Marxism and Religion

Marxism and Religion
Author: David McLellan
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Total Pages: 232
Release: 1987
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Marx, Marxism, and Religion. A Brief Analysis of Interactions through Arguments, Semantics, and Context Awareness

Marx, Marxism, and Religion. A Brief Analysis of Interactions through Arguments, Semantics, and Context Awareness
Author: Arghya Ray
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
Total Pages: 34
Release: 2015-01-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3656870233

Document from the year 2015 in the subject Sociology - Religion, , language: English, abstract: Without the fear of contradicting anyone, it can generally be held that academicians worldwide describe Karl Marx as an atheist. This point needs not to be challenged or scrutinised in great depths. The reason is that Marx’s personal mentality or intellectual bending does not profoundly affect the making of Marxism and its applications to the real world. The first country to embrace scientific socialism along Marxist lines came into existence in the form of erstwhile Soviet Union. The Soviet Union or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a country that began taking shape in the year 1917. However, Marx had died rather long ago, in the year 1883. So any attempt to find a direct, personalised connection between Marx and USSR is nothing but academically irrelevant. This irrelevance is further bulged when it is considered that Marx was especially interested in the affairs of Germany. According to Marx, only well-developed capitalist economies were expected to be at the verge of a socialist revolution (Desai 2004). However, when the Bolsheviks of a backward capitalist country like Russia managed to establish the USSR, Marx’s predictions came under close scrutiny by the contemporary thinkers (Desai 2004). In the current research work, the economic importance of this development is not the main focus area. The main focus area is Marxism and religion. The main point of contention is not what Marx thought about religion. Overwhelming majority of scholars think that Marx was a decided atheist. However, the main point of contention is what Marxists should actually do while handling religion. Religion, even in its simplest form, has the capability of manifesting as both personalised and socially dispersed phenomena. While exploring a possible alternative to capitalism, Marxist and pro-Marxist leaders contemplated on various societal issues, which included religion and theology as well (Desai 2004; Lobkowicz 1964). So it is a complex yet necessary pursuit to understand how Marxism needs religion to be handled. If Marxism were completely antireligious, then most of the world’s socialist governments would not have allowed religious freedom (at least officially). For example, even the Soviet Constitution did never authorise the state to destroy religion or persecute people on religious grounds (Ginsburgs 1982). This kind of approach cannot be simplified just on the basis of a longing for internationalism.

Marxism, Religion, and Emancipatory Politics

Marxism, Religion, and Emancipatory Politics
Author: Graeme Kirkpatrick
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2022-08-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030916421

This edited collection evaluates the relationship between Marxism and religion in two ways: Marxism’s treatment of religion and the religious aspects of Marxism. Its aim is to complicate the superficial understanding of Marxism as a simple rejection of religion both in theory and practice. Divided into two parts (Theory and Praxis), this book brings together the three different themes of Marxism, religion, and emancipation for the first time. The first part explores the more theoretical discussions regarding the relationship between Marxism and various themes (or currents) within religious thought, to highlight points of compatibility as well as incompatibilities/conflicts. The studies in the second part of the collection refer to how Marxist ideas are received in different parts of the world. They show that as soon as Marxism arrives in a new place, the theory interacts and bonds with a pre-existing stock of ideas, each changing the other reciprocally.

Marxism, Religion and Ideology

Marxism, Religion and Ideology
Author: David Bates
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2015-10-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317531477

As austerity measures are put into place the world over and global restructuring is acknowledged by all as an attempt to bolster the economic system that lead to the crash, there is a great need to come to grips with the economic, political and philosophical legacy of Marx. Of particular interest are Marx’s analyses of alienation and the cycles of boom and bust thought to be integral to the functioning of capitalism. Moreover, as the Cold War drifts into the history books, it is possible to reconsider the lasting impact of Marx’s analyses without the shadows cast by the Soviet version of communism. Equally, though, scholars are increasingly turning to Marx for insight into the rise of religion and the corresponding demise of political ideologies that seems to mark the contemporary age. Are we witnessing ‘the return of Marx’? Few scholars have done as much to tease out the intricacies of Marx, ideology and religion and their overlapping concerns as the eminent writer and Marx biographer, Professor David McLellan. This book brings together a group of internationally renowned academics to reflect upon, develop and criticise McLellan’s analyses of these three themes with a view to contributing more broadly to scholarly debates in these fields. This exciting and timely analysis will be of interest to scholars of political theory, the history of political thought (including historical methodology), Marx and Marxism, sociology of knowledge (particularly in relation to discussions of ideology), religion and theology more widely.

Faith and Ideologies

Faith and Ideologies
Author: Juan L. Segundo
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2006-09-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1597528153

'Faith and Ideologies' continues to develop the key concepts that Segundo had previously analyzed in 'The Liberation of Theology'. He does this with great incisiveness and profundity both on the anthropological and the theological levels, while dialoguing with such partners as Bateson, Pannenberg, and Tracy in the West and Marx, Machovec, and Lukacs in the East. The book . . . is must reading for those exploring the frontiers of contemporary theology. --Alfred T. Hennelly author of 'Theologies in Conflict: The Challenge of Juan Luis Segundo' Juan Luis Segundo, a Jesuit theologian from Uruguay, is author of Liberation of Theology, Liberation of Dogma, and The Sacraments Today.

