"Revolutionary Christian" Is Oxymoronic

[Ravn]

If you ultimately rely on god** to make revolution, then you're ultimately not relying on the masses. If you believe that reality is ultimately immutable, then you ultimately deny that society is transformable.

Also, rather than doing something, this is ultimately about being something. In short, it's all ineffectual regardless of sincerity.


**Another form of fatalism

[Tsiolkovsky on the Moon]

I don't think revolutionary Christians "rely" on God for the revolution per se, considering an influential phrase within Christian circles is "God helps those who helps themselves." Rather, I believe revolutionary Christian provides a theological basis for socialist thinking by way of their reading and interpretation of the Bible.

[BIXX]

I'm sorry, but no.

I'm not religious, but claiming that someone cannot be a christian revolutionary is ridiculous. They don't rely on god (well, some might claim to...), they, in my experience, tend to believe in organizing in exactly the same way as the average leftist. Also, I imagine there have been a good number of Christian revolutionaries in the past. I'm under the impression Tolstoy was one of them (I've never read anything I've just heard him cited by others).

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Sun Yat-sen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yat-sen) vs Ravn (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=138024): Go!

[The Disillusionist]

I'm sorry, but no.

I'm not religious, but claiming that someone cannot be a christian revolutionary is ridiculous. They don't rely on god (well, some might claim to...), they, in my experience, tend to believe in organizing in exactly the same way as the average leftist. Also, I imagine there have been a good number of Christian revolutionaries in the past. I'm under the impression Tolstoy was one of them (I've never read anything I've just heard him cited by others).

Doxxer beat me to it. I'm not a Christian either, but there have been many Christian revolutionaries, Tolstoy definitely being one of them, and many anarchist/communist communities in the past have been built on "Christian" foundations.

[RevolutionaryThinker]

Isn't Ravn right though?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

They might be right about individual cases but it obviously isn't true about religious people as a whole since people have already pointed out exceptions.

[G4b3n]

They tend to be rather annoying with their talk of God, spirits, the after life, etc but that doesn't mean they inherently rely on these forces for revolution and it is not a means to dismiss their revolutionary potential.

[RevolutionaryThinker]

They tend to be rather annoying with their talk of God, spirits, the after life, etc but that doesn't mean they inherently rely on these forces for revolution and it is not a means to dismiss their revolutionary potential.

Here is the problem, if they were real Christians then they could not be revolutionaries. It is oxymoronic like the OP says. Maybe there are 'Christian Revolutionaries' but they are not really Christians then....So do we still call them that? I mean it contradicts everything Christians are about.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Here is the problem, if they were real Christians then they could not be revolutionaries. It is oxymoronic like the OP says. Maybe there are 'Christian Revolutionaries' but they are not really Christians then....So do we still call them that?

Please see: No true Scotsman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman)

And while I'm posting relevant links, Freddie Engels's The Peasant War in Germany (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/peasant-war-germany/) in which a noted atheist waxes poetic about Christians attempting to establish communism, and the blurring of Christianity and materialism.



http://www.robnewman.com/digger.jpg

[RevolutionaryThinker]

Please see: No true Scotsman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman)

And while I'm posting relevant links, Freddie Engels's The Peasant War in Germany (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/peasant-war-germany/) in which a noted atheist waxes poetic about Christians attempting to establish communism, and the blurring of Christianity and materialism.



http://www.robnewman.com/digger.jpg

I am having trouble understanding what you mean, do you agree with me or not? And I'll try to find the time to read that.

I mean if you read the bible (like any good Atheist) you'd know the religion is all about obedience and not questioning things. This isn't what revolutionaries are suppose to act like I don't think. Christians, you are doing it wrong if you are trying to start a revolution.

[BIXX]

I am having trouble understanding what you mean, do you agree with me or not? And I'll try to find the time to read that.

I mean if you read the bible (like any good Atheist) you'd know the religion is all about obedience and not questioning things. This isn't what revolutionaries are suppose to act like I don't think. Christians, you are doing it wrong if you are trying to start a revolution.

Like any good atheist? So we can have a never ending unproductive argument with believers?

But anyway, I've heard some very convincing cases against what you're saying (even if I personally think god isn't real or whatever).

[Creative Destruction]

Isn't Ravn right though?

no, he isn't.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

And while I'm posting relevant links, Freddie Engels's The Peasant War in Germany (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/peasant-war-germany/) in which a noted atheist waxes poetic about Christians attempting to establish communism, and the blurring of Christianity and materialism.



http://www.robnewman.com/digger.jpg

"Waxing poetically"? Hardly. Here is what Engels actually says:

"This position of the plebeians is sufficient explanation as to why the plebeian opposition of that time could not be satisfied with fighting feudalism and the privileged middle-class alone; why, in fantasy, at least, it reached beyond modern bourgeois society then only in its inception; why, being an absolutely propertyless faction, it questioned institutions, views and conceptions common to every society based on division of classes. The chiliastic dream-visions ancient Christianity offered in this respect a very serviceable starting-point. On the other hand, this reaching out beyond not only the present but also the future, could not help being violently fantastic. At the first practical application, it naturally fell back into narrow limits set by prevailing conditions. The attack on private property, the demand for community of possession had to solve itself into a crude organisation of charity; vague Christian equality could result in nothing but civic equality before the law; abolition of all officialdom transformed itself finally in the organisation of republican governments elected by the people. Anticipation of communism by human fantasy was in reality anticipation of modern bourgeois conditions."

Calling something "violently fantastic", "vague" and so on is hardly praise; of course, Engels couldn't possibly praise the Muntzerites etc. for trying to establish communism when he knew (1) they would necessarily fail; and (2) that this "communism" of theirs was only vaguely connected to modern, proletarian communism if at that.

Here is the thing: anyone who is a Christian is necessarily a follower of a religion that extols private property, non-violence toward the ruling classes, and the family, as well as being misogynist, homophobic etc., but apparently no one cares about such minor matters. Therefore, a consistent Christian can't be a consistent revolutionary.

And Tolstoy a revolutionary? Good god.

[Creative Destruction]

there's some good work out there that posits Christ as a revolutionary, fighting against the Roman and Jewish elites who were exploiting the poor and slaves. JD Crossan has an immense amount of work with regards to this that i would recommend the OP check out, specifically The Historical Jesus and Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography.

[RevolutionaryThinker]

You people should listen to 870.

[Creative Destruction]

no, 870 has already established himself to be an idiot where it regards politics and religion.

[RevolutionaryThinker]

Like any good atheist?

I think more Atheists read the Bible than Christians. If Christians actually read the Bible, then they would become Atheists too.

[RevolutionaryThinker]

no, 870 has already established himself to be an idiot where it regards politics and religion.

Can we not call people names?

[Creative Destruction]

Can we not call people names?

lol, fuck you.

[RevolutionaryThinker]

lol, fuck you.

Fuck you too then.

[Atsumari]

"Waxing poetically"? Hardly. Here is what Engels actually says:

"This position of the plebeians is sufficient explanation as to why the plebeian opposition of that time could not be satisfied with fighting feudalism and the privileged middle-class alone; why, in fantasy, at least, it reached beyond modern bourgeois society then only in its inception; why, being an absolutely propertyless faction, it questioned institutions, views and conceptions common to every society based on division of classes. The chiliastic dream-visions ancient Christianity offered in this respect a very serviceable starting-point. On the other hand, this reaching out beyond not only the present but also the future, could not help being violently fantastic. At the first practical application, it naturally fell back into narrow limits set by prevailing conditions. The attack on private property, the demand for community of possession had to solve itself into a crude organisation of charity; vague Christian equality could result in nothing but civic equality before the law; abolition of all officialdom transformed itself finally in the organisation of republican governments elected by the people. Anticipation of communism by human fantasy was in reality anticipation of modern bourgeois conditions."

Calling something "violently fantastic", "vague" and so on is hardly praise; of course, Engels couldn't possibly praise the Muntzerites etc. for trying to establish communism when he knew (1) they would necessarily fail; and (2) that this "communism" of theirs was only vaguely connected to modern, proletarian communism if at that.

Here is the thing: anyone who is a Christian is necessarily a follower of a religion that extols private property, non-violence toward the ruling classes, and the family, as well as being misogynist, homophobic etc., but apparently no one cares about such minor matters. Therefore, a consistent Christian can't be a consistent revolutionary.

And Tolstoy a revolutionary? Good god.
Jesus Christ that is lazy. What a way to ignore Christians who actually have fought against homophobia, sexism, and contributed to progressive movements. And what a way to ignore the history of debates concerning Christianity.
Statements like these are the equivalent of people automatically calling any communist a Stalinist, even when the communist is anything but.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Jesus Christ that is lazy. What a way to ignore Christians who actually have fought against homophobia, sexism, and contributed to progressive movements. And what a way to ignore the history of debates concerning Christianity.
Statements like these are the equivalent of people automatically calling any communist a Stalinist, even when the communist is anything but.

I think my statement is much less lazy than acting as if Christianity has no doctrines, means nothing, and implies nothing. Christianity is defined by the relevant religious institutions - the Catholic Church when it comes to Catholicism for example. You can call yourself a Catholic and disagree with the One Catholic and Apostolic Church, but then you're misusing the term. The same goes for the various Protestant denominations, for the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Syriacs, Miaphysites, and whatnot.

And guess what, regardless of the illusions RevLeft has about Christianity, that doctrine is (often explicitly) anti-revolutionary.

