI and the Life of Faith

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Advent AI Angels Artificial intelligence atheism attention baptism Baptists beauty belief Benedictines Bible bicycling Big Bird books Bovina Camaldoli hermitage Canada Catholicism cats certainty change Christianity Christmas Collegeville Covid-19 creativity Development of Western Civilization dogs doubt Easter Enneagram Epiphany Episcopal ethics Eucharist evil extroverts Facebook faith family fear flowers forgiveness freedom friends God goodness grace happiness heaven hell history Holy Spirit Holy Week hope human nature humility humor idolatry incarnation introverts irreverence Islam Jeanne Jesus Joe Biden joy Judaism justice Kamala Harris knowledge Lent listen literature liturgy love Marsue Memorial Day miracles movies music mystery mythology NPR Old Testament optimism paradox peace Penguins philosophy piano podcast politics power prayer Protestantism Providence College Religion Rhode Island sabbatical sacrament science seeing silence Simone Weil Socrates soul sports St. John's College stories suffering tattoo teaching technology television theology thinking time tolerance transcendence travel trees trust truth Uncategorized Vermont wisdom wonder writing

Select a Month May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz