Who was Karl Marx?

Karl Marx is remembered as a man who changed the course of history. He is remembered by many as a sick, evil man who pushed his severely damaging ideas onto unsuspecting societies. However, in recent years more people have come to view Marx favorably. They see him as a wise man who has discovered the long hidden keys to happiness and a utopian society. Even some Christians have bought into this illogical notion that Marx was a well meaning man whose ideas can change society for the better when followed properly. Some even believe that Marx was a Christian. This idea is so far from the truth, that I cannot help but laugh at the thought of it. In 1935, Earl Bowder, the chairman of the American Communist Party was speaking at Union Theological Seminary when he said “You might be surprised to know that we have preachers, preachers who are active in the Communist party.” This was during the time that the social gospel was moving through America. The social gospel introduced liberal ideas such as the idea that some of the Bible was not true and the idea that evolution is compatible with Biblical Christianity. The social gospel was a movement that focused on helping the poor and doing good works rather than preserving Biblical truth and sound doctrine. Don’t get me wrong: helping the poor and doing good deeds is central to the Christian life. But social gospel thinkers believed that doing good works was more important than believing in Jesus and everything in the Holy Word of God. Many of the heresies that are prevalent in the church today began with the social gospel movement. Many social gospel thinkers admired Karl Marx even though he was a Satanic atheist. The social gospel movement is still alive and well in the church today. Even though Marx was an atheist,  he had great influence on the movement. He also has influence on groups such as Black Lives Matter and the Bernie Bros. In fact, one could say that in recent years, Marx has even influenced most of the Democratic party to move in the direction of Marxism. Without further ado let’s expose Karl Marx for who he really is. 

The Facts

•  Karl Marx (1818-1883) sought to rebel against the religious culture that he had grown accustomed to while growing up in Trier, Germany. Trier was a very devout Roman Catholic town.
• Marx’s family was Jewish in ethnicity. His grandfather was a Dutch rabbi. His parents converted to Protestant Lutheran Christianity shortly before his birth. 
• In a letter to his son, Marx’s father said “Karl, religion’s good. It is good to believe in something other than yourself. It’s good to believe in a diety.”
• Later on, Marx’s father hinted that Marx might be possessed by a demon. He wrote “That heart of yours Son, what’s troubling it? Is it governed by a demon? Is it governed by a spirit?”
• Though Marx’s father was religious, he wasn’t a sincere believer in Christ. He saw Christianity as more of a culture to identify with. He would often read Rousseau and Voltaire with Marx. At the time, the Christianity of Germany was very much a cultural Christianity. Most German “Christians” did not have the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit at the time. Marx wasn’t the only communist thinker to come out 9f Germany at the time. There was also William Reich, for example, who wrote The Sexual Revolution. In later years, Adolf Hitler and his nazi party founded on pagan occultism arose in Germany. Remember that the seeds of the Protestant Reformation were first planted in Germany. Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a Catholic church in Germany. So perhaps Satan tried to make Germany pagan after seeing what a deeply Christian place it was during the reformation. 
• Karl Marx refused to get a job. He was very difficult to talk to or get along with. The people around him hated him. 
• Marx still believed in God when he went off to college. But in college, he was negatively influenced, corrupted, and propagandized much like college students are today. One of his mentors named Dr. Bruno Bauer was an atheist, but also a professor of theology. He was known for his pride, anti-Semitic language, and mocking of God. He and Marx founded a journal called the Archives of Atheism. He and Marx also rode into a town on donkeys on Palm Sunday in an attempt to mock Jesus Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
• Marx never once claimed to be Christian, but he claimed to be an atheist many times. In fact, he said, “Thus heaven I forfeited. I know it full well. My soul, once true to God, is chosen for hell.” He also wrote “See this sword, this blood-dark sword, which stabs unerringly within my soul? Where did I get this sword? The Prince of darkness sold it to me. The hellish vapors rise and fill the brain until my heart goes mad, until I go utterly insane.”
• Marx often wrote about dark subjects such as death and suicide pacts. He had two daughters who killed themselves in suicide pacts with their husbands. 
• Marx believed in the Darwinian theory in evolution. Friedrich Engels (Marx’s friend who co-authored many books with Marx) said, “Marx is doing for Darwinians and social sciences what Darwin did for the physical sciences.”
• Engels called Marx “A monster of ten thousand devils.”
• Marx’s son Edgar once referred to his father as “my dear devil.”
• In one of his poems, Marx wrote “I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules above.”
• Marx famously stated that religion is the “opium of the masses.” He refers to religion as the sigh of an oppressed culture and the heart of the heartless. He thought that any religion was foolishness. 
• Marx said “Communism begins where Atheism begins.”
• Marx also wrote that “Communism calls for the forceful overthrow of all existing social institutions. ” This of course would include Christianity and the church.
• Marx’s biographers said that His favorite line from the book Goethe’s Faust was “Everything that exists deserves to perish.” This is consistent with Marx’s revolutionary attitude.