Now this might offend the usual milquetoastl RL "why can't we all get along" sentiment, but such are the facts.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

no, 870 has already established himself to be an idiot where it regards politics and religion.
Prove it.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Go back and read any 870 heavy thread and see for yourself

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

Go back and read any 870 heavy thread and see for yourself
That's not going to wash. Provide me links or quotes so that I can see for myself. I'm not going to research your asinine thesis for you.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I think its the working opinion of the majority of the board at this point. I don't have any personal hostility towards him and as a result I guess I don't care enough to convince you, im ok with you feeling however you want :-)

[Atsumari]

I think my statement is much less lazy than acting as if Christianity has no doctrines, means nothing, and implies nothing. Christianity is defined by the relevant religious institutions - the Catholic Church when it comes to Catholicism for example. You can call yourself a Catholic and disagree with the One Catholic and Apostolic Church, but then you're misusing the term. The same goes for the various Protestant denominations, for the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Syriacs, Miaphysites, and whatnot.
You can still be a communist and disagree with "Socialism in One Country" but at that point, you are misuing the term "communist." The same goes for many other Trot denominations, left communist, and whatnot.

And guess what, regardless of the illusions RevLeft has about Christianity, that doctrine is (often explicitly) anti-revolutionary.

Now this might offend the usual milquetoastl RL "why can't we all get along" sentiment, but such are the facts.
If a Christian is supportive of gay rights and has contributed a lot to anti-homophobia and even faced backlash from the community, I see no reason to be a dick by burning a bridge by somehow trying to imply the person is homophobic. Likewise, the same thing can be said for politics and gender issue.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

I think its the working opinion of the majority of the board at this point. I don't have any personal hostility towards him and as a result I guess I don't care enough to convince you, im ok with you feeling however you want :-)
Cool story.

So you have nothing to support rednoise's bullshit pronouncement and don't care to, yet you apparently "cared" enough to encourage me to look it up without any indications of what I should be searching for, or where. It's not every day I encounter such proud idiocy on this board.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Cool story.

So you have nothing to support rednoise's bullshit pronouncement and don't care to, yet you apparently "cared" enough to encourage me to look it up without any indications of what I should be searching for, or where. It's not every day I encounter such proud idiocy on this board.

There's a search function, you should check it out. Im posting on a phone Im not gonna spend 45 minutes figuring out how to post multiple quotes and then go back and forth with you for an hour after I accomplish that, I don't actually care that much. If you wait long enough you'll see it in action in this thread anyhow.


Edit: This exchange is getting off topic and can be deleted btw mods

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

There's a search function, you should check it out. Im posting on a phone Im not gonna spend 45 minutes figuring out how to post multiple quotes and then go back and forth with you for an hour after I accomplish that, I don't actually care that much. If you wait long enough you'll see it in action in this thread anyhow.
You and rednoise made the claim, so the burden of proof lies upon the both of you, not I. That is how debates work. If you weren't prepared to provide any evidence, you should have kept your fat trap shut. And if you don't care, why are you continuing to pursue this? You obviously have nothing to contribute, so get lost and go slander somebody else.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

No one is debating you you fucking loon. These posts are going in the trash anyway, sorry in advance mods.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

No one is debating you you fucking loon. These posts are going in the trash anyway, sorry in advance mods.
Yes, mods. Sorry in advance that two posters slander another, and refuse to provide evidence upon being confronted while still insisting that they're right. It is quite ironic that this thread is about Christianity, considering their argumentative tactics are a perfect reflection of how theists defend their god. "I don't need to prove anything, my claim is just your problem now." And this is what passes for criticism and analysis on RevLeft?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Lol

[Creative Destruction]

Yes, mods. Sorry in advance that two posters slander another, and refuse to provide evidence upon being confronted while still insisting that they're right. It is quite ironic that this thread is about Christianity, considering their argumentative tactics are a perfect reflection of how theists defend their god. "I don't need to prove anything, my claim is just your problem now." And this is what passes for criticism and analysis on RevLeft?

cry about it some more.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

You can still be a communist and disagree with "Socialism in One Country" but at that point, you are misuing the term "communist." The same goes for many other Trot denominations, left communist, and whatnot.

Yes, you almost got it. You can call yourself a Marxist-Leninist while disagreeing with SiOC, but that is a misuse of the term. Likewise, if you call yourself a Left Communist, but support a communist party contributing ministers to bourgeois governments, you're misusing the term. Do you see how that works? Terms have meanings.


If a Christian is supportive of gay rights and has contributed a lot to anti-homophobia and even faced backlash from the community, I see no reason to be a dick by burning a bridge by somehow trying to imply the person is homophobic. Likewise, the same thing can be said for politics and gender issue.

Well that's nice. That doesn't mean anything, though; no matter how people feel about it (it really is symptomatic of the modern left to focus on feelings over analysis), their actions contradict Christian doctrine. Personally, I think that if they're so against homophobia, they should stop supporting a homophobic organisation, but there I go being sectarian again. None of this matters, though; whether someone's actions are in line with the doctrine of their professed faith is a factual question.

[The Feral Underclass]

Yes, mods. Sorry in advance that two posters slander another, and refuse to provide evidence upon being confronted while still insisting that they're right. It is quite ironic that this thread is about Christianity, considering their argumentative tactics are a perfect reflection of how theists defend their god. "I don't need to prove anything, my claim is just your problem now." And this is what passes for criticism and analysis on RevLeft?

You're just sad that Ethics Gradient doesn't care about you.

[The Feral Underclass]

I think it's fairly stupid to claim that people who accept Christ as the son of God (and follow the New Testament) are universally homophobes and misogynists etc when there are actually people who accept Christ as the son of God who aren't. There are Christian denominations all over the place that either ignore sections or have positive interpretations of the New Testament.

I mean, I know 870 has a superiority complex, but does he really think he's the person who gets to define what being a Christian is? That's kinda bordering on pathological.

[Atsumari]

Yes, you almost got it. You can call yourself a Marxist-Leninist while disagreeing with SiOC, but that is a misuse of the term. Likewise, if you call yourself a Left Communist, but support a communist party contributing ministers to bourgeois governments, you're misusing the term. Do you see how that works? Terms have meanings.

Terms have meanings, but they are not dogmatic. That would probably explain why Trots in particular have a trouble when it comes to party splits.


Well that's nice. That doesn't mean anything, though; no matter how people feel about it (it really is symptomatic of the modern left to focus on feelings over analysis), their actions contradict Christian doctrine. Personally, I think that if they're so against homophobia, they should stop supporting a homophobic organisation, but there I go being sectarian again. None of this matters, though; whether someone's actions are in line with the doctrine of their professed faith is a factual question.

*Sigh*
Jesus, there is so much ignorance in this statement I wonder if should even bother responding. For one, not all of Christianity is built around organization. Two, there are Christian organizations that are built around opposing the bigotry of the Christian right. Three, yes there is no short supply of people using "LUV IS LUV AND GOD LUVS ERRYONE" as the simple grounds for gay rights, but there are many Christian theologians who do cases for gay rights by citing doctrine. I find it amazing that you speak of analysis over emotion when your opinions seem to reek of nothing but laziness and maybe even disgust.

[The Feral Underclass]

such are the facts.

And by facts you mean 870 "facts."

The Jesus Radicals accept Christ as the son of God and follow the New Testament and are also anarchists...And FYI, there is an ordained Anglican priest who lives in the city I live in who is a radical anti-capitalist and attends anti-capitalist events proudly wearing his clerical collar. Would you like me to tell him he's not a Christian at his next sermon in the Church he runs?

Also this guy: Father Andrea Gallo, (http://libcom.org/blog/death-don-gallo-communist-priest-who-fought-rights-all-23052013) "Defender of the right to abortion, a fervent anti-racist and anti-fascist, he declared that homosexuality was a “gift of God”" and routinely attended gay rights marches.

[Tsiolkovsky on the Moon]

Here is the thing: anyone who is a Christian is necessarily a follower of a religion that extols private property, non-violence toward the ruling classes, and the family, as well as being misogynist, homophobic etc., but apparently no one cares about such minor matters. Therefore, a consistent Christian can't be a consistent revolutionary.

Not necessarily. In many Christian circles, the Bible is seen as endorsing a communal society based on common ownership. Indeed, in many places, particularly Latin America, Christianity is seen as extolling social change and values of peace, love, and tolerance.

Many Christian communists see the commandments of Mark 12:28-31 (Love God and then love your neighbor as greater than yourself) as being more important than even family obligations.

[Chomskyan]

I'm sorry, but I don't follow the logic. No Christian I know believes we "rely on God" for absolutely everything, unless they are the reactionary Calvinist types. Also, who says reality is "immutable"?

[Slavic]

870 is just boiling down religions and ideologies so that to identify with one you have to be a fundamentalist.

So you say your a Christian? So you are for gay rights? Well then, if your not a Christian fundamentalist, then your not a real Christian.

So you say your a Marxist? So you are against the DotP? Well then, if your not a Marxist fundamentalist, then your not a real Marxist?

So you say your a Pastafarian? So you don't beleive there is a correlation between global warming and pirates? Well then, if your not a Pastafarian fundamentalist, then your not a real Pastafarian.

[Illegalitarian]

Ironically 870 is taking the dumb position of Christian fundamentalists. "If you don't follow this very specific interpretation of the bible then you're not a ~real Christian~ and therefore there is no such thing as a revolutionary Christian!"

NO TRUE SCOTSMAN PUTS SUGAR IN HIS COFFEE



You don't get to tell people that they're not real adherents to something based on a perception you have of that thing. I'm sure we all know a lot of good religious people, some of them revolutionary communists, who are also religious. I know I do, and they're not fucking twats who judge people based on pre-conceived notions of something they clearly don't understand, either.

[cyu]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology

Liberation theology is a Christian response to poverty which interprets the teachings of Jesus in relation to liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions. Detractors have called it Christianized Marxism.

Ironically Francis recently implied that communism was secularized Christianity...

http://www.revleft.com/vb/pope-communism-plagiarized-t189524/index.html

[Creative Destruction]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_communism

[Illegalitarian]

No guys don't you get it Tolstoy and Liberation Theologists and Dorothy Day weren't real Christians because real Christians are all close minded reactionary bigots because that is a feature of religion and not just dominant power structures in general exerting reactionary social values as pretty much all power structures do.

That's how power dynamics work duh

[synthesis]

Here is the problem, if they were real Christians then they could not be revolutionaries. It is oxymoronic like the OP says.

