I'm currently reading Gareth Stedman Jones' book, Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion, which Rebecca got me for Christmas, and one section has me wondering why more Christians, and Catholics in particular, aren't communists in the proper sense of the word and vice versa. That's not to say I think one must (or even necessarily should) be the other; only that I find them to be immensely compatible on a fundamental level.
For example, in contrast to Feuerbach's criticism of Christianity as a philosophical roadblock to the emergence of a modern, communal society characterized by spiritual and political freedom — the 'unity of I and Thou' — the universality of 'the church as one body' (via 1 Cor 12:12-13) most certainly contains within it the communal essence of the human species as Feuerbach envisions it.
Our tendency towards abstraction aside, rather than simply seeing the state of religion as "the particular union of each individual with an external being," as Stedman Jones summarizes Feuerbach's critique of Christianity (p. 127), this theological concept explicitly conceives of each individual as an integral part of the same communal, unifying body within the universality that is personified by Christ. Moreover, Christ himself makes concern for the needs of others the entry fee into the kingdom of heaven (Mt 25:31-46).
So, rather than usurping the primordial species-unity of 'I and Thou,' as Feuerbach suggests, Christ actually embodies that unity. All are one in Christ, and Christ is one with all (Gal 3:28). Next to loving God, loving our neighbour as ourselves is the greatest commandment (Mt 22:34-40). And the relational nature of God in the form of the trinity itself reflects the interdependent nature of humanity, the aspect of individuals as communal species-beings.
While this revolutionary facet of Christianity has been suppressed by ruling elites, both spiritual and political, throughout most of its history, its existence is clearly evinced by the early apostles themselves: "There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need" (Acts 4:34-35).
In addition, for Marx and Feuerbach, God is a mystification of our species-essence, an abstraction, an inversion of subject and object; and therefore our religious inclinations are in reality just a fetishization of this alienated aspect of our species-being that we've objectified and turned into something alien from ourselves. But the revolutionary story of Jesus effectively undoes this inversion of subject and object.
Jesus is God manifest in human form; and in this sense, represents a demystification of our species-essence and a reunification of our spiritual and political consciousness. Jesus not only bridges the gap between the transcendent and the concrete, but the rift between humanity and itself created by our tendency to, in the words of Feuerbach, "posit the essence of nature outside nature, the essence of humanity outside humanity, the essence of thought outside the act of thinking."
I think that both Feuerbach and Marx were correct in their criticism of idealist philosophies that begin with "the 'I' or 'self' in isolation," as well as of the role that Christianity played in the rise of individualism and egotistical withdrawal from communal life within modern society. But I think they make a mistake by neglecting the revolutionary spirit embedded within the New Testament.
