I first want to say that I'm grateful to everyone who has become a fan of this new blog. The social technology at Huffington Post shows the revolutionary power of the new technologies. Web 2.0 social networks don't just share information; they make that sharing the basis of a real community. And this is where I want to start today, on the topic of new notions of society and community.
It's Holy Week, after all. Christians worldwide are celebrating the mystical climax of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. No matter what you believe, there's something here for all of us, in the story of how a peasant carpenter from the backwater became the greatest punk rock philosopher.
In that spirit, last week I enjoyed "Capitalism, Economy, and Religion: A Christian-Marxist Dialogue," a panel discussion at Left Forum 2010. The conference was impressive, especially for those who remember its old incarnation, the Socialist Scholars Conference. Attendance this year was a record-breaking 3500, up 800 from last year. Big names Noam Chomsky and Reverend Jesse Jackson gave rousing keynotes.
And in a new twist, presentations like "Christian-Marxist Dialogue" sought to find a bridge between faith and secular political organizing -- where the future of the revolution of peace may lie. The Great Recession, the "War on Terror," the failure to prosecute the felonies of Bush and Cheney, and the slack moral relativism of Obama all show that our system of American capitalism is in its deepest crisis. In the West, two alternatives exist: Marxism and Christianity. This panel sought to point out common ground between the two.
Brigitte Kahl from the Union Theological Seminary was the first to speak. "The place where the Marxist and Christian critiques of capitalism intersect," she said, "is "idolatry." In the final book of Das Kapital, Marx points out that we fetishize things like cars, houses, and products. (Fetishize here means that we give them a life spirit.) This corresponds with the ancient prophetic call, from Moses to Isaiah to Jesus, to turn away from worshiping the glamour of the "things made by our hands" and seek higher.
Their call to abjure idolatry was intended to prevent the ancient Hebrews from returning to the slavery from which they had just fled. The idols of the pagans weren't the danger; the danger was the Hebrews' own idolatry. When Moses' brother Aaron lost faith, he collected the Hebrews' gold and forged a bull-calf, and idol that demanded blood sacrifice just as today's Wall Street bull demands war, invasions, empire, and a slack moral relativism.
Panelist Jan Rehmann backed up Kahl's thesis, pointing out that God's first self-definition in Exodus -- "I am the God who led you out of slavery" -- is telling. It means that God is primarily a Great Emancipator, not the vengeful, belligerent, heteronormative patriarch of the Michelangelo paintings. God wants us free, not enslaved. And God's freedom is total: spiritual, political, and economic.
It's slavery that the prophets are still targeting at the other end of the Bible, in the visionary book of Revelations, offering further indictments of our system's idolatry. Revelations is a more focused attack on the economics of oppression. While a state prisoner of Rome, John, the author, envisions the destruction of Rome and its empire. As anarchist theologian Michael Iafrate once wrote, the target here is all empire, subtly cloaked as "Babylon." Why?
Because your merchants were the great ones of the world. All nations were led astray by your magic potion. In her was found the blood of prophets and holy ones. And all who have been slain on the earth.
John's point was that suddenly being number one in business worldwide isn't something to brag about, not if business means that you traffic in unjust wages and the bodies and souls of human beings, and that you kill prophets and activists as a matter of daily practice.
Kahl pointed out that the Left engaged in a grand journey, a kind of "Exodus from Capitalism," with the Soviet experiment of 1917-1989. But that experiment is over. The Left is now in exile. The only way to come back stronger is to learn what we did wrong. Kahl's humility was a refreshing break from the hubris and sectarianism that dominates the American Left. The anti-war movement in the USA is desperate for new ways to build the mass movement against empire. This panel was a bright signal on a hill.
Capitalism itself is a religion, as Rick Wolff, the vivacious professor and self-described "high priest" of economics, pointed out. The mystical power of "the Market" is taught at all levels of our society. "The Market" is revered as a kind of mysterious god, never explained properly. (And did you know? Adam Smith was a professor of religious studies, not economics!)
Wolff pointed out that whether one is religious or not, the language of religion saturates our culture. All activists must know how to connect with as many people as possible, including passionate, spiritual people who feel the call to work for justice. That call is very real. Wolff sees revolutionary potential in the fact that "many people are aware that their religious values are not consistent with the values of capitalism."
After all, there's an inherent rip-off in capitalism: any owner willing to pay a wage does so knowing that he can get more value out of the worker than the owner has to pay. Wage labor is a kind of "short-term slavery."
As a former entrepreneur myself, I want to point out that Wolff is assuming here a big, profitable company, when in reality, five out of six start-ups fail, painfully. Most new employment comes from small businesses, and small business has the flexibility to incorporate new and better ethical practices.
But here's where we all agree: there's something heartening and joyful when you can read the Bible not as a false master narrative of oppression and sexual repression, but as a document of a people suffering and seeking freedom. This panel pointed out that the world's religions are not fixed. Religion is a human construct, and it adapts to changing technologies and social needs. God is well pleased the closer we get to God. God wants us to discard all disfiguring idols and seek higher.