I haven't read past the first page of this thread so maybe someone else already said this but this is absolutely not true, if we define "Christian" as "someone who follows the teachings of Jesus in some way." Most historical evidence suggests that Jesus was executed specifically for being a rabble-rouser. Then, when the Roman state that executed him for leading a rebellion of Jewish peasants later converted to Christianity, his actual life was superceded by the need of the Romans to make him a figure of peace and love and complacency, to try to keep their empire united. It's sort of similar to how Western liberals have appropriated figures like Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela and, by way of secular sainthood, bleached away any trace of even mild opposition to "the way things are."

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I think it's fairly stupid to claim that people who accept Christ as the son of God (and follow the New Testament) [...]

This is part of the problem. Your definition of Christianity, depending on how you interpret "following the New Testament", would imply either that no one is a Christian (as no one follows the texts referred to as the New Testament literally), or that Christianity includes not just Gnosticism, but also Baha'ism, Santeria, the religion of the Taiping rebels and so on. It's meaninglessly broad.


[...]are universally homophobes and misogynists etc when there are actually people who accept Christ as the son of God who aren't.

People are capable of holding all sorts of contradictory ideas. That's not the point. The point is that Christianity is a counter-revolutionary religion, and that no one can become a revolutionary based on Christianity. This is kind of obvious when you look at the people praised as "Christian revolutionaries" on this thread. A nationalist warlord and a family-mongering pacifist. Some revolutionaries.


There are Christian denominations all over the place that either ignore sections or have positive interpretations of the New Testament.

The last part presumably depends on what you consider a "positive interpretation", but yes, there are denominations, in fact the overwhelming majority of them, that ignore some part of scripture. They sort of have to, as the scripture is internally contradictory. That's not the point, though. I am talking about doctrine, not about scripture - it's amusing that people are comparing me to a Christian fundamentalist when they obviously assume a Protestant fundamentalist view of what a Christian is (someone who follows the Bible; and, they add, the Bible is whatever I think it is).

The fact is, you aren't going to find a single denomination that condemns private property.


I mean, I know 870 has a superiority complex, but does he really think he's the person who gets to define what being a Christian is? That's kinda bordering on pathological.

First of all, dear batko TAT, you are the last person who should be talking about a superiority complex. Second, amusingly enough I am merely stating how Christianity is viewed generally; I don't get to "define what being a Christian is", the Christian organisations do. Whereas some of the other posters are waving their hands trying to prove that no, Christianity doesn't actually mean anything, anyone can be a Christian.


Terms have meanings, but they are not dogmatic. That would probably explain why Trots in particular have a trouble when it comes to party splits.

Splits are good. Splits allow the revolutionary part of a group to act independently of the opportunists. They must break the hearts of people who believe in the Kautskyist nonsense of a mass party, but there you have it, reality is not kind to these people.

And the first sentence doesn't actually mean anything. "Terms aren't dogmatic"; well, no, terms are not the sort of thing that can be dogmatic. Presumably you meant to say that terms mean something, but not really, if that causes political inconvenience for you.

What people mean by "dogmatism" is sort of obvious from this ironic statement:


So you say your a Marxist? So you are against the DotP? Well then, if your not a Marxist fundamentalist, then your not a real Marxist?

Well, yes, anyone who does not uphold the d.o.t.p. is not a Marxist; that is a fairly elementary distinction. Yet many people on this site go out of their way to condemn any clear distinction, any principled difference. Why? Again I can only assume it has to do with the rot of a "mass party", a "big tent" (or indeed, "broad church") where it is best to hide political differences so as to not cause a split.


Jesus, there is so much ignorance in this statement I wonder if should even bother responding. For one, not all of Christianity is built around organization.

What "Christianity" is not organised?


Two, there are Christian organizations that are built around opposing the bigotry of the Christian right. Three, yes there is no short supply of people using "LUV IS LUV AND GOD LUVS ERRYONE" as the simple grounds for gay rights, but there are many Christian theologians who do cases for gay rights by citing doctrine.

So, can you actually cite any of those theologians? Because a lot of time the usual Christian "hate the sin" bullshit gets sold as "OMG the Church has reversed its position on gays", most notably when the current Catholic ras was elected. And of course, these theologians can argue as they want, their position is not doctrine, and it never will be.

[Atsumari]

Here is a small list of theologians and qualified individuals of the three major monotheistic religions that support LGBT rights and some progressive causes, both reformist and revolutionary.
Not everyone on the list are people that I or most revolutionary leftists may respect, but we are making a point about religion and homosexuality here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Fox_(priest)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Robinson
http://philsnider.wordpress.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_Ansar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feisal_Abdul_Rauf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornel_West
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Nussbaum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayard_Rustin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Here is a small list of theologians and qualified individuals of the three major monotheistic religions that support LGBT rights and some progressive causes, both reformist and revolutionary.
Not everyone on the list are people that I or most revolutionary leftists may respect, but we are making a point about religion and homosexuality here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Fox_(priest)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Robinson
http://philsnider.wordpress.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_Ansar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feisal_Abdul_Rauf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornel_West
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Nussbaum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayard_Rustin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges

Which doesn't answer the question at all. Namely, you claimed that there are numerous "Christian theologians who do cases for gay rights by citing doctrine". And your little list proves nothing of the sort; Tutu, for example, is not a theologian but a bishop. There is a difference! The only actual theologian among the people mentioned is Fox, who, not only has never stood for gay rights to the best of my knowledge, but who, surprise surprise, was expelled from the Dominicans, and implicitly given a pat on the back on his way out of the One, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Of course, the interesting question is: even if we find clergy who are supportive of gay rights on paper, what is their relation to capitalism, and chiefly the family, the source of all anti-homosexual bigotry? My original point was that, even though some sections of the clergy might adopt liberal rhetoric, they are still joined at the hip with bourgeois society. Hence the family-mongering. Hence the support for private property. Hence "Christian revolutionary" is either nonsense, or denotes the same kind of "revolutionary" as the various warlords on the periphery of the imperialist system, or pacifists. I.e. nothing a socialist might call "revolutionary".

[The Feral Underclass]

This is part of the problem. Your definition of Christianity, depending on how you interpret "following the New Testament", would imply either that no one is a Christian (as no one follows the texts referred to as the New Testament literally), or that Christianity includes not just Gnosticism, but also Baha'ism, Santeria, the religion of the Taiping rebels and so on. It's meaninglessly broad.

But a Christian isn't defined by how much of the New Testament they follow or how literally they take it.

People interpret the New Testament as they want, like I said in this thread. People revise and ignore sections of the New Testament to fit their particular world view. That's how religion works.


People are capable of holding all sorts of contradictory ideas. That's not the point. The point is that Christianity is a counter-revolutionary religion, and that no one can become a revolutionary based on Christianity.

According to whom? The thought police? Having a belief doesn't constitute "counter-revolution." It can only be considered counter-revolution when those beliefs are put into practice.

And of course people hold contradictory ideas. You're a Trotskyist for crying-out-loud. You should know better than anyone.


This is kind of obvious when you look at the people praised as "Christian revolutionaries" on this thread. A nationalist warlord and a family-mongering pacifist. Some revolutionaries.

What about the examples I gave? What about the Diggers who built their primitive communism around the Book of Acts?


The last part presumably depends on what you consider a "positive interpretation", but yes, there are denominations, in fact the overwhelming majority of them, that ignore some part of scripture. They sort of have to, as the scripture is internally contradictory. That's not the point, though. I am talking about doctrine, not about scripture - it's amusing that people are comparing me to a Christian fundamentalist when they obviously assume a Protestant fundamentalist view of what a Christian is (someone who follows the Bible; and, they add, the Bible is whatever I think it is).

What doctrine? What doctrine are you talking about?


The fact is, you aren't going to find a single denomination that condemns private property.

Christian communism and the Jesus Radicals are two denominations of Christianity that oppose private property.


First of all, dear batko TAT, you are the last person who should be talking about a superiority complex.

I'm not the one who is declaring diktats about who is and who isn't a revolutionary.


Second, amusingly enough I am merely stating how Christianity is viewed generally; I don't get to "define what being a Christian is", the Christian organisations do. Whereas some of the other posters are waving their hands trying to prove that no, Christianity doesn't actually mean anything, anyone can be a Christian.

But anyone can be a Christian...There isn't a special sub-section of "person" that gets to become a Christian. Each denomination will define what being a Christian means in both belief and practice, but the fundamentals are the belief that Christ is the son of god and that the New Testament is a significant text in one way or the other. There isn't any other criteria. What comes from those two facts will be based upon individual/group attitudes and emphasis.

If someone beliefs those two things and also that capitalism should be overthrown in place of communism, then that makes them a Christian revolutionary, whether you agree with it or not.

[Chomskyan]

"People are capable of holding all sorts of contradictory ideas. That's not the point. The point is that Christianity is a counter-revolutionary religion, and that no one can become a revolutionary based on Christianity. This is kind of obvious when you look at the people praised as "Christian revolutionaries" on this thread. A nationalist warlord and a family-mongering pacifist. Some revolutionaries." Sigh. I am no nationalist, pacifism shouldn't be an issue. If we want to cooperate to achieve a better society, pacifism is necessary. Malcolm X was a Muslim, just for the record. I've had a thing for him lately.

[The Feral Underclass]

Sorry, why is pacifism necessary?

[Chomskyan]

Sorry, why is pacifism necessary?

If you don't want endless counter revolutions, I suggest adopting it. From what I've seen so far, all that will happen from a revolution is more revolution, ultimately it wouldn't be an different than the endless war the capitalist system produces.

[The Feral Underclass]

If you don't want endless counter revolutions, I suggest adopting it. From what I've seen so far, all that will happen from a revolution is more revolution, ultimately it wouldn't be an different than the endless war the capitalist system produces.

I don't understand what you mean...

