Christ, Christians, Capitalism and Karl Marx

"There is need for faith in everyone’s life. But when faith does not provide methods for challenging the power of an unjust social and economic system, or impedes them, it loses its way and becomes a tool of mass repression rather than spiritually liberating. We must recognize that Christ was philosophically and pragmatically closer to Karl Marx than to Adam Smith.

Were he among us today, no doubt Christ, the historical Christ, would have serious reservations about the adulation of capitalism. Capitalism teaches that money is God. It holds that man and nature are commodities to be exploited by capital and those who own it. It is a soul-sucking philosophy that divides and stratifies. It is an aggressive cancer unleashed upon the earth.

Certainly Christ would be appalled by the selfish political conservatism of today that claims him for its own. He would be as much a leftist revolutionary today as he was some two thousand years ago. And no doubt, cheered by a mob of reputable corporatists, the money changers would crucify him again."

Excerpt taken from "Religion as a Tool of Oppression" by Charles Sullivan. (Re)Posted in Countercurrents.org on December 1, 2010.