Towards the unification of Christians and Marxists: struggle to end exploitation and oppression

Abstract

This article, which is a paper in Philosophy of Religion, argues in defence of the thesis that the followers of Jesus and Marx must discard their prejudice and unite in the struggle to end exploitation and oppression particularly, in Nigeria. The paper discovers that Jesus Christ and Karl Marx were both revolutionary figures whose missions were the liberation of man from the evils of exploitation and oppression. The paper strongly criticizes Marx for failing to make the important distinction between the practice of religion and the spirit of religion and condemns, in very strong terms, Marx’s description of religion as the opium of the people. While acknowledging the fact that Marx, as a person, was an atheist, this paper maintains that Marxism as a philosophy is not atheistic, in view of the fact that atheism is not essential to Marxism. The paper insists that Marxian socialism or communism and religion firmly have the common objective of liberating man from exploitation and oppression and maintains that both must unite, if that objective is to be achieved. It was Marxian socialism’s attempt, in Russia, to liberate man from exploitation and oppression without the cooperation of religion that led to the failure of socialism in Russia, the paper maintains. Socialism, the paper insists, can only be brought to full realization on the basis of authentic religion, a fact Marx did not realize.