[Lord Testicles]

If we adopt a pacifist position then there will only need to be one counter-revolution.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

You think counter revolution happens because of violence and not you know...competing interests?

[Chomskyan]

You think counter revolution happens because of violence and not you know...competing interests?

Who denied that? I don't think you understood the point. Violence just breeds more violence. And I've had enough of wars trying to make the world safe for capitalism.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

That doesn't make any sense though, you aren't really connecting the two. How will you prevent competing interests from coming in and undoing what you've accomplished?

[The Feral Underclass]

Violence just breeds more violence.

No it doesn't. The existence of antagonistic class interests and alienation breeds violence. You can't overthrow capitalism without violence, especially if you consider your admission that capitalists are violent.


And I've had enough of wars trying to make the world safe for capitalism.

I didn't realise you were a veteran.

[Chomskyan]

No it doesn't. The existence of antagonistic class interests and alienation breeds violence. You can't overthrow capitalism without violence, especially if you consider your admission that capitalists are violent.



I didn't realise you were a veteran.

a. Capitalism is violent, which is why it causes more violence. I would argue the same about Marxism-Leninism, but that would require a different thread. b. No, but I have more fraternity with the people of Iraq and Syria than I do with most of the country-worshipping nationalists and money grubbing capitalists in the US. It's somewhat personal to me.

[The Feral Underclass]

a. Capitalism is violent, which is why it causes more violence.

That's not an analysis. Capitalism is violent because it's violent is just nonsense. Capitalist violence exists because of contradictions within capitalist society. You can't end "capitalist violence" until those contradictions no longer exist.


b. No, but I have more fraternity with the people of Iraq and Syria than I do with most of the country-worshipping nationalists and money grubbing capitalists in the US. It's somewhat personal to me.

What has that got to do with anything? The brutal fact, whether you like it or not, is that capitalism and the state can't be overthrown unless violence is used. It's not a question of preference, that's just the reality of the situation.

Suggesting we should adopt pacifism is just like saying we should let capitalism win.

[Lord Testicles]

a. Capitalism is violent, which is why it causes more violence.

I'm not sure if that's how it works. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning)

Serious question: How do you imagine a revolution can be achieved and defended whilst practising non-violence?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

But a Christian isn't defined by how much of the New Testament they follow or how literally they take it.

Obviously it is, to an extent. Someone who claims that the historical claims contained in the New Testament are all false is obviously not a Christian. As for following the New Testament "a bit", that is remarkably easy, given that the text is contradictory and obviously reflects the views of several authors, each with their own position, positions that are easy to translate into the language of modern bourgeois society.

What this means, of course, is that it's pointless to talk about adherence to the New Testament as a necessary component of Christianity, since it is vague, ahistorical (the New Testament was compiled after Christianity had become an established religion) and, well, useless.


People interpret the New Testament as they want, like I said in this thread. People revise and ignore sections of the New Testament to fit their particular world view. That's how religion works.

The point is that one can not reinterpret scripture however one pleases and remain a Christian. Or a member of any religion: if some European knight stuck in the Levant imagined that the Muslims worshiped a three-headed devil named Baphomet and, for whatever reason, converted to the worship of said Baphomet, no one would consider him a Muslim. Likewise, if your interpretation of the New Testament has you as the little brother of Jesus, you are not a Christian. It's a fairly simple affair that people wish to make endlessly complicated so they can drag out "good" Christians for whatever purposes.


According to whom? The thought police? Having a belief doesn't constitute "counter-revolution." It can only be considered counter-revolution when those beliefs are put into practice.

Obviously the phrase "counter-revolutionary" does not exclusively refer to counter-revolutionary practice, but also positions that inexorably lead to counter-revolution. The great Christian, Donoso Cortez, was a counter-revolutionary even though he personally did not participate in any counter-revolution.


What about the examples I gave? What about the Diggers who built their primitive communism around the Book of Acts?

At best, everything that can be said about the Diggers has been said by Engels concerning Muntzerites - a "communism" before the time when communism was a possibility, violently fantastic, consummating itself in bourgeois society - as indeed the Diggers did with their farming communes. To say they "built their primitive communism" is an abuse of terms (and primitive "communism" is the most reactionary social form in existence).

And what other examples? "Jesus Radicals", who are some sort of primitivist sect? I wouldn't consider these to be revolutionaries even without the "Jesus" part - they are literally reactionaries.


What doctrine? What doctrine are you talking about?

In the case of the Catholic Church, that would be the Cathechism, decisions of church councils, canon law and so on. The same, I believe, goes for the various Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches. And so on, and so on.


Christian communism and the Jesus Radicals are two denominations of Christianity that oppose private property.

Well, no, the second is a political organisation that claims to be Christian. The first is a vague term that apparently includes pacifists and the good Christian god knows what else.

Now, as a matter of fact, I was terribly bored and tried to search for "the Jesus Radicals'" position on private property. Nothing. Spirit-of-God-floating-over-the-waters nothing. At best I would get two guest articles about how Augustine didn't consider "absolute property" a moral good because it "walls people off from the human family".

Not a good sign.

[Rafiq]

To be a Christian revolutionary within capitalism is an impossibility. Even originally non-Marxian leaders like Dubois knew very well of how Christianity dulls the revolutionary fervor of the masses.

Christianity, ideologically is the embodiment of the innermost sentiment of the defense of the existing order.

However, revolutionary Christianity historically, in social epochs preceding capitalism or in the early stages of capitalism was very real - there was simply no other means by which one could establish themselves ideologically, than through religion. However Chrisitanity as such died with the Age of reason - the predispositions toward destroying Christiantiy are already inherent to expounded bourgeois logic. This, however, only represents a flexible insurance policy: The power of the church today is not in any kind of established institution, but in the heart that violently and irrationally defends the existing order - the weak heart which extinguishes the fires of revolutionary passion.

[Illegalitarian]

I guess it's not a problem. If the only people who are Christians are the ones who follow their bible in a very specific and literal way, there's only a handful of Christians on earth so Christianity isn't a force we need to concern ourselves with anyways :rolleyes:

[Dave B]

The problem with this debate is that Christianity and Marxism and Communism are being viewed as monolithic, homogenous and historically fixed ideologies as well as being automatically and prejudicially assumed as always mutually exclusive.

Which is bollocks of course.

Lets take communism; or non Marxist communism as a starting point.

Horror, muddle and apostasy, non Marxist communism!


The Teutons are all still very muddled about the practicability of communism; to dispose of this absurdity I intend to write a short pamphlet showing that communism has already been put into practice and describing in popular terms how this is at present being done in England and America.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/letters/44_10_01.htm


Description of Recently Founded [Christian] Communist Colonies Still in Existence

https://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1844/10/15.htm

We could argue perhaps about what ideology came first communism or Marxism; irrespective of out of which trans-historical epochs it came from?

Be it Whinstanley at the point of the emergence of English capitalism.

[Whinstanley actually had a historical materialist analysis as well actually if you read it properly.]

The antecedent to the communist party itself; the League of the Just.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_the_Just

In fact we can even go back further with communism as an ideology of property being held in common to Acts in the New Testament.

And to circa AD160 with an early pagan critic of Christianity;

THE PASSING OF PEREGRINUS by Lucian of Samosata


“ added to which, their first law giver taught them that they were all brothers as soon as they commit the collective crime of repudiating the Greek gods, worshiping that crucified sophist himself and living by his commandments. They despise all worldly goods and consider them common property…


But as it goes; as you can’t be a communist outside the historical epoch of modern capitalism then a ‘communist’ is isn’t a communist.

If ‘Christianity, ideologically is the embodiment of the innermost sentiment of the defense of the existing order’; then Whinstanley and the early Christians, including the author of the apocalypse of John, were clearly off message.

It is little wonder that the early Christians were blamed for burning Rome if the apocalypse of John was in anyway the normative [up to April 15, AD 69] wet dream position of Christianity to Roman imperialism.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/early-christianity/index.htm


So what is Christianity then if it is a monolithic?

Is it the starting position and the antecedent or is the end ‘vulgar’ position?

I mean what is a ‘socialist society’?

Is it where;


…there is no need for a state, there is no need either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power.


http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/AS07.html#c3


Or Bolshevik state capitalism?

Is Marxism trans-historically monolithic?



Very often the word “workers” is taken to mean the factory proletariat. But it does not mean that at all. During the war people who were by no means proletarians went into the factories; they went into the factories to dodge the war. Are the social and economic conditions in our country today such as to induce real proletarians to go into the factories? No. It would be true according to Marx; but Marx did not write about Russia; he wrote about capitalism as a whole, beginning with the fifteenth century. It held true over a period of six hundred years, but it is not true for present-day Russia. Very often those who go into the factories are not proletarians; they are casual elements of every description.



http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm

What was the difference between the economics of production in the international Roman Catholic monastic system, with no private ownership of production, and its political bureaucratic caste; and mature Bolshevik state capitalism?

Was institutionalised Roman Catholic Christianity like modern Comintern Stalinism was Marxism?

To criticise Christianity; it is true that embodied within it is a certain apathy and indifference to the here and now for pie in the sky when you die.

But there is also an ideology within it of ‘justification’; or rebellion against oppression.

I am as implacably opposed to modern neo-Christianity as I am to modern neo-Marxism ie Bolshevism.

[Ravn]

Dave: "The problem with this debate is that Christianity and Marxism and Communism are being viewed as monolithic, homogenous and historically fixed ideologies as well as being automatically and prejudicially assumed as always mutually exclusive."

The core of the issue is the contradiction between materialist & idealist outlooks. Those are mutually exclusive even if a person can within their view or position vacillate between the two, going back & forth. How is that the most effective approach in dealing with reality? It's problematic.

[Ravn]

I'm sorry, but I don't follow the logic. No Christian I know believes we "rely on God" for absolutely everything, unless they are the reactionary Calvinist types. Also, who says reality is "immutable"?


