Marxism: A Missing Person Report

Today two opposing viewpoints are battling for the minds of men. Both have to do with the concept of the “new man.” One is the Christian view, the other the Marxist, and Christians should understand the presuppositions underlying both.

In an interesting paper, Josif Ton, a Romanian Christian and a perceptive thinker, analyzes the Marxist conception. The Marxist “new man” has two major characteristics:

First, [he] should not be alienated from the means of production. All means of production will be the property of everyone. Therefore, man will yield all his energies, freely, to the process of producing material goods for society as a whole, and by this he will discover fulfillment in the creative process. Secondly, this man, freed from corruption by the strength of the socialist system, will handle the goods honestly and will distribute them freely, taking only as much as he needs so that enough will remain for all his kinsmen. He will be a man who will yield all his forces freely for others, a totally committed altruist.

The “old man,” according to Marxism, is the product of his environment, and the new man will be brought into being by a change in that environment. The “right” system will produce the right kind of man. By destroying capitalism (and the bourgeoisie) and bringing in socialism, the Marxist expects to produce the new man, who will, as Ton describes it, be a “totally committed altruist.”

Ton goes on to point out that “Marx, Engels and Lenin preached atheism merely to create despair in man and drive him to any lengths to obtain a larger share of the world’s goods.… But such a man was only necessary for a short period, that of the revolution.” It was thought that an “atheistic ideology would inevitably produce a desperate, unscrupulous man, capable of carrying through a bloody revolution”—and it did. But the kind of man required to destroy capitalism is not the kind needed for the socialist state. Once the revolution is over and socialism has been established, has it been true either in the short or in the long haul that the new man has been developed? No!

Socialism fails to develop the new man because it propagates a materialistic and atheistic conception of life. This approach necessarily produces unscrupulous and desperate men. Ton asked this question of a school teacher who was supposed to educate his pupils to produce the new man: “In a purely materialistic world where life is the product of a game of chance and where man’s single chance is here and now …, what motive can we offer to live lives of usefulness to others, or even self-sacrifice?” The teacher’s reply was: “I do not know why I should be good and honest. I know that if I don’t, pull strings, or stab someone in the back, I will not advance or succeed in life. And this is everything for me.” Given the presuppositions that underlie it who can fault this answer? According to this view, there is no hereafter, no judgment; get all you can in this life, for it is the only life you have.

To be sure, not all Marxists are like that school teacher; some indeed have sacrificed greatly in the hope that future generations will be able to enjoy what they themselves cannot. But the Marxist “new man” is mythical. He does not exist; he cannot exist. Materialistic atheism cannot produce him. We have to go elsewhere to find the new man.

The Christian faith starts with theism and spirit as the basic presuppositions. God exists, eternally, and man’s spirit is immortal. There is life beyond the grave, and there is a final judgment of all human beings. Man, though fundamentally sinful, can become a “new man” in Jesus Christ. And millions have. Alcoholics have been freed from their habit; adulterers have become faithful; liars now tell the truth; ruthless criminals have mended their ways; selfish people have become selfless; cheats now trade fairly. When men and women turn to Jesus Christ, they become new creatures.

To be sure, the Christian faith has often been perverted both by whole societies and by individual professing Christians, whether their profession be genuine or nominal. Many Marxist protests against the ways Christianity has expressed itself are valid. Indeed, there are several insights of value on particular points with Marxist roots even though the overall system is fallacious.

The central Marxist error is to assume the perfectibility of human beings and therefore of society without supplying the means of transforming the heart of man. Marxism promises what it can never deliver. Christianity, on the other hand, promises what is delivered in part in this life and will be perfectly fulfilled in the life to come. In the New Jerusalem, all the evils that both Marxism and Christianity wish to eliminate will be gone. Marxism is a dead-end street; Christianity is a doorway to life abundant, and life everlasting.

Learning Leadership

Nobody becomes a leader unless he has first learned to follow. For the art of leadership is acquired not by attending lectures, reading books, or earning degrees but by watching a leader in action, responding to the inspiration of his person, and copying his example. This is how even a so-called natural leader develops his leadership potential: he learns to lead by following a leader.

The Saviour’s challenging invitation still rings out in modern America as clearly as it did in ancient Palestine: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” As men and women heed that invitation and follow Jesus, they start to qualify for spiritual leadership.

