further notes on and developments in Christian-Marxist dialogue

[Hugh Williams]

Dear listers,

So, we’ve managed to get a little discussion started on academia - https://www.academia.edu/s/215fe625c4#comment_1497830 

especially as a result of uploading the attached short paper or draft. It is a very brief reflection, written under the specter of this U.S./Israeli initiated War with Iran, on Juan Segundo’s “Liberation of Theology (1976)” that the Lonerganian, Robert Doran in his efforts to ‘dialogue’ with Marxism, takes up in his massive text “Theology and the Dialectics of History (1990, 2016)”.

One thing I’d like to clear up here is that - what has become quite apparent to me is how in the West’s intellectual culture, generally and for the most, there is this presumption, perhaps even operative in Lonergan circles, that dismisses any serious reading or study of Marx and Marxism because of what is said to be his mistaken attitude towards ‘religion’.

This itself would be a serious mistake and the Christian thinkers and authorities I’d appeal to for this caution against such a dismissal would be Edward Schillibeeckx and Etienne Gilson (yes! I do believe I can draw Gilson into this discussion at some point …) … and then there is Juan Segundo himself whose subtle considerations of Marxist social theory is not really engaged with by Doran as it is by Schillibeeckx (Christ, 1977, 1983). Segundo in his earnest search for a more relevant and helpful sociology for doing theology … a profoundly probing search, where he critically contrasts American and Marxist sociology. This it seems to me, given our present times and situation, is the comparison and contrast that is ‘right on the mark’ … at least for our present times.

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So again, after getting the above out of the way … I want to say that with this experience of institutional ‘disaffiliation’ that has resulted in the phrase ‘changing my religion’, I can understand myself as actually having returned to the ‘prophets’, and that I’ve been reading one of the Jewish prophets, in particular … one often characterized as a heretic by the many religionist authorities. And this is Karl Marx and his followers …..

…. this prophet (and social theorist) and the analysis and analytical work he produced and inspired has been key in helping many many people better understand these complex geo-political-economic perturbations that are unfolding before our very eyes and lives, and that are deeply affecting our lives and the lives of those we care about …  

Hugh