Walk over

Maryknoll Fathers 

"Marxism and Christianity: Are they compatible?" is a pamphlet published in 1970 by the U.S. Socialist Workers' Party. It contains the full text of a public debate between SWP spokesperson Theodore Edwards and Reverend Blase Bonpane, a member of the Maryknoll Fathers (a Catholic missionary organization).

Unfortunately, there is not much of a debate. Bonpane turns out to be an admirer of Bonhoeffer and Harvey Cox. He expresses support for Camilo Torres, an early liberation theologian who became a Marxist guerrilla fighter in Colombia. Bonpane also supports the Marxist FAR in Guatemala, and was apparently extradited from that country accused of plotting the overthrow of its right-wing military regime. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but since the Reverend is almost as left-wing as the SWP, the expected confrontation between Marx and Christ never gets off the ground. Essentially, Bonpane simply admits that Edwards' criticism of Christianity and the Catholic Church is largely correct. The only difference between the two contestants, is that Bonpane is more positive about "united fronts" between Marxists and Catholics, and believes that a section of the hierarchy might support the coming revolution. Edwards doesn't.

As for compatibility, Edwards (correctly) believes that Marxism and Christianity are philosophically incompatible, and expounds at length on the materialist theory of history. The fact that Christianity has changed together with the economic system, is to Edwards the best evidence for its wholly earthly origins. Primitive Christianity expressed the interests of slaves and Roman proletarians, medieval Catholicism was feudal, while Protestantism expressed the interests of capitalism and the nascent nation-states. Christianity is destined to wither with the advance of science and diffusion of scientific knowledge. Another important factor is the wholly "materialist" character of modern revolutionary struggles. No spiritual dimension is needed to explain the contradictions of capitalism, the movement of the working class, etc. Quite the contrary, these things can only be grasped in a materialist way, making religion a reactionary hindrance to a struggle for socialism.

Edwards also says that any attempt to reconcile Christianity and Marxism would force Christians to look upon the Gospels as historical documents filled with distortions, rather than divine revelation. Like many during this period, Edwards believes that Jesus might have been an anti-Roman revolutionary, a kind of socialistic Zealot. But once you admit that the Gospels contain errors, you can no longer claim that Christianity is supra-historical and supernatural. You have to admit that the historical-critical view (really the materialist view) is correct.

It would have been interesting to hear a Christian response to this, but Bonpane simply cedes ground and lets Edwards win on walk over. At one point, the Maryknoll Father says: "I don't look back to Marxism any more than I look back to Jesus. I see them both as going forward, and both in a process of constant change. I could be called personally an eclectic, a person who does pick and choose from people who have gone before." More sensationally, he also says: "I'd say that nondogmatic Marxism is very compatible with revolutionary Christianity, because revolutionary Christianity is not more associated to capitalism than it is to Jesus".

Although "Marxism and Christianity" is clear and easy to read, I will nevertheless only give it two stars, due to its non-debate between Theodore Edwards and Blase Bonpane.