Paul, that dynamic leader of the early Church, wrote to a group of his fellow believers, “I beseech you, be followers of me” (1 Cor. 6:16). To another he wrote, “Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example.… Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you” (Phil. 3:17; 4:9). To still another group of fellow believers he wrote, “For ye yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you; … not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an example unto you to follow us” (2 Thess. 3:7, 9).

But Paul never asked that he be uncritically followed, as though he were a flawless pattern. “Be followers of me,” he urges; then immediately he lays down an all-important limitation, “as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). Venturing to say, “Ye became followers of me,” he at once goes on to add these qualifying words, “and of the Lord” (1 Thess. 1:6). So with Paul discipleship was never merely a matter of following any man or group of men. It was always a matter of following men insofar as they were following Jesus Christ. Yes, follow men, he commands, provided they are following Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ alone is the flawless Pattern.

Today, as in Paul’s day, when a disciple follows Jesus faithfully, he walks in the light (John 18:12); he is willing to forsake all (Matt. 4:19, 20); he takes up his cross daily (Luke 9:23); he never insists, “Me first” (Luke 9:16). When a disciple follows Jesus faithfully, he understands experientially the truth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s incisive comment, “When Jesus Christ calls a man to follow Him, He calls that man to die”—if not the death of martyrdom (John 21:18, 19), then death to personal ambition, self-centered living, and pride. When a disciple follows Jesus Christ faithfully, he grows by the Spirit’s nurture into one of those leaders whom the apostle commends: “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation” (Heb. 13:7).

This is the kind of New Testament discipleship that qualifies one for leadership. Patrick Appleford’s prayer must therefore be the heart cry of any disciple who, love-motivated, aspires to serve by leading:

Jesus our Lord, and Shepherd of men,

Caring for human needs;

Feeding the hungry, healing the sick,

Showing your love in deeds;

Help us in your great work to share;

People in want still need your care.

Lord, we are called to follow you;

This we ask strength to do.

Building A Case Against College

With her latest book, popular lecturer and best-selling author Caroline Bird launches what may be the death blow to the fast-fading myth that college graduates automatically make more money, get more satisfying jobs, and lead richer lives than their non-graduate counterparts. The Case Against College (McKay, 308 pp., $9.95) will be quoted, defended, and denounced but not ignored.

Attempting to uncover the reasons for a prevailing sadness on campuses in the seventies, Bird interviewed hundreds of students, teachers, administrators, parents, and employers. Her obviously debatable conclusion is that students are sad because they are not needed, “not by their own parents, not by employers, not by society as a whole.” She goes on to say:

No one has anything in particular against them. But no one has anything in particular for them either and they don’t see any role for themselves in the future.… The neatest way to get rid of a superfluous eighteen-year-old is to amuse him all day long at a community college while his family feeds and houses him. This is not only cheaper than a residential college, but cheaper than supporting him on welfare, a make-work job, in prison, or in the armed forces.

The case that Bird painstakingly tries to build is that an endeavor as costly as a college education should lead to higher paying, satisfying, readily available jobs. But the evidence suggests that among the unemployed and “unfulfilled” there are at least as many college graduates as persons with a high school education or less. In fact, the author points to the analysis of Harvard professor Christopher Jencks, who concludes that in the United States financial success depends largely on luck and social class, not on number of years in school.

A particularly ruthless and unfair chapter called “The Liberal Arts Religion” compares the vague benefits of a liberal arts education to those of religion, where “no proof is required, only faith.” The abstractions used to justify a liberal arts training often crumble before the question of the bewildered graduating youth, “What are my marketable skills?” Of course, when the values of both true religion for all and liberal arts education for some are properly perceived, they do not crumble.

Although champions of learning for learning’s sake are sure to challenge this book, it is not an anti-intellectual assault on learning. It is a warning that we must take a harder look at the relation between education and jobs. Perhaps its most valuable message is that while college is good for some people, it is definitely not for everybody. Parents of teen-age children should reexamine the facts, including cost, their teen-agers’ abilities and interests, and the dwindling number of jobs.

Are there any alternatives? In an extensive resource section, Bird cites many successful experiences of young people who have traveled non-traditional routes before, during, and instead of college. She includes a nationwide list of names and addresses of persons and organizations that can help a young person find a fulfilling alternative.

Many Christian parents have automatically assumed that their children should go to college. But this assumption may not be in line with God’s will for a particular young person. Though written from a secular perspective, The Case Against College is a resource that, used cautiously, can help parents and children reach a decision.

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