The anthropologist side of my training tells me to look at a cultural practice and seek the reasons for it beneath the culture's own stated reason. Christianity in America for the past two centuries has been dominated by the ethos of capitalism. The religion of capitalism is one devoid of redemption; its only sacraments are debt and guilt. If you fail, it's all your fault. Never question the Almighty Market. Never seek to change the system.
That Christianity worked for the period of the robber barons, and for the wild frontier. But that period is over. The USA and the world are on the verge of a whole new paradigm. The internet has created a new ability to connect, to share, to freely give the best of our hearts and minds to each other. God is at work here.
In his opening speech, the Reverend Jesse Jackson pointed out that "the Left" is somewhat misnamed. Really, we are the moral core. We are the emancipators. We are in the mainstream, especially when we can connect to the power latent in the Judeo-Christian scriptures.
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This panel was also reviewed at The Mantle, A Forum for Progressive Critique
http://www.mantlethought.org/content/left-forum-2010-marxism-and-christianity
Follow Sander Hicks on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SanderHicks
I'm a non competitive person, I don't know why, so I latched onto the Golden Rule. I later found out that it is the bases of most religions and that it is the foundation concept for a frail species that required massive social cooperation to survive. When a child is in the bully selfish phase of their development they are admonished with the phrase "How would you like it if he did that to you." This is our first lesson in objectivity.
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." all of the rest is just commentary. The Golden Rule is easy to remember and incredibly hard to put into practice. Our social evolution is the process of expanding our definition of others from our clan, to our tribe, to our linguistic group, to our nation, to all peoples and to the biosphere.
That's my story. It has quite literally save my life more than once.
What this debate also fails to include is the growing number of statists who believe that religion and the state and the law are one, under Allah.
The old paradigm of Christianity vs. Athieism OR Capitalism vs. Communism is last century's living debate. This century will be the debate between Theocracy vs. Inclusive societies AND Sharia Law vs. Western Rule of Law.
Chicken? Egg?
The real question here is "is Marxism Christian" -- UNDENIABLY, although no power-hungry competing organization would ever admit it.
I propose a political and social movement that coalesces around one primary ideal: kindness. Our "bible" The writings of Martin Luther King Jr.
For they shall be called "sons of God"
Blessed are the meek
For they shall inherit the earth....
Well what the....That doesn't sound very right wing to me!
Sander, for a really good perspective on Christianity and and the Progress outlook, I would suggest you read anything you can get your hands on by Thomas Merton - particularly "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.
for more on the subject of Merton:
http://tomdegan.blogspot.com/2007/02/thomas-merton-1915-1968.html
Cheerio! Pip! Pip!
Tom Degan
Two thousand years ago the Cross had NO symbolic religious meaning and was not a piece of jewelry. When Jesus said: "Pick up your cross and follow me," everyone back then understood he was issuing a POLITICAL statement, for the main roads in Jerusalem were lined with crucified agitators, rebels, dissidents and any others who disturbed the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces.
In the latter days of Nero's reign through Domitian, Christians were persecuted for following the nonviolent, loving and forgiving Jesus. That Jesus was first left behind when Augustine penned the Just War Theory.
Before Emperor Constantine brought Christianity into the mainstream, all the early Church Fathers taught that Christians should not serve in the army but instead willingly suffer rather than inflict harm on any other. Augustine was the first Church Father to consider the concept of a Just War and within 100 years after Constantine, the Empire required that all soldiers in the army must be baptized Christians and thus, the decline of Christianity began.
Excerpted from "21st Century Letter to the Churches in the USA"
http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=823&Itemid=195
Brigitte Kahl from the Union Theological Seminary was the first to speak. "The place where the Marxist and Christian critiques of capitalism intersect," she said, "is "idolatry.""
Yep, Beck is totally wrong when he suggests that the advocates of "Social Justice" advocate Socialism or even Marxism. Pay no attention to the fact that they share much of the same ideology and methods.
Darin Robbins
http://www.kirchentag.de/aktuell-bremen-2009/glaube/alle-bildergalerien.html
Of course the marriage of conservative politics and evangelical Christians has added to this phenomenon, right-wing Christians seem to represent all Christians in the news because one of the two political parties shares the same views. There are millions but they're still a minority in a country where 80 something percent identify as 'Christian'.
These mega churches have filled a lot of needs in the suburban community where so many people are isolated. Job networking, social networking, etc. If they had a message of tolerance and social justice instead of the opposite, they could be a positive force. Maybe it's up to more progressive Christians to speak out against their intolerance and extremism.
Let it be known that you believe that you believe that the people of the U.S. are "uniquely stupid", that your own "superiority" is factual, and that the Democratic fix is really a political stunt to provide us what you want to give us through devious means (the only way possible politically).
God save us from the "social justice" and "tolerance" of those who believe themselves to be uniquely right, superior, and believe the rest of us to be "uniquely" stupid.