If you believe that whatever happens is ultimately god's will, then you're ultimately relying on god for everything. He's the ultimate decider. There's a degree of passivity inherent in all theistic belief. & any fatalistic belief. That Christians, or anybody else that holds fatalistic beliefs don't consistently operate as if this is really the case isn't surprising because it's going to get in the way of people being practical about things. People are actually vacillating between being proactive & passive whenever it's expedient.

If god is the ultimate reality, & that god is immutable, then the ultimate reality is immutable. If you actually believe that you might have trouble believing that social relations are transformable.

[Tsiolkovsky on the Moon]

Viewing God as passive in the Christian context is not a monolithic theological stance; indeed, many Christians see a passive god as harkening to the old polytheistic faiths whose deities represented nature who ultimately were indifferent to man's needs and activities. The God of Christianity is an active god who is constantly at work in human affairs. God in Christianity calls upon people to be active in the world and no passive.

[Ravn]

Viewing God as passive in the Christian context is not a monolithic theological stance; indeed, many Christians see a passive god as harkening to the old polytheistic faiths whose deities represented nature who ultimately were indifferent to man's needs and activities. The God of Christianity is an active god who is constantly at work in human affairs. God in Christianity calls upon people to be active in the world and no passive.


I'm not "viewing" god as passive. I'm viewing believers as passive, or vacillating between being passive & proactive because they see god as the ultimate decider in things. If god is constantly active in human affairs then that makes god partly responsible for human state of affairs. That makes him complicit in whatever is going wrong there. You're really better off with a deist god. At least that god has an excuse.

[Dave B]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_providence

[Sandy Becker]

I think it's fairly stupid to claim that people who accept Christ as the son of God (and follow the New Testament) are universally homophobes and misogynists etc when there are actually people who accept Christ as the son of God who aren't. There are Christian denominations all over the place that either ignore sections or have positive interpretations of the New Testament.

I mean, I know 870 has a superiority complex, but does he really think he's the person who gets to define what being a Christian is? That's kinda bordering on pathological.
We are not talking about the freaking intentions, good or bad, of individuals that call themselves "Christian," are we? What difference does that make? By the 18th century (at the latest), Christianity was a reactionary force in the world. And to the extent someone of the faith is not reactionary, it is in contradiction to Christianity. To use an extreme example, a member of the NAZI party might have done some kind and humane things in his life. That doesn't mean being a NAZI is not in contradiction with being humane. 870 has it spot on here. The posters criticizing him look might foolish.

[cyu]

I would sooner work with self-proclaimed Christians help landless peasants occupy and use farmland, than work with self-described anarchists smash windows.

[Slavic]

If you believe that whatever happens is ultimately god's will, then you're ultimately relying on god for everything. He's the ultimate decider. There's a degree of passivity inherent in all theistic belief. & any fatalistic belief. That Christians, or anybody else that holds fatalistic beliefs don't consistently operate as if this is really the case isn't surprising because it's going to get in the way of people being practical about things. People are actually vacillating between being proactive & passive whenever it's expedient.

If god is the ultimate reality, & that god is immutable, then the ultimate reality is immutable. If you actually believe that you might have trouble believing that social relations are transformable.

I don't think you have a good grasp of Christianity. First off, the ideas that you dismiss as fatalistic can be found in dialectical materialism. Dialectical materialism is deterministic and the progress of humanity is predetermined by the summation of its parts. There is no room for free will in materialism.

The majority of Christians do not follow deterministic philosophies. There is a difference between being deterministic and believing in an all knowing God. Christians follow and believe in free will whilst acknowledging an all knowing God. Thomas Aquinas made a very sound argument for how free will and an all knowing God can co-exist.

So, Christians do act, they have free will, how can they not act. They may act with an ideal in mind, the will of God, but they themselves become vessels of God's will. They are not fatalists, they are active agents that seek to act with certain principles in mind.

On the other hand, a Marxist should identify that our current living state is determined by its material state and that such a state occurs from a summation of all of its parts. It is impossible to "will" change, change only occurs if the conditions for such change are met. Marxism is very much reliant on the determined motions of the universe. We are but slaves to our pasts.

[Ravn]

I don't think you have a good grasp of Christianity. First off, the ideas that you dismiss as fatalistic can be found in dialectical materialism. Dialectical materialism is deterministic and the progress of humanity is predetermined by the summation of its parts. There is no room for free will in materialism.

Well, arguing against dialectical materialism doesn't prove that Christian practice isn't fatalistic. (& what I'm claiming here is that believers vacillate between fatalism & being proactive about things.) It's got nothing to do with free will. It's got to do with the inherent fatalism of certain beliefs & what goes on in people's thinking, It's not that they lack an ability to choose things. For example , they can choose to believe other things when their consciousnesses are raised to other possibilities when new information is available. Since people are actors as well as acted upon, they're contributing to the outcome of things & are not mere puppets.




On the other hand, a Marxist should identify that our current living state is determined by its material state and that such a state occurs from a summation of all of its parts. It is impossible to "will" change


But it's not impossible to act, & since we're all actors as well as being acted upon, we can affect changes in society & the world regardless if nothing is inevitable, & regardless if there are limits to what can actually be done.

[The Feral Underclass]

We are not talking about the freaking intentions, good or bad, of individuals that call themselves "Christian," are we? What difference does that make?



No, we're not talking about that. What we are talking about is what makes a Christian. My definition makes a difference because it is what actually defines a Christian person as being Christian.




By the 18th century (at the latest), Christianity was a reactionary force in the world. And to the extent someone of the faith is not reactionary, it is in contradiction to Christianity.



Christianity as what? A political and cultural institution or as the practice of faith? Because faith can be practised any way someone chooses. Being called a Christian doesn't make you reactionary, doing something or saying something that is reactionary is what makes you a reactionary.




To use an extreme example, a member of the NAZI party might have done some kind and humane things in his life. That doesn't mean being a NAZI is not in contradiction with being humane. 870 has it spot on here. The posters criticizing him look might foolish.



What is the core definition of a Nazi? It is racial supremacist fascism, right? More or less. At what point do you stop being a Nazi? It's probably when you no longer believe in racial supremacy or fascism. But within Nazism there are lots of different interpretations of what that means. If you look at the history of Nazism there were various trends that emerged within it, most notably the left-wing of the party in contrast to the right-wing of the party.



So when I say the core definition of a Christian is the belief that Christ is the son of god and the following of the New Testament in one way or the other, that's essentially the same as saying what the core definition of a Nazi is. And just like the Nazis there are variations within Christianity depending on how you interpret those core values.



The difference between Nazism and Christianity though, is that Nazism is always a reactionary force because it intrinsically rejects the idea of class and seeks to maintain dominance and exploitation, even if you're the most left-wing, revolutionary Nazi. Christianity, however, can maintain its core values and still call for the liberation of the working class through revolution...Believing in Christ and stealing bits from the New Testament doesn't negate the belief in revolution.



Of course, it's stupid being a Christian and a communist, but that's not really the argument we're having.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

No, we're not talking about that. What we are talking about is what makes a Christian. My definition makes a difference because it is what actually defines a Christian person as being Christian.







Christianity as what? A political and cultural institution or as the practice of faith? Because faith can be practised any way someone chooses. Being called a Christian doesn't make you reactionary, doing something or saying something that is reactionary is what makes you a reactionary.







What is the core definition of a Nazi? It is racial supremacist fascism, right? More or less. At what point do you stop being a Nazi? It's probably when you no longer believe in racial supremacy or fascism. But within Nazism there are lots of different interpretations of what that means. If you look at the history of Nazism there were various trends that emerged within it, most notably the left-wing of the party in contrast to the right-wing of the party.



So when I say the core definition of a Christian is the belief that Christ is the son of god and the following of the New Testament in one way or the other, that's essentially the same as saying what the core definition of a Nazi is. And just like the Nazis there are variations within Christianity depending on how you interpret those core values.



The difference between Nazism and Christianity though, is that Nazism is always a reactionary force because it intrinsically rejects the idea of class and seeks to maintain dominance and exploitation, even if you're the most left-wing, revolutionary Nazi. Christianity, however, can maintain its core values and still call for the liberation of the working class through revolution...Believing in Christ and stealing bits from the New Testament doesn't negate the belief in revolution.



Of course, it's stupid being a Christian and a communist, but that's not really the argument we're having.

The problem is, you don't appear to understand what Christianity is, or you're pretending not to understand in any case. "Believing in Christ and stealing bits from the New Testament" is such an outrageously lazy description I am almost tempted to believe your entire intervention here has been sarcastic.

But never mind that, let's take a step back. Why is Nazism defined by biological racism? Goebbels, for example, didn't believe in anything similar when he joined the NSDAP, and in fact lampooned Streicher for his anti-Semitism (which is not to say Goebbels was particularly concerned about the Jews, at any point). But as we all realise, the character of Nazism is not defined by one person, not even someone as important to the ideology as Goebbels, but by the official institutions connected to Nazism. Nazism means biological, pseudo-scientific racism because that was the official ideology of the NSDAP.

Now, why is it difficult to apply the same sort of criteria to Christianity? Christianity also "rejects class and seeks to maintain dominance and exploitation". A few token sermons about the poor (note: the poor, not the proletariat) do not change that fact. That is the official doctrine of all Christian organisations (and talking about some sort of personal faith that exists in isolation from actual social structures that make up Christianity is hardly materialist).

[The Feral Underclass]

The problem is, you don't appear to understand what Christianity is, or you're pretending not to understand in any case. "Believing in Christ and stealing bits from the New Testament" is such an outrageously lazy description I am almost tempted to believe your entire intervention here has been sarcastic.

Look, I don't care what you think Christianity is. I don't care how much you've read about it or how much you think you know, or indeed how much you actually know. The fact remains that the core definition of being a Christian isn't that complex. It's not that difficult to be one. The basic premises are simple. Even if you do a cursory Google search on various denominational websites the list is just as fucking simple as the one I have provided. Different churches have different interpretations, rules, rituals and traditions, none of which are particularly consistent except for two things: Christ is the son of God and the New Testament is a significant text in one way or the other.