      We might be tempted to say that Marx’s story doesn’t matter anymore, but in fact, Marx’s influence is alive and well in the church and in our culture today. It was Marx’s ideas that caused the rise of communism which caused the rise of the Soviet Union, socialism, and progressivism. In a later article, we will explore how communism began making inroads in Christian churches in America. One “Christian” group today that especially admires Marx is the liberation theology movement. People who believe in liberation theology are basically “Christian” communists. Many Jesuit priests promoted liberation theology beginning in the 1970s. Today, the pope of the Catholic church is a jesuit who claims to not believe in liberation theology, but is nonetheless very much influenced by it. Liberation theology originated in Central and South America which is where Pope Francis and many Vatican officials are from. 

     Communism is a satanic ideology. Communists believe that the government should take over the means of production after workers rise up in rebellion to overthrow the capitalist government. It is interesting how most communists believe that the government is needed to allow their plan to work. Because of this, they want a bigger government. This should be no surprise to believers. Unbelievers have no hope beyond this earth so they always place their hope in earthly institutions to bring them happiness. Even though thousands of years of history have shown that the government will always become corrupt, unbelievers still place their hope and trust in the government because it is all that they have. Since they don’t believe in God, they turn to the earthly institution that is most like God in that it has great power. As believers, we have so much greater things in store for us. We don’t put our trust in the government or in any president whether it be Obama, Trump, Biden, or Reagan. We know that this earth will all be burned up one day after Christ’s 1000 year reign from Jerusalem comes to an end and right before God creates the new heavens and the new earth. 

     Communism or socialism could only work if humanity was perfect. As Christians, we know that humanity is wretched, selfish, and evil. No plan that relies on the majority of humans to be good will succeed. It is true that the early church in the book of Acts shared possessions communally. That is a very good thing. God wants you to have a Godly community that you feel comfortable sharing possessions with. It is important to note that the possessions were shared only among believers who loved each other. They did this voluntarily. The government did not compel them to share their possessions and they did not seize the means of production. The Christians in the book of Acts lived in a community which could accurately be described as a utopia. Marx wanted to create this utopia apart from God. The problem with Marx’s philosophy is not a purely economic problem. It is a spiritual problem. Marx hated God. He wanted to copy God’s utopian perfection through the government. But Marx’s philosophy failed because people are sinful and evil. 

     During the early 1900s, Russia put Marx’s ideas into practice. The results were devastating. The government took full control over society and unleashed terror on the people. Some people such as the brilliant Alexander Solzhenitsyn estimate that 80 million people died at the hands of the Soviet government. They killed anyone who disagreed with them. They seized the means of production which caused people to not want to work. This caused great famine and economic chaos. Marx was wrong in thinking that work is a bad thing. Even before the fall of humanity in Genesis 3, God gave Adam and Eve jobs to do in the garden of Eden. Their work was not meant to be burdensome, but rather it was meant to be done as joyful worship to the Lord.

     Marx was not wrong about everything. He was right that poverty is a problem that needs to be solved. He was rich that the rich are selfishly hoarding money for themselves when they could be helping other people. I even think that he is right when he says that capitalism is a horrible philosophy. Where Marx went wrong was when he tried to find a solution to these problems. He completely removed God from the picture, so it is no wonder that his solutions were foolish. Without God, one cannot expect to solve spiritual problems. Marx sought to replace God with government and more broadly with humanity. It is no wonder that his ideas failed miserably. Let us keep our eyes steadfastly fixed on Jesus and not on earthly, foolish people. Let us make sure that our community consistently follows Jesus Christ and never embraces even one of Marx’s foolish ideas. Always remember that Jesus Christ is our God who we place our hope and trust in, not the government.

“May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you and give you peace.”

-Numbers 6:24-26