[lbo-talk] Leninists find Jesus

C. G. Estabrook galliher at uiuc.edu
Thu Jan 29 11:36:35 PST 2009


Christianity and Marxism are alike in that they are about stories -- about history -- and that's what differentiates human life from animal life.

We think that death is natural for animals but somehow not so in our case. When someone we love dies we feel outraged and resentful, that a kind of injustice has been done. It doesn't help to be told it's "natural," because a human life is an unfinished story that we have been telling.

That's what we mean by intelligent life (which apparently means we're the only animals with language). Building on what we have inherited and on the tradition in which we've been brought up, we each make for ourselves the personality we now have. And they are our decisions and not simply what happens to us.

"People make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past."

Marxism is the attempt to descry that story for humanity as a whole. Christianity is the affirmation -- against all appearances -- that history, both personal and communal, ends in being, not in nothingness. --CGE

Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Jan 29, 2009, at 10:01 AM, Chris Doss wrote:
>
>> Stan Goff is running a Bible Study group:
>> http://www.insurgentamerican.net/2009/01/14/apocalypse-now-small-group-introduction/
>>
>>
>>
>> That's actually kind of cool.
>
> No it's not. It's depressing.
>
> Someone, I think it was Skid Roper, once did a song with the line, "Jesus was
> a groovy guy, uh-huh, oh yeah." I can agree with that. But take it any
> further and you're deep in the realm of superstition.
>
> Now I'll be the first to admit there are certain affinities between
> apocalyptic Marxism and apocalyptic Christianity: the same fantasy of end
> times leading to a miraculous transformation and eternal happiness. But
> they're both bullshit.
>
> Doug ___________________________________



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