The only reason you are battling on with your nonsense, trying to make out it's all far more complex and mysterious than it actually is, is because otherwise your whole argument is exposed to be nothing more than dogmatic bullshit. That's the only reason you're invested your time here, even taking it upon yourself to respond to a post that's not even direct at you.

Shut. Up.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Look, I don't care what you think Christianity is. I don't care how much you've read about it or how much you think you know, or indeed how much you actually know. The fact remains that the core definition of being a Christian isn't that complex. It's not that difficult to be one. The basic premises are simple. Even if you do a cursory Google search on various denominational websites the list is just as fucking simple as the one I have provided. Different churches have different interpretations, rules, rituals and traditions, none of which are particularly consistent except for two things: Christ is the son of God and the New Testament is a significant text in one way or the other.

The only reason you are battling on with your nonsense, trying to make out it's all far more complex and mysterious than it actually is, is because otherwise your whole argument is exposed to be nothing more than dogmatic bullshit. That's the only reason you're invested your time here, even taking it upon yourself to respond to a post that's not even direct at you.

Shut. Up.

How about no?

There is nothing mysterious about Christianity; understanding Christianity, however, does require some knowledge of the religion, and more importantly not being hellbent on inventing some "good" Christianity that is super peachy and fine because, hell if I know why. And if you actually bothered to learn something about Christianity, you would realise that your criteria cover religions and movements that no Christian (or anyone else, really) would classify as Christian, on top of being horribly vague (like, what does Christ being a son of god mean? it's not exactly a straightforward question and the religion has split several times over it).

[Comrade #138672]

Christians can be revolutionary, but Christianity cannot be revolutionary.

[Illegalitarian]

appeals to purity are great

[cyu]

Is "revolutionary Judaism" oxymoronic? What about "revolutionary Hinduism", "revolutionary Buddhism", "revolutionary Islam", or "revolutionary Sikhism"?

If Buddha was supposedly a real person, is there a fundamental difference between his followers and the followers of Marx?

I'd say any religion can be revolutionary depending on the interpretation, just as any religion can be pro-capitalist, depending on the interpretation. As you might imagine, regardless of what any religion says, the ruling class will constantly attempt to pervert the teachings into something that props up their own rule. And when the ruling class succeeds, then that particular religious interpretation will indeed be a counter-revolutionary one.

Doesn't just apply to religions. After all, the word "libertarian" used to mean an anti-capitalist. These days, pro-capitalists have attempted (and largely succeeded) in perverting the term into meaning a pro-capitalist "anarchist". Most of Europe's supposedly "socialists" parties that manage to get elected office are hardly socialist - they call themselves "socialist" but depend on the funding and support of the rich to get elected, just like any other pro-capitalist party.

However, just because mainstream "socialist" parties aren't actually socialist, that doesn't mean "revolionary socialist" is an oxymoron.

[synthesis]

And if you actually bothered to learn something about Christianity, you would realise that your criteria cover religions and movements that no Christian (or anyone else, really) would classify as Christian

This is such a perfect example of circular reasoning, I love it. Anything you find to back up your argument is automatically null and void because they aren't considered Christian by groups that he considers Christian!


on top of being horribly vague (like, what does Christ being a son of god mean? it's not exactly a straightforward question and the religion has split several times over it).

How is this TAT's problem? The fact that "it's" not a straightforward question - i.e., the question of criteria for Christianity, which you seem to be admitting is "not a straightforward question" - is evidence for his argument, not yours.

[Dave B]

Actually there was a massive variety of completely different versions of Christianity from the very beginning; say the first 200 years?

And they were not minor sects either but major currents.

And the differences we see today, or even over the previous 1000 years or so pale in comparison.

These were described in some detail in several massive volumes written by the early ‘orthodox’ ‘church fathers’ over the period of say 150-400AD.

I have coincidentally just read an fairly good book on the subject this weekend by Bart Ehrman called ‘Lost Christianities’; although I was fairly familiar with the most of the subject matter in it beforehand.

Metaphysical views on Jesus ‘ranged’ from him not actually being a bodily and thus un-god like human being, to him being just an inspired ordinary bod.

And from the world being created by god etc with some degree of interventionism here and there, to the pure ‘Gnostic’ idea of the world being a ‘cosmic accidental disaster’ in which god played part at all.

[In that second view point the analogy of the ‘Matrix’ film is so close there is not much you can add to it I think.]

Political views ranged from obeying the emperor, getting on with working within the system and organising the church on the basis of Pauline Bolshevik bishopric democratic centralism; and the leaders know best.

To the anti-hierarchal, the rich are a bunch bastards and also the self serving power mad; as are the Bolshevik bishops.

And we want to live like anarcho-syndicalists in co-operative communes of workers were we only elect into office those ‘who are not ambitious for power’.

(eg Contra Celsum circa AD180; probably a friend of Lucian of ‘the Christians are a bunch of communists fame).

Lucian’s passing of ‘The Passing of Peregrinus’ was addressed to a Celsum.

[‘The Passing of Peregrinus’ was a ‘cynical’ attack on the anti decadent and anti consumerist philosophy of formal ‘cynicism’ and its celebration of the worth and value of a humble workerist lifestyle; as something for saps and the gullible. It is an entertaining story in its own right; with Peregrinus having a raddish shoved up his arse etc]

And thus neatly and cleverly fuses and conflates it with ‘communist christianity’.

Of less than say 10 known Cynics covering the period of 100-300Ad; 3 came from a town less than 10 miles from Nazereth.

Eg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oenomaus_of_Gadara


On another thread people were asking who in communism is going to do the dirty work and collect the garbage; or be a foot washer for that matter etc.

‘Jesus’ of the ‘I am the way the truth and the life’ garbage collector fame said; I will.

At the end of the day I am not interested in ‘Christianity’ I suppose but in the ‘gospel documents’ as a potentially proto-communist and working class expression of class hostility.

And back again to Feuerbach, Karl’s intellectual mentor, that ‘God and Jesus’, as far as the early Christians were concerned (and Lucian for that matter) were communists.

Perhaps we could ask the question;

Was Jesus a Christian?

[Ravn]

Is "revolutionary Judaism" oxymoronic? What about "revolutionary Hinduism", "revolutionary Buddhism", "revolutionary Islam", or "revolutionary Sikhism"?

If by revolutionary you mean emancipating people from idealist illusions, then the best anything all the above is going to do is reform idealist illusions to make them more palatable; it's not emancipation from them.





If Buddha was supposedly a real person, is there a fundamental difference between his followers and the followers of Marx?

A "follower of Marx" is not necessarily revolutionary so there would be no fundamental difference for *that* reason.







I'd say any religion can be revolutionary depending on the interpretation


It depends on what it's based on. A religion based on objective reality would be revolutionary. But social revolution is not a religion.






Doesn't just apply to religions. After all, the word "libertarian" used to mean an anti-capitalist.

Libertarianism is a reflection of petty bourgeois idealism & individualism. It's easily co-opted.







However, just because mainstream "socialist" parties aren't actually socialist, that doesn't mean "revolionary socialist" is an oxymoron.

If what is referred to as socialism is a reflection of revisionism, calling that revolutionary is oxymoronic.

[RedBlackStar]

TFU is pretty much spot on here (from what I've read skimming through). Levels of faith to qualify in Christianity can range between Agnostic and full on Fundamentalist nut bag. I'm gradually learning to be wary of 870...

As for can a Christian be revolutionary? Yes, because a revolution is simply forcing, through actions which normally involve a measure of violence/force, a change in the dynamics of power. A Fundamentalist could do this for the end of putting absolute power within the church as opposed to the current political body.

You can't really judge the group in general for the specific Socialist potential. For instance you get people like Martin Luther King Jr who use religion to justify why all should be equal and free. Then you get nut bags like the Westboro Baptist Church who use it to oppress the gays and stuff. Those are the varying degrees of Christianity that we see and all people have a right to all beliefs so long as they don't infringe on the rights of others; we can scrutinise and debate all we want (in fact I'd say it would be a waste of time not to) but if someone says 'that belief is bad' to one which doesn't harm then they're full of shit.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

This is such a perfect example of circular reasoning, I love it. Anything you find to back up your argument is automatically null and void because they aren't considered Christian by groups that he considers Christian!

That is only true if you interpret my post as a syllogism - i.e. if you manage to completely misunderstand it. It is, in fact, not a syllogism, but merely a note about the use of the word "Christian". There are groups that are called "Christian" by everyone - this is a simple linguistic fact, and if this was not the case, English speakers could not communicate with each other. These groups, along with certain others (e.g. scholars of religion) form the relevant social milieu in which who is and who is not a Christian is decided.


How is this TAT's problem? The fact that "it's" not a straightforward question - i.e., the question of criteria for Christianity, which you seem to be admitting is "not a straightforward question" - is evidence for his argument, not yours.

Well, no, the fact that Christ being the son of god is understood in several incompatible ways means that TAT's claim is vague. There is quite a difference between the orthodox account, for example, and adoptionism.

But more importantly, there are groups, the Baha'i for example, whose view on Christ is closer to orthodox trinitarianism than, for example, Sabellianism (in fact a hard-line Sabellian would not say that Christ is the son of God, but that he is God, or an aspect of the same), yet Bahaism is not a part of Christianity whereas Sabellianism is a Christian heresy. The social and historical context is everything; if you believe that you have managed to condense two thousand years of contradictory development of a religion into a two-clause formula, you're kidding yourself.

And for what? To find "good Christians"? To what end?

[Illegalitarian]

That doesn't really contradict the fact that you're basically saying "they're not real christians because real christians can't be revolutionary because I said so"

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Do you believe in the necessity of class struggle to abolish capitalism in favor of communism? If so, it really doesn't matter to me if you believe Jesus is a deity.

[The Disillusionist]

Revleft won't let me quote today for some reason, but this post is in response to Dave's post.