Marxism and Religion

Marxism and Religion
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 435
Release: 2014-02-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047428021

In Marxism and Religion leading Chinese scholars unfold before our eyes theoretical explorations of religion in present-day China. In addition, they along with senior cadres superintending religious affairs strenuously explain why the Marxist view of religion still has relevance to living religions in a country undergoing deep changes unleashed by the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening-up policies. Mistakenly perceived by so many westerners as outdated and dogmatic quasi-scholarly work in the service of communist regime’s propaganda, studies selected here are brainchildren of a group of creative and reform-minded scholars and cadres who endeavor to uphold Marxist traditions while innovatively sinicizing them, hoping that their efforts will contribute to the ruling party’s ideological reconstruction. Contributors include: Fang Litian, Gao Shining, Gong Xuezeng, He Qimin, Jin Ze, Li Xiangping, Lü Daji, Wang Xiaochao, Wang Zuo’an, Ye Xiaowen, Zhu Xiaoming, and Zhuo Xinping.

The Intoxication of Power

The Intoxication of Power
Author: M. Henry
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9400994974

When the Soviet people will enjoy the [God) wQl com11Ul1ld a ble', ing on u, In ble, "ngr of Communism, new hundred, all our way" '0 that we, hall, ee much more of Hi, wisdom, power, goodnell8, of mOlion, of people on earth will BIly: and truth than we have formerly known. 'We are for CommuniBml' It i, not We, haH find that the God of I8TIlei is through war with other countries, but by, among U', and ten of us shall be able to the example of a more perfect organiza tion of society, by rapid progress in rellist a thouBIlnd of our enemie, . The Lord will make our name a prai, e and developing the productive force, the creation of all conditions for the happi glory, '0 that men 'hall BIlY of succeed ing plantation, : 'The Lord make it like ness and well-being of man, that the that of New England'. For we must con ideaB of Communism win the mind, and sider that we Ilhall be like a city upon a hearts of the masses. Hill; the eye, of all people are on u, . The force of Bocial progress will in evitably grow in aU countries, and this John Winthrop to early Puritan will assist the builden of CommuniBm in settlers in America, 1630 the Soviet Union. Programme of the C.P.S.U

Ideology

Ideology
Author: David McLellan
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 128
Release: 1995
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780816628032

To study ideology is to ask such questions as: Where do our ideas about society and politics come from? Are these ideas socially determined? If so, what validity can they claim? In this brief yet comprehensive introduction, David McLellan examines the origins of the concept of ideology, analyzes its place in the Marxist and non-Marxist traditions, and assesses the various uses to which it has been put in recent social and political theory, particularly the connection between ideology and the "end of history" debate. Revised and updated, this second edition is for all those who are interested in a clear presentation of the most basic concept in the philosophy of the social sciences.

The Ideology of Religious Studies

The Ideology of Religious Studies
Author: Timothy Fitzgerald
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2003-10-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0195347153

In recent years there has been an intensifying debate within the religious studies community about the validity of religion as an analytical category. In this book Fitzgerald sides with those who argue that the concept of religion itself should be abandoned. On the basis of his own research in India and Japan, and through a detailed analysis of the use of religion in a wide range of scholarly texts, the author maintains that the comparative study of religion is really a form of liberal ecumenical theology. By pretending to be a science, religion significantly distorts socio-cultural analysis. He suggest, however, that religious studies can be re-represented in a way which opens up new and productive theoretical connections with anthropology and cultural and literary studies.

The Classical Marxist Critiques of Religion: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Kautsky

The Classical Marxist Critiques of Religion: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Kautsky
Author: D.B. McKown
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 192
Release: 1975-05-31
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9789024716562

In view of the enormous number of works on Marxism in general and in light of the many books and articles touching on the relationship of Marxism to religion in particular, it may fairly be asked why yet another such work should be produced. My reply is that in eliciting answers to the kinds of questions posed by the methodology I have used, it was necessary to go to the primary sources almost exclusively. This is not to bemoan a sad fate but to affirm that there are notable deficiencies in the secondary sources relevant to my topic. By way of general indictment, I contend that the major difficulty with existing studies of the Marxist critique of religion is that their authors, whether expositors or critics, have failed both to specify their own presuppositions concerning religion and to approach the subject with an adequate comprehension of its many dimensions. Since, in most cases, the reader is equally unprepared, anthropologically, sociologically, psychologically, and historically, for clear and informed thought in this vast and nebulous area, the result has been widespread confusion. As if this were not enough, numerous writers with little more than polemical interests have compounded the confusion by failing to distinguish between religion in general and their own brands of faith in particular. Others have not discriminated between the concepts of metaphysics and the supernatural items of religious belief.