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"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” – The Bible (Matthew 19:24)
“Free market principles are really the salvation.” - Rudy Giuliani
In
the run up to any election it is not at all uncommon to hear anything
and everything promised by candidates hoping to win votes. For those
following U.S. electoral politics right now, it is clear that the big
business candidates are presenting their respective religiosities as
credentials of a sort to prospective voters. The open pandering to the
‘faith vote” displays the cynical depths the representatives of the
ruling class are willing to go to win votes. This is not simply a
harmless phenomenon but a noxious indication of the rottenness of the
system.
 It is not our intention here to cast doubt on the
personal beliefs of any of the candidates, because that is not the
point. The point is that since there are only negligible distinctions
between the candidates, they cynically appeal to people’s religious
sentiments in order to stand in the spotlight a moment or two longer to
try to win more votes. They also use it as an opportunity to try to
convince workers that the system they defend is not only just, but even
“holy.”
Even
a cursory look at at what is being said on the campaign trail shows the
manipulation of “faith” to appeal to voters. Take for example Barack
Obama who, speaking to an audience of 4,000 people, said he hopes to be
an “Instrument of God” and asked for prayers for his candidacy. He went
on to say: “I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on
Earth.”
Then there’s the more subtle dodging by John Edwards of a
question asked about the separation of church and state: “My faith
informs everything I think and do. It’s part of my value system. And to
suggest that I can somehow separate and divorce that from the rest of
me is not possible.”
Even candidates who would prefer to keep
their religious backgrounds less prominent have entered the race with
faith in hand. Rudy Giuliani had this to say: “Where do our rights
come from? Most Americans believe they come from God.” Mitt Romney, in
attempting to cast himself as a “person of faith” in general, instead
of being exclusively associated with Mormonism, made a similar
statement: “We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders – in
ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in
the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity
scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our
greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the
foundation of faith upon which our Constitution rests. I will take care
to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not
separate us from the ‘God who gave us liberty’ … Americans acknowledge
that liberty is a gift of God not an indulgence of government.”
Going
beyond a simple appeal to faith, John McCain went so far as to say he
would prefer a Christian in the White House as “an important part of
our qualifications to lead.” He also said: “I just have to say in all
candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian
principles ... personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid
grounding in my faith.”
Mike
Huckabee is an ordained Southern Baptist minister and is referred to by
his campaign as a “Christian leader.” In November he had this to say
while speaking to an audience at the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty
University: “There’s only one explanation for my surge, and it’s not a
human one. It’s the same power that helped a little boy with two fish
and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people.”
And according to
Hillary Clinton: “I’ve had a grounding in faith that gave me the
courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of
what the world thought.” She and her “fellowship” – a group that
includes many powerful figures in DC – believe “that the elite win
power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission
is to help the powerful understand their role in God’s plan.”
Marxists
are the most consistent materialists, and as such, are not religious.
Dogma and mysticism are completely alien to scientific socialism.
However, Marxists do not hold religious-minded workers in contempt for
their beliefs. As Marx himself explained, for many workers, religion
offers the hope for a better life in an otherwise cruel and inhuman
world:
“Religious distress is at the same time the expression of
real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the
sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as
it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the
people.”(From the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right)
And
as Lenin explained in a 1905 article on socialism and religion: “But
under no circumstances ought we to fall into the error of posing the
religious question in an abstract, idealistic fashion, as an
‘intellectual’ question unconnected with the class struggle, as is not
infrequently done by the radical-democrats from among the bourgeoisie.
It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on the endless
oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious prejudices
could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would be bourgeois
narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon
mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within
society. No number of pamphlets and no amount of preaching can
enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by its own struggle
against the dark forces of capitalism.
“Unity in this really
revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a
paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian
opinion on paradise in heaven.”
In other words, the fight for
socialism is nothing other than for the fight for a better world in the
here and now, not in the “sweet bye and bye” after a life of
exploitation and servility. It is a fight that every worker, regardless
of denomination, church, or creed should get behind. In a phrase: we
seek not life after death – but life before death!
Political
candidates use every type of empty promise to win office, offering the
masses a politically calculated form of “faith” in order to win the
most votes. They preach the kind of “faith” that encourages the vast
majority to accept a world of misery and exploitation, that slaves
should have “faith” that the masters will “do the right thing.” We must
reject this kind of “faith” and more importanty, the very system that
cynically uses it to justify its existence.
We invite all
workers and youth, religious or not, to engage in a discussion with us
concerning the pressing need for a mass political party that truly
represents the interests of the majority. A party whose candidates will
run not on hollow promises and pander to sincere sentiments for a
better world in the hereafter. Candidates who will run on a program
that can truly improve our quality of life. A party by and for the only
class in society that can build a better world in the here and now: the
working class.
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