I wrote a critique of Lost Christianities by Bart Ehrman for one of my classes a while back. It's a really interesting book, but Ehrman picks and chooses a lot of evidence to make his case. He completely ignores a huge chunk of historical context, and almost completely ignores the Old Testament, to make the completely baseless argument that early Christianity was a free-for-all of wildly varying theories in competition with each other until the New Testament was put together. Essentially, he writes to the controversy in order to attract readers, at the expense of historical accuracy.

[Ravn]

TFU is pretty much spot on here (from what I've read skimming through). Levels of faith to qualify in Christianity can range between Agnostic and full on Fundamentalist nut bag. I'm gradually learning to be wary of 870...

As for can a Christian be revolutionary? Yes, because a revolution is simply forcing, through actions which normally involve a measure of violence/force, a change in the dynamics of power. A Fundamentalist could do this for the end of putting absolute power within the church as opposed to the current political body.

That's equivocating on what is generally understood as revolutionary in the socialist sense of the word.




You can't really judge the group in general for the specific Socialist potential. For instance you get people like Martin Luther King Jr who use religion to justify why all should be equal and free. Then you get nut bags like the Westboro Baptist Church who use it to oppress the gays and stuff. Those are the varying degrees of Christianity that we see and all people have a right to all beliefs so long as they don't infringe on the rights of others; we can scrutinise and debate all we want (in fact I'd say it would be a waste of time not to) but if someone says 'that belief is bad' to one which doesn't harm then they're full of shit.


Nobody can be equal & free in a class-based society.

King wasn't revolutionary. He was a reformist who ultimately betrayed the black proletariat.

In order to carry out a socialist revolution, that requires infringing on the assumed rights of the capitalists & overthrowing the dictatorship of that class.

I don't know why you're objecting to anyone pointing out the contradiction in holding conflicting world views, one materialist & the other idealist, at the same time. Sure, people can compartmentalize things, but it's still problematical.

But the primary issue here isn't revolutionaries who happen to be religious. (Religion is after all, a private matter.) It's ideologies that explicitly uses theology as part of its basis. Theology is going to take precedent over science.

[RedBlackStar]

King wasn't revolutionary. He was a reformist who ultimately betrayed the black proletariat.

In order to carry out a socialist revolution, that requires infringing on the assumed rights of the capitalists & overthrowing the dictatorship of that class.

I don't know why you're objecting to anyone pointing out the contradiction in holding conflicting world views, one materialist & the other idealist, at the same time. Sure, people can compartmentalize things, but it's still problematical.

But the primary issue here isn't revolutionaries who happen to be religious. (Religion is after all, a private matter.) It's ideologies that explicitly uses theology as part of its basis. Theology is going to take precedent over science.

The King example was there to point out the difference between varying religious views.

They're not necesserily conflicting world views, depending on one's version of the varied and loose collection of beliefs in Christianity.

And are there any ideologies which do that? Other than Fundamentalism and maybe certain forms of Fascism. Both of which we should fight.

[Ravn]

The King example was there to point out the difference between varying religious views.

They're not necesserily conflicting world views, depending on one's version of the varied and loose collection of beliefs in Christianity.

And are there any ideologies which do that? Other than Fundamentalism and maybe certain forms of Fascism. Both of which we should fight.

I think the point you was making was that religious views can be relatively revolutionary or relatively reactionary.

Reliance on theology is an idealist view of the world. Scientific socialism, materialist. These two approaches are in conflict.

[RedBlackStar]

Reliance on theology is an idealist view of the world. Scientific socialism, materialist. These two approaches are in conflict.

I come from a family of Christians, although I don't believe in it myself I respect their views. That's because, whilst they believe in god they don't rely on him and simply see religion as a moral code of how they should live their life. They, and most Christians and Muslims who I know, find that you must act yourself and hope that god is with you.

If a Socialist has this type of belief then they are by no means in any sort of conflict of beliefs.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

That doesn't really contradict the fact that you're basically saying "they're not real christians because real christians can't be revolutionary because I said so"

Perhaps you should read the thread before commenting.

Christian doctrine includes submission to secular authority of the possessing classes, class collaboration and aggressive family-mongering. Those are the facts. As such, a "Christian revolutionary" - someone who is revolutionary because of their Christianity and incorporates it into their revolutionary praxis - is impossible.

People apparently think that wringing their hands with some Evangelical-inspired bullshit about how you just need to believe in Jesus is an adequate response. Well, no, it just shows you aren't engaging with Christianity as it actually exists, you're addressing some dream Christianity that will be a part of your party of the entire class.

And the examples of "Christian revolutionaries" on this thread just hammer the point home. Nationalists, pacifists, "preferential option for the poor" (not that many people on RL would notice that the poor are not the same group as the proletariat) paternalists, primmos etc.

[Ravn]

They, and most Christians and Muslims who I know, find that you must act yourself and hope that god is with you.


The only *discernible* truth lies in objective reality & that doesn't require hope to ascertain. OTOH, there's no discernible way to know if any ethereal being is with you or not. That's always going to require hope & as far as discerning reality goes, it's useless.. Why should anyone respect ethereal nonsense? Respecting people is one thing. Respecting bad ideas is another.

[RedBlackStar]

Why should anyone respect ethereal nonsense? Respecting people is one thing. Respecting bad ideas is another.

It's more about respecting people's right to believe in whatever they want. Anything else is moving towards fascism.

[Illegalitarian]

Perhaps you should read the thread before commenting.

Christian doctrine includes submission to secular authority of the possessing classes, class collaboration and aggressive family-mongering. Those are the facts. As such, a "Christian revolutionary" - someone who is revolutionary because of their Christianity and incorporates it into their revolutionary praxis - is impossible.

People apparently think that wringing their hands with some Evangelical-inspired bullshit about how you just need to believe in Jesus is an adequate response. Well, no, it just shows you aren't engaging with Christianity as it actually exists, you're addressing some dream Christianity that will be a part of your party of the entire class.

And the examples of "Christian revolutionaries" on this thread just hammer the point home. Nationalists, pacifists, "preferential option for the poor" (not that many people on RL would notice that the poor are not the same group as the proletariat) paternalists, primmos etc.

The fact that you think all or even most Christians strictly adhere to Christian doctrine shows that you are not engaging with the religion as it actually exists.

What makes you so sure that no one can be a socialist first and a Christian second, or adhere to socialist thought because they believe it is in line with the ideas of Christianity? Do you know many Christians who do not supersede Christian doctrine with their own priors and ideas of what is rights and wrong, or who believe that their own personal morality and belief system isn't in league with Christianity?

I don't, and I live in the most Christian part of one of the most Christian nations on earth.

[Ravn]

It's more about respecting people's right to believe in whatever they want. Anything else is moving towards fascism.


That can't mean nobody's beliefs are beyond criticism.

[Dave B]

Luther King
30 September 1962
“Can a Christian Be a Communist?” Sermon Delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church
Atlanta, Ga.



…………This is why Karl Marx one day looked out, and this is why others following him have looked out and decided to say, “Religion is the opiate of the people.”



It has too often been the opiate of the people. Too often the churches talk about a future good over yonder and not concerned about the present evil over here. Oh, I tell you this morning, and I believe in immortality. (Yes sir) I believe in it firmly and absolutely.



But I’m tired of people telling me about the hereafter and they don’t tell me about the here. (Yeah) You can’t say hereafter (Yeah) without saying here. It’s all right to talk about silver slippers in a symbolic sense over in heaven, but gave me some shoes to wear down here (Preach it brother) It’s all right to talk about long white robes over yonder, but give me some clothes to wear down here.



It’s all right to talk about streets flowing with milk and honey, but I want to see men in decent homes right here in the world. (Amen) It’s all right to talk about all of these things in terms of a new Jerusalem, but I want to see a new Atlanta, a new New York, a new America, and a new world right here. (Amen)


This is what we’ve got to see—that the church has a social gospel that it must be true to. We must certainly work with individuals and seek to change the soul, that’s very important. But we’ve got to deal with these social conditions that corrupt the soul, and any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and not concerned about the city government that damns the soul (Yeah), the economic conditions that corrupt the soul, the slum conditions, the social evils that cripple the soul, is a dry, dead, do-nothing religion (Amen) in need of new blood.



It is already spiritually dead, and the only thing I’m certain about it is the day that it will be dead.[/URL](All right) We’ve got to see that we are challenged to have a greater social consciousness in this church. We must be concerned about the gulf between superfluous wealth and abject, deadening poverty. One does not have to be a communist to be concerned about this. I would say to you this morning that one-tenth of one percent of the population of this nation controls almost fifty percent of the wealth, and I don’t mind saying that there’s something wrong with that.


I don’t mind saying this morning that too often in capitalism we’ve taken necessities from the many to pave luxuries to the few. I will never be content, I will never rest until all of God’s children can have the basic necessities of life.



[URL]http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/can_a_christian_be_a_communist_30_sept_1962/ (http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/can_a_christian_be_a_communist_30_sept_1962/#fn18)


In the first half Martin obviously thinks ‘totalitarian communism/Leninism’ is a tautology.

[Ravn]

M.L.King said:

"Now, what is materialism? It says in substance that the whole of reality can be explained in terms of matter in motion. In other words, it says that the basic stuff of reality is the material stuff. Materialism says, in substance, that idealism is wrong when it talks about the ultimate reality of mind and spirit and all of that. Karl Marx was a materialist, and he believed that the whole of human history moved on, driven by economic forces. This was his idea. There was no place in that system for God, and so from that moment on, communism became an atheistic system. And to this very day it is atheistic. It denies the existence of God. And if one goes to Russia, even today, he will find many of the churches fill on Sunday morning, but we know that in spite of that, the Russian government has had a campaign against religion, and against God and belief in God, ever since the revolution in 1917."



