Communism is a (Bastard) Child of Christianity
How 2,000 years of Christian moral value judgements led to communism
Karl Marx was a devout protestant Christian before his “awakening”. And before that, Jewish by faith (and heritage), and German by nationality. Before becoming the very irritable creature he became, he wrote the following, as part of the article that you can read here:
Thus the union with Christ imparts an inner exaltation, comfort in suffering, calm trust, and a heart full of love for humankind, open to everything noble, everything great, not out of ambition but for the sake of Christ. Thus the union with Christ imparts a joyousness which the Epicurean in his frivolous philosophy and the deep thinker in his most arcane science have vainly tried to snatch at, but which the soul can attain only through its unrestrained and childlike Union with Christ and God, which alone makes life more beautiful and exalted. "Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged [John 16:11]."
Sounds nice, doesn’t it? But actually, upon further reflection, I would say now… not so much.
There is indeed something disturbing about this article from Marx. It says everything right… but in a formal tone that reeks of stifled air, as if a child is (joylessly) reading back something he feels like he is supposed to say, but without really meaning it. As if just to please his parents who he is used to displeasing.
And it of course ends with a Bible verse that no doubt any communist would use against his “capitalist” overlords (and maybe was a Freudian slip of how Marx imagined his parents thought of him?): “the prince of this world is judged”.
I bring this up about Karl Marx not so much as proof of my thesis that Christianity leads to communism, but just simply as a very apt opening point for consideration. And maybe it’s an idea you haven’t read before.
Science Vs Religion?
A lot of people like to think that there is an antagonism between “religion” (the most poorly defined word in the world), and also “science” (another most poorly defined word). When I was younger (and a little less nuanced), I got caught up in the online religion/science debates that seemed to be so prevalent on the internet.
I remember all the popular idiots that the world used to hail (like Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, etc) blabbering on and on about how religion was “bad” and science was “good”.
A little older though, and a little wiser, and after reading more historically aware authors (like Tom Holland, linked below), the complexity of these past 2,000 years has become a little more obvious. And of course, one simply doesn’t get deep into history or philosophy without inevitably running into it’s most formidable apostate: Friedrich Nietzsche.
Let’s not mince words: Nietzsche hated Christianity. But despite the fact that he loathed the morality of Christianity that he labeled “slave morality”, he at least could say that, despite his disdain, he could see the effects of a world that, for 2,000 years had believed in only ONE GOD and one set of moral principles, that to just get rid of this religion and God could not happen without grave results for society.
Which is why he said:
“The time has come when we have to pay for having been Christians for two thousand years: we are losing the center of gravity by virtue of which we lived” -Will to Power
And not so long after this was written by Nietzsche did the entire world erupt into 2 large scale world wars (which really, in the end, was just one world war).
And it was not for no reason that Nietzsche’s famous “God is dead” speech actually came out of the mouth of a madman who was LAMENTING that fact, and not celebrating it (contrary to popular surface understandings of it).
So yes, despite, Nietzsche’s loathing of Christianity, he at least had some appreciation for how it was a “complete system” that the world managed to live by for 2,000 years, and shockingly (to Nietzsche) without ever creating a new god that whole time (which, of course, for the health of society, in his view, would have been necessary):
“Two thousand years have come and gone—and not a single new god!”
For Nietzsche, this situation could only result in catastrophe. For him, people had completely lost the “forest for the trees”, and no longer had a sense for how shocking it was to the contemporaries of Jesus of Nazareth to hear him say that they should “love their enemy”.
After 2,000 years of Christian morality and value judgements, we simply cannot feel how scandalous the teachings of Jesus in the “Sermon on the Mount” would have been to the average Roman, who far from being skeptical that miracles like resurrection ever happened, would actually have been far more offended at the idea that you should “love your enemy”.
I am quite familiar with modern atheist apologetics for their supposed “common sense morality” that is really just a rehashing secular version of the 2,000 years of Christianity of which they were an unconscious product.
And so “thank God” for modern historians like Tom Holland, with his erudite courage and forthrightness, who, despite himself being an agnostic, actually started to gain the perspective that, in his modern liberal values (which he previously assumed were “axiomatic”), he was indeed being “Christian” by holding such values:
And so you can imagine my immense appreciation to read Tom Holland’s epic magnum opus book “Dominion”, which confirmed for me so many things that I suspected for decades, but which now I was able to fully put my finger on.
