myers@uwvax.ARPA (06/15/84)
Here's the text of an article of interest by Russ Christensen published in
*The Monthly Review*, May 1984. It really struck home for me personally,
being raised as a Methodist, being a student of Marx and the various strands
of Marxism, and currently in the process of reading *The Name of the Rose*.
"When I heard recently that an ecumenical grouping of Christians wanted me,
a Marxist, to join them as part of their first team going to live in Jalapa
in Nicaragua on the Honduran border, I was told to keep it as secret as
possible for the moment. So I flew directly from Bangor, Maine, to Santa
Cruz, California. That was September 20, 1983, and thus began a strange journey
which I am still on.
Today, I am sitting in the Casa Cural up in Jalapa, while the other members
of this first contingent of our community are out in the fields working in
a brigade. I am here because for the last three days I have had a bad case
of diarrhea, and today I have a splitting headache and am weak. We call
ourselves Witness for Peace, and we have the backing of Christians from most
of the major Protestant denominations and the Catholic church.
The other two members of this team are Daniel Anderson From Brooking, SD
(28, and of Lutheran background) and Rose Dalle Tezze, a Lady of Mercy sister
from Pittsburgh.
It is a strange thing about identity -- I have not thought of myself much
as a Christian in the last 30 years. Then five years ago I met Sheila and
John Collins. John, who is co-chair of Clergy and Laity Concerned (CALC)
and Sheila had a gentle but constant way of including me in their faith --
the faith in which I was brought up, the Methodist church. Yet until this
trip I have not actively used the term "Christian" to describe myself. I
have felt it very important in my life to actively embrace the term "Marxist"
to describe myself -- that was because so many vilify this great man and the
scholarship he brought to our lives. The least I could do was not deny him --
even if I could never approach his intellect. Then I thought it important
to take on the task everyone thought impossible -- to run for office openly as
a Marxist.
In my long search for my meaning, my identity, one of the things I have
learned about myself is that I am full of what the New Testament describes
as Righteousness -- a sense of the world being full of injustice. It also
has a tendency to fill me with anger, and many times I have fought back in
my society out of anger. I lose more than I gain when I go with anger --
intellectually I know that. Just like I know that humanity has reached a
stage in our development where military fighting is obsolete, that people
cannot continue to wage war as a way of resolving out differences. The
weapons we now possess on many sides have made this form of confrontation
obsolete. If the United States, which made the first atomic bomb, ever gets
around to using it again -- and if any country uses it it will be our country,
I am sure -- then we will be back in the Stone Age, or humanty will not
survive. So I must change also -- if I want others to change. I have to learn
to go to others that I need to confront, not full of anger but with new tools.
My being with these gentle people who call themselves Christians helps. I can
learn much from them. This revolution here in Nicaragua is also very different
from any revolution that has happened before. It is very much Christian but
with a definite Marxist content. Nuns from the Catholic church in the hills
of Nicaragua, working among the campesino families, bring to their work a class
analysis. When I started this journey, I was reminded that few U.S. towns,
villages, and even cities have centers where Marx is studied -- yet all across
the United States there are churches. It would be grand if this liberation
theology could be brought to the United States.
Finally, meaningful dialogue could go on about the two great traditions --
how close they are to one another and how much each has been twisted and
distorted to become its opposite. Christianity has been twisted in the United
States, Marxism in the Soviet Union.
Christianity under the moral majority has come to justifying accumulation of
capital as the ultimate good. The constant seeking of personal salvation
through faith alone reminds me of the recent bestseller *Looking Out for
Number One*. I do not believe I am on that trip, and my reluctance to use the
term "Christian" to describe myself stems from an aversion to being amongst the
"chosen ones." I am not righteous in that sense.
Yet I do believe now that Christ saw his work as building a society where there
would be no impoverished. he was primarily concerned with the poor. My
reading of *Matthew* confirms my belief that the church has distorted his
teachings for many years. Both Catholics and Protestants have done this. It
is a strange historical phenomenon that the thinking of a Jew by the name of
Marx -- who did not put down the teachings of Christ but did put down the work
of the churches that claimed to teach his message -- and the teachings of Jesus
are finally converging here in this tiny republic in Central America.
If this catches on and takes hold, Reagan and all the others who claim to speak
as Christians -- but who do the work of the rich, defending the prerogatives of
the rich -- will really have something to worry about.
In times like these when traditional dialogue doesn't work, it may be time to
try various other methods. With that in mind I am going to close this now and
try to think out a good, gentle approach to writing Reagan directly. Hope to
see you when I get back.
It looks like I will be here in Jalapa until mid-January. Each day we go out
in the fields and work with the campesinos while being guarded by the militia.
Except for when we go with the Evangelicals who say we are guarded by Christ.
Give my remembrances to your great staff.
Your friend down there in Jalapa.
November 5, 1983"
--
Jeff Myers
ARPA: myers@wisc-rsch.arpa
uucp: ..{seismo, ihnp4}!wisc-rsch!myerskim@analog.UUCP (Kim Helliwell ) (06/20/84)
It is difficult to know how to respond to the above named article. To me, the suggestion of a synthesis between Christianity and Marxism is quite repugnant. To such opposites cannot be reconciled, in my opinion. Such a synthesis would, in fact, lead to something that is neither Christianity nor Marxism. The author of the piece claims to be filled with what he calls Righteousness. Admittedly, he narrows the definition if the term to the point that almost anybody could claim to be filled with Righteousness--I too am exercised greatly by injustice when I hear of cases. If the author were truly familiar with Christian teaching, he would know that "there is none righteous, no, not one" (Rom 3:10) and "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23). His claim of being filled with Righteousness seems arrogant in the extreme. Christianity teaches that none of us is righteous in himself. Our righteousness comes from Christ. Christ is the Son of God, and Very God. To compare him to Marx on the human level is, to say the least, irrelevant. OK, so what are we to do with American Christians and movements which suggest that attaining wealth is the highest good? This is certainly a problem. People do tend to mistake wealth and the favor of the world as the favor of God. But that IS a mistake. On the other hand, Christianity teaches that there is such a thing as private property--we are stewards under God of the things we are given, and are accountable to Him for how we use them. This is one of the reasons stealing is wrong--it takes from a steward that which he was given in trust by God! I am no student of Marx, but it seems to me that the teachings of Marx run counter to this stewardship concept by imposing upon people who own something a forced sharing of their wealth. (Even to the taking of lives, though that may be Lenin's corruption of Marxism that I am thinking of). I am sorry this is such a ramble--my thoughts are barely collected, and I haven't time to put them in order any better. I am glad to hear of ministries to poor and downcast people, which this article mentioned. It does sound as if there are some Christians doing something about injustice in the world. That is good. What I reacted to was the attempt at equating this with Marxism--I think that is a dangerous road. Kim Helliwell hplabs!analog!kim