"... no Christian can be a communist because communism leaves out God. It regards religion psychologically as wishful thinking, regards religion intellectually as the product of fear and ignorance. And it regards religion historically as an instrument serving the ends of exploiters. This is what communism teaches about religion. And so, in a real sense, we disagree with this because we believe that history is moved not by economic forces but by spiritual forces. [Congregation: ] (Amen, Yeah) We believe that there is a God (Pray on) in this universe (Yes sir, Yes), a God who loves his children, and a God who works through history for the salvation of man. (Pray on) Consequently, we can’t accept communism at that point."

Note that he's promoting the idea that change can come about solely by spiritual forces, & he insists on rejecting economic forces as a determiner. (Economics as a determiner is not the same thing as saying people are mere puppets to economic forces.) But further on he acknowledges the ill effects of capitalism. He's talking out of both sides of his mouth.

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/can_a_christian_be_a_communist_30_sept_1962/

[synthesis]

Christian doctrine includes submission to secular authority of the possessing classes, class collaboration and aggressive family-mongering. Those are the facts. As such, a "Christian revolutionary" - someone who is revolutionary because of their Christianity and incorporates it into their revolutionary praxis - is impossible.

People apparently think that wringing their hands with some Evangelical-inspired bullshit about how you just need to believe in Jesus is an adequate response. Well, no, it just shows you aren't engaging with Christianity as it actually exists, you're addressing some dream Christianity that will be a part of your party of the entire class.

And the examples of "Christian revolutionaries" on this thread just hammer the point home. Nationalists, pacifists, "preferential option for the poor" (not that many people on RL would notice that the poor are not the same group as the proletariat) paternalists, primmos etc.

Jesus was himself a revolutionary, or at the very least the leader of a rebellion of Jewish peasants. From an earlier post in this thread:


Most historical evidence suggests that Jesus was executed specifically for being a rabble-rouser. Then, when the Roman state that executed him for leading a rebellion of Jewish peasants later converted to Christianity, his actual life was superseded by the need of the Romans to make him a figure of peace and love and complacency, to try to keep their empire united.In fact the charge of "banditry" in Roman times, the charge with which the Roman state killed him, was essentially synonymous in those times with "insurrectionist."

This article provides a pretty good summary:


Upstate New York in the early 19th century was known as the “Burned-Over District,” on account of the wildfires of religious enthusiasm that regularly swept through the area. The revivals came and went, but one of the preachers to emerge from the Burned-Over District turned out to be the founder of an enduring new faith—Joseph Smith, the creator of Mormonism. So, too, with Judea in the 1st century C.E. The Jewish population, filled with resentment for their Roman occupiers and for the priestly class that collaborated with the Empire, had an insatiable appetite for prophets and preachers. Our best source for Jewish life in this time and place, Josephus (http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/123410/surrender-or-die)’ The Jewish War, is like a roll-call of self-declared messiahs. One of these, known only as “the Egyptian,” led 30,000 Jews in a march on Jerusalem, threatening to seize power; another, a rabbi named Judas, tried to convince the Jews to stop paying taxes and to accept God alone as their ruler. But of all those charismatic figures, only one is remembered today: Jesus of Nazareth.

Although Reza Aslan’s new biography of Jesus is titled Zealot (http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X), he acknowledges that Jesus was not, strictly speaking, a Zealot at all. The capital-Z Zealots were a revolutionary political party that emerged in Jerusalem at the time of the uprising against Rome in 66 C.E., long after Jesus died. But the idea of “zeal,” in Hebrew kinah, had a long and potent history in Judaism, dating all the way back to the Israelites’ wandering in the desert. The original zealot was Phineas, the grandson of Aaron, who in the book of Numbers impales an Israelite and his pagan bedmate with a javelin. This murder wins God’s strong approval: “Phineas … has turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, because he was zealous for my sake.” Zeal, then, is a jealous passion for the sanctity of God and a fierce desire for revenge on God’s enemies.

In Judea at the time of Jesus, zeal was both a religious passion and a political one. God had promised the land of Israel as an inheritance for his people forever; yet now the Romans were in charge, their troops guarding the Jerusalem Temple, their tax-collectors feeding on the livelihood of the poor. In these circumstances, the desire for national independence was at the same time a longing to restore God’s sovereignty. The two motives combined in the idea of the Messiah, a figure who was supposed to be both a divine redeemer and an earthly king. It was this fusion of worldly and otherworldly grievances that made Judea such a difficult place for the Romans to govern: Every time a legionary misbehaved, the Jews were offended on God’s behalf. There were so many of these provocations that, reading Josephus, one has the impression that the disastrous rebellion of 66 was only a matter of time.

For thousands of years, however, Christianity tended to remove Jesus from this historical context. Starting with Saint Paul, Christian doctrine emphasizes Christ as a cosmic principle—the Logos, the son of God—at the expense of Jesus as a human being. It was only with the rise of the “quest for the historical Jesus,” in the biblical criticism of the 18th century, that Christians began to acknowledge that Jesus was a Jewish preacher, whose ideas about God and redemption were drawn from the common culture of his time.

To understand Jesus, Aslan argues in Zealot, it’s necessary to understand that culture and the zeal that was at its core. Drawing on a well-established body of scholarship, Aslan paints a vivid, accessible portrait of Jesus as a Jewish nationalist, “a zealous revolutionary swept up, as all Jews of the era were, in the religious and political turmoil of first-century Palestine.” He knows that, even now, this idea will come to many Christian readers as a shock: The real Jesus, he writes, “bears little resemblance to the image of the gentle shepherd cultivated by the early Christian community.”

There are, of course, some serious problems facing anyone who wants to write about the historical Jesus. Like Moses, Buddha, or Muhammad, Jesus is known to us not through objective documents—the earliest secular reference to him comes in another work by Josephus, written some 60 years after his death—but through religious scriptures. And these scriptures—the Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul—are, as Aslan shows, the products an internal Christian struggle to define just how Jesus should be remembered. Their goal was not factual accuracy but spiritual truth, which makes it very hard to evaluate them as historical evidence.

In Jesus’s case, the Gospel writers were driven in large part by the need to make his story conform with pre-existing Jewish expectations about the Messiah. Understanding this helps us make sense of some of the conflicts and contradictions in the four Gospels. Aslan takes as an example the problem of figuring out just where Jesus came from. Everyone familiar with Christmas carols knows that Jesus was born in Bethlehem; yet he is also known as Jesus of Nazareth, a small town in the Galilee.

To explain this discrepancy, the gospel of Luke invents a deeply implausible story about how, just before Jesus’s birth, his parents traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, to comply with a Roman census. The details make no sense, but as Aslan explains, that was beside the point. Jesus had to be given roots in Bethlehem so that he could be born in the same city as King David—the Messiah, after all, was supposed to be a descendant of David’s house.

The paradox of writing about Jesus is that we can only form an idea of him from the scriptures we have, yet we can only evaluate the scriptures if we have an idea of what he must have been like. Aslan marches boldly into this vicious circle, guided by the certainty that the real Jesus must have been, above all, a Jewish zealot. He was a figure like “the Egyptian,” or the rabbi Judas, or for that matter John the Baptist: a religious virtuoso who played on the familiar tropes of Jewish grievance to ignite a mass movement. “The new world order he envisioned,” Aslan writes at characteristically high volume, “was so radical, so dangerous, so revolutionary, that Rome’s only conceivable response would be to arrest and execute [his followers] for sedition.”

There is much to be said for this point of view, and Aslan’s reading of the Gospels helps to clarify some of their ambiguities. Take, for instance, the moment when Jesus is asked, “Is it lawful to pay the tribute to Caesar or not?” In response, he takes a coin and asks whose picture is on it. “It is Caesar’s,” comes the reply; to which Jesus says, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” At least, that is how the King James Bible translates his words; and in this form, their message seems to be a kind of political quietism. Keep paying taxes, Jesus seems to advise, and obey the government, since money and worldly affairs are the government’s concern. But entrust your soul, which is what really counts, to God.

Aslan, however, shows that the same passage can be translated quite differently: “Well, then, give back to Caesar the property that belongs to Caesar, and give back to God the property that belongs to God.” Read this way, Jesus sounds much more like a zealot, demanding that the land and people of Israel—which are God’s property—be returned to God and freed from Roman control. It is sayings like this, Aslan writes, that led Jesus to be labeled a “bandit”—a term that was used for all sorts of popular revolutionaries in Judea. When Jesus was crucified next to two “bandits,” then, we should not understand this to mean thieves, as though the Romans were devising an insult to Jesus. Rather, he was crucified next to fellow rebels, whose crime, like his, was agitating for Jewish independence.

All of this adds up to a coherent and often convincing portrait of who Jesus was and what he wanted. The problem, which Aslan acknowledges though he doesn’t fully address it, is that the Jesus of the Gospels is much more than a Jewish nationalist. If he were simply a zealot, he would not be remembered today, any more than “the Egyptian” is. When Jesus spoke about God as his Father, or called himself the Son of Man, or said that the Kingdom of Heaven was coming, his words did have a political bearing, as Aslan shows; but they also had a much broader and more mysterious application. Jesus, one might say, radicalized the language of Jewish messianism in such a way that it could be turned against Judaism itself. This act of religious creativity, more than his zeal, is what turned a minor Jewish preacher and miracle-worker into the Christian son of God.(sauce (http://tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/138735/reza-aslan-jesus-zealot))Again, if we can define "a Christian" as "someone who follows the life and teachings of Jesus," there is no mutual exclusivity between Christianity and the ideology of violent communist revolution. The definitions you're working with are so utterly self-referential it's almost parodical.

And come on - "family-mongering"? "Submission to authority"? You say "those are the facts" of "Christian doctrine" - because to you, naturally only the Christian reactionaries' own definition of Christianity counts, causa sui - but what about Matthew 10:34-6, easily one of the best known passages of the New Testament? ("Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law; and a man's enemies will be the members of his household.") (That's a hypothetical question, of course.)

(Also, whoever defined MLK as a "reformist who betrayed the black proletariat" clearly doesn't know why he was killed.)