And it was in this book “Dominion” that Tom Holland also honestly discussed Nietzsche, and Nietzsche’s loathing for modern liberals, socialist, and communists, who couldn’t see that they were the product of the very religion that they now claimed to reject and despise.
When one understands that the most shocking thing about Christianity (in it’s historical context) was not it’s claims to the miraculous or the divine, but rather it’s morality, and how, if society gets too adjusted to Christian morality (ie: love your neighbor, humans have “rights”, be a “good samaritan”) for too long, without understanding where those very moral precepts started/came from, then finally, when people throw off religion as an oppressive garment, they will be left in a place where, although they may feel liberated at first, they will soon discover that the “values” and “morals” that seemed to them so obvious… were in fact not obvious at all.
And in Nietzsche’s view, what then would happen after this discovery?
Really, there would be Two Types of People after this discovery:
The first type of person would attempt to throw off Christianity ENTIRELY, both it’s dogma and “love your neighbor (and enemy)” morality as well. It would reject everything fundamental about the Christian revolution.
And politically, those people would tend to FASCISM.
And the second type of person would throw of the traditionalism and DOGMA of Christianity, but would never make even any attempt to throw off the “love your neighbor” morality of Christianity.
And in this place of terror of not having a “moral compass” other than the situation of the last 2,000 years of Christianity’s “Sermon on the Mount”, they would eventually realize that not everyone agrees with their “common sense morality” (really, it was just common Christian sense morality), and would then, in terror and fright at realizing this, attempt to LEGISLATE and ENFORCE the morality of “love your neighbor”, to just force it on other people, to end their “existential crisis” through brute terror.
And thus, communism was born, those people chose communism. (ie: “be communal, be Christian”, or “love your neighbor, or else we’ll f**k you up”, which was a replacement for the Christian “love your neighbor, or you’ll go to hell”).
Essentially, long foreseen by Nietzsche, communism was a post-Christianity moral panic fed by the “beach ball effect” of 2,000 years of “obvious” Christian morality (never challenged until Nietzsche, which he saw ahead of time and predicted), that led to mass graves and societal devastation.
And thus, Nietzsche foresaw that these two forces born out of the “death of God” (fascism vs communism/capitalism/socialism) would wipe each other out in a mad rush to “grand politics” (ie: world wars).
But Nietzsche was also hopeful that, after this time, there would possibly be something greater that would arise:
So in summary, the situation is not necessarily hopeless (and is maybe even predicted by the very Christian faith and morality that started it all?)
Grand Politics and “Will to Truth”
But regardless of what one thinks about this, one thing seems to now be clear, and that is that both communism AND fascism are efforts to “grand politics” that Nietzsche already predicted would inevitably have followed the “death of god” (caused by the Christian “will to truth” and it’s over-focus on “truthfulness” and thus “science”, at the expense of everything else).
With fascism, it was an attempt (however, in some situations, half-assed) to throw off both Christian dogma and Christian morality.
But with communism (and socialism and capitalism), the attempt to throw off Christian morality was something that never even began to happen.
And thus, with this grander perspective, we can say that communism is a (however bastardized) child of Christianity, and that if there had not been 2,000 years of believing in “love your neighbor, and enemy” Christianity, we now have good reason to believe that there may not have been any communism (or fascism?) at all.
It is far past time to re-evaluate the times of the world wars and where this global rush to “grand politics” came from. And authors like Tom Holland have helped immensely in this regard.
Your take on the radicalism of Christianity is spot on. Only in the study of Ancient Religions do we fully begin to understand a world without it...
The bloody barbarity of Human Sacrifice is lost to a society that now denies it ever existed, despite archaeological proof. The religious beliefs of devout Christians who were also Scientists are dismissed as contemporaneous necessity by those who know nothing of History beyond their own ages' revisionist propaganda.
Secular Communism fails because it relies on Man to be as moral as God.
The old faiths had cardinal virtues, of Courage, Temperance Prudence and Justice. Christianity has Faith Hope and Charity. they will produce a very different person. One less subservient for sure. One more willing to speak truth to power. Also, i do not believe everything said about the old faiths. there was motive to slander. to prove that this "great reset" was truly "better". The abrahamic faiths infected everything with a guilt and shame control grid (confession), and dualistic , over simplistic thinking, with learned helplessness in droves. the focus discourages self awareness - the opposite of "know thyself" above the temple of Apollo. the pre abrahamics were a control grid of mystery cults, yes, the grid got even tighter with Christianity. Of course this is where it leads. Monopoly. Technocracy.