Religion & Liberty Online

Bruce Ashford: Marxism is a false religion (video)

If Marxism despises religion, why does it take on all the trappings of the most fanatical faith? Bruce Ashford, the provost of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, discusses this in a video released today.

Ashford traces those who view Marxism as an idolatrous religion, not to some backwoods minister, but to French philosopher Raymond Aron, a contemporary of Jean-Paul Sartre. Aron’s 1955 book The Opiate of the Intellectuals, Ashford says, teaches that “structurally and existentially Marxism functions more like a religion than just a kind of mere ideology. … The critique is really Augustinian.”

“For every major Christian doctrine,” Karl Marx “built a Marxist doctrine that was the inverse, or converse, of it,” Ashford says before detailing the parallels.

In a more personal part of the segment, Ashford notes how a Marxist, identity politics-based ideology erodes our national discourse by sharing a recent encounter with “progressive” activists: “I tried to engage them in good faith, and about half of them ended up responding to me as a human being, but the other half didn’t. They treated me under a Marxist view: I’m determined by my gender, sex, race, and economic class, and I’m somebody to be bullied rather than talked with.”

You can listen to his analysis below. It begins at approximately 5:37 of today’s issue of the Heritage Foundation‘s “Daily Signal” podcast:

(Photo credit: Public domain.)

Rev. Ben Johnson

Rev. Ben Johnson (@therightswriter) is an Eastern Orthodox priest and served as Executive Editor of the Acton Institute (2016-2021), editing Religion & Liberty, the Powerblog, and its transatlantic website. He has extensively researched the Alt-Right. Previously, he worked for LifeSiteNews and FrontPageMag.com, where he wrote three books including Party of Defeat (with David Horowitz, 2008). His work has appeared at DailyWire.com, National Review, The American Spectator, The Guardian, Daily Caller, National Catholic Register, Spectator USA, FEE Online, RealClear Policy, The Blaze, The Stream, American Greatness, Aleteia, Providence Magazine, Charisma, Jewish World Review, Human Events, Intellectual Takeout, CatholicVote.org, Issues & Insights, The Conservative, Rare.us, and The American Orthodox Institute. His personal websites are therightswriter.com and RevBenJohnson.com. His views are his own.