Whose False Consciousness? Towards a Theology of Class-Struggle

A brief overview of Marx's account of religion is followed by a consideration of a conception of liberation—a notion shared by marxists and adherents of religious traditions alike—that is substantive enough to overcome the marginalization and exploitation of countless numbers of human beings. The final section deals with the possibility of a rapprochement between the marxist and the adherent of a religious tradition.

Can religious epistemology aid in the transformation of the world to the same effect as Marxist Theory? Utilizing an approach derived from Louis Althusser's isolation of the radical implications of the epistemological break of Karl Marx, from his Feuerbachain theological thought to a materialist epistemological tradition, we probe the relationship between the mystical intent of Christian theology and the appearance of praxis as a category derived from the Marxist lexicon, within the modus cogitans of Latin American theology of liberation. We problematise the transcendentalism that liberation theology places on social practice, in its retention of a spiritualist Weltanschauung as the preeminent framework for the critique of socio-historical reality. Far from being a materialist-transformative " epistemological break " from orthodox theology, this putative theology of revolution is thus exposed as being a brand of a Hegelian theosophy, which is discontinuous with the dialectical understanding of the socio-material basis of human relations that emerges around Marxist Theory, namely praxis. Our leitmotif is therefore a claim that political theology, qua theology in general, and the Latin American Theology of Liberation in particular, have a limited efficacy as a theoretical tool for socio-political transformation, due to its inherent transcendentalist and rationalistic orientation.

Communio Viatorum, 2021

Starting with Karl Marx’s famous definition of religion, the article seeks to offer a re-appraisal of what lies behind the claim that religion is the heart of a heartless world. It looks at reactions to Marx, from the first papal rejections of “communism”, through to later nineteenth-century appropriations in literature, where the first signs of a contextual approach are apparent. It then moves on to twentieth-century papal and other engagements with Marx, ending with the reception of Marx in Latin American liberation theology. Positively, the article argues, theologians have responded to Marx’s refusal to accept that alienation and exploitation are natural or right, giving a theological grounding to the claim and seeking to show that, if not religion, at least Christ is the heart of the world.

tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society

This paper explores convergences and discrepancies between liberation theology and the works of Karl Marx through the dialogue between one of the key contemporary proponents of liberation theology, Peter McLaren, and the agnostic scholar in critical pedagogy, Petar Jandrić. The paper briefly outlines liberation theology and its main convergences with the works of Karl Marx. Exposing striking similarities between the two traditions in denouncing the false God of money, it explores differences in their views towards individualism and collectivism. It rejects shallow rhetorical homologies between Marx and the Bible often found in liberation theology, and suggests a change of focus from seeking a formal or Cartesian logical consistency between Marxism and Christianity to exploring their dialectical consistency. Looking at Marxist and Christian approaches to morality, it outlines close links between historical materialism and questions of value. It concludes that the shared eschaton of M...

Topoi, 1983

Scottish Journal of Theology, 1989

Marx’s critique of religion is complete only insomuch as religion is characterized as an ideology - as false consciousness. Marx arrays religion along modern establishments - social institutions such as family, community and law - as ideas not only determined by material conditions but also as a cycle that reproduces the very illusions that perpetuate this reality. Religion is a form of self-alienation - a symptom of a failed system - for what man cannot achieve in the concrete world, he does so through religion. By conjuring a power beyond, religion functions as an escape; taking man to a paradise of fantastic and illusory happiness. For religion exists through layers of illusions and disillusions, it is tantamount to the idolatry of the very fetishes and inversions created by the system. Given these general premises, Marx posits that only by escaping the present state of affairs by totally abolishing it - through a revolution towards a communist state - can a pure religion be achieved. While Marx provides a compromise by asserting that a pure religion can be found only within a communist state, this notion still undermines the very existence of religion, primarily Christianity, for Marx still dismisses it as illegitimate, ideological and even fictitious under the present system. There is a great need, however, to reexamine Marx’s categorization of religion as ideology. When is an idea non-ideological? This equally is a crucial meta-question that Marxism in itself faces. Through a thorough reading of four commentaries on Marx’s four most important works - namely, Communist Manifesto, The German Ideology, On the Jewish Question and the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts - this paper ultimately argues that ideological fallibility can only be transcended through one prerequisite: a revolutionary thinking - a theoretical framework that is self-conscious of the material reality that it is subjected to, and so, seeks to change this. With this (re)characterization of ideology, this paper aims to relocate Christianity today - albeit still within the locus of Marxist thinking - by positing Christianity as God’s revolution with Jesus Christ as the transpolitical salvation continually transforming and revolutionizing individuals, society and the world. The aim of this paper is not so much to provide parallelisms between Marxism and religion - as dominant narratives incessantly insist upon - and more so, not to examine Marx’s pure religion in the new state of affairs for this concept is recognized for its ambiguity. Instead, the heart of this paper shall focus on (re)examining religion in a renewed sense of ideology by looking at its revolutionary dimension. That, ultimately, religion escapes not to escape but only to be able to return and redeem.

European Journal of Theology, 2008

The Marxist ideology in former Eastern Europe is not so completely dead as some would us to believe. Marxist attitudes lurk under various disguises and they tend to surface especially in discussions with Christian missionaries from the West. The argument of this article is that a Christian worker in Eastern Europe still needs to know the basic philosophical theses of Marxism if he/she is to get the message across to the hearers.