If one knows nothing of Marxism, or the philosophy of Karl Marx, they at least know the famous quote stating that religion is “…the opium of the people.” Both theist, atheist, and agnostic alike, however, often wrongly understand this as meaning that Marx understood religion as something of a mind-numbing agent that could be used to dumb down, or control the masses. This is an infantile reading of Marx, however, and in no way reflects what he had in mind. Here is the quote in a fuller context:
“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
For Marx, opium, here, does not represent something dumbing the people down, or controlling them, but rather a pain killer. Religion, in his understanding, was man’s best and most beautiful attempt at liberating themselves from suffering. It is an opium, or a pain killer that helps them to deal with real suffering. Additionally, he calls religion “the heart of a heartless world.”
For Marx, religion was a delusion that helped humanity deal with their suffering, and his criticism of religion was aimed at helping us recognize the delusion, so that we could deal with the suffering, the oppression, itself. Unfortunately, the very religion his philosophy sought to extricate us from can, and did, in many ways, become its mirror image. Why? Because it, like all religions, promised utopia in response to certain actions on humanity’s part. Marx’s utopia was a societal one, as opposed to a heavenly one, but it was still the very same promise. It was one more failed pathway to Nirvana, alongside of millions that came before it.
The Gospel invites us into something entirely different from both religion, and philosophies that mirror religion. The Gospel does not call us to pursue a utopia, or a heaven, that is gained in response to actions of ours, but to realize that heaven, or utopia, is the actions themselves. The Kingdom of God does not sit on the other side of yonder cloud formation, awaiting our arrival, but on the other side of our loving our enemies, or showing hospitality to a stranger. The sigh of the oppressed, and the heart of the heartless that Marx saw in religion, is problematic, but only because it feels it must translate itself into religion, or some other ideology that promises it utopia. The heart itself is not enough. The Kingdom of God, however, *is* the heart that is seeking expression through religion. The expression is unnecessary in the Kingdom, for it is only the heart that is needed. The act of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, hosting the alien, etc., need not be done in the name of religion or ideology to gain significance, or earn one heaven. No, the act itself is heaven, and is therefore all that is needed.
In other words, the Gospel does not call us to funnel our hearts into a system promising us something in return, but calls us to pour our hearts out upon the world in love, knowing that there may be nothing given in return, but that that is precisely why the action is beautiful. The heaven promised by religion, and the utopia pursued by Marx, are, in the Gospel, found in the heart that religion is an expression of, and that Marx sought to liberate by criticizing religion.
Heaven is the heart that loves, and utopia is the soul that sighs for the enslaved.
~Jeff Turner
