First, I don’t know where I have to put this kind of question on Lemmy so I’m asking it here. Marx viewed religion as a negative force, often referring to it as the ‘opiate of the masses.’ If someone is religious and also identifies as a Marxist, do you think that’s contradictory, or is it just a matter of mislabeling themselves? Would it be more accurate for them to call themselves a socialist instead of a Marxist?
Voluntary association is one of the defining traits of anarchist collectives though. None are compelled to participate, they do so willingly. The same was true with the early Christian church that existed within the Roman empire.
It is true that we see discrepancies between what Jesus supposedly said, and how the early church was organized. The church was certainly a product of its own time, much like Jesus’ teachings about the position of slaves.
My apologies; it’s been 30-odd years since I believed in a theistic religion, and I misremembered that.
True. Christianity is less concerned with material conditions than with eternal questions. But it seems fairly clear that valuing wealth and power more than spiritual matters is very antithetical to the teachings of Christ or his apostles. Wealth isn’t seen as inherently bad; it depends on what you do with it.
I was raised in a very conservative home, both economically and socially. Even as a young person, it was clear to me that there were some pretty serious discrepancies between what Jesus and his disciples said about wealth, and how my own family and church viewed wealth.