Alright, as to the first question on materialist analysis of religion: Still nothing better that I know of than Feuerbach; an excellent monography considering Feuerbach in historical perspective by Stanford professor Van Harvey, out in '96, would be the place to start. Secondly, I think you will find the non-consumerist (I won't say anti-consumerist) sentiment present in many, many pulpits in America. Even the conservative journal Christianity Today ran a long cover article last fall on the conflict between Christian teaching and capitalist consumption patterns [alongside its analysis of the election from Ralph Reed, et al!]. And the critique of the image of the person and the types of communities is a staple of politically progressive theological discourse. I'm very interested in the subject of how churches might contribute to a long-term process of social reconstruction in the US, and have written a long paper about this available at http://www.northcarolina.com/thad/church.htm . [A couple of versions should be out in small religion journals this fall.] The basic points are that 1. The declared social principles of the mainline Protestant denominations at least, are very good and progressive, even radical if taken seriously but 2)few in the denominations seem willing to note the obvious and fundamental contradiction between those stated principles [universal income, etc.] and the fundamental operations of capitalism 3)which results in a mostly ineffective political lobby that invites more scorn than positive outcome as well as 4)a tendency by even progressive religious leaders to toady to power (i.e. Clinton, whom a number of key leaders lay hands on in a white house prayer service in November '95) in a misbegotten attempt to preserve a shadow of the influence the churches once had. Moreover, you have a huge gap between the basically conservative people in the pews and the clergy and top leadership in the Protestant churches, which means that the leaders' statements often don't have many people behind them. My suggestions for correcting all this all are laid out in the paper--recognize the fundamental contradiction between the kingdom of capital and the kingdom of God (as it were!), and concentrate on developing alternatives and nurturing bottom-up change instead of issuing statements that nobody much pays attention to or lobbying efforts in Washington (although on a few issues the religious role has played a very positive role and could continue to do so...like world hunger.) If anyone is going to be at the TOES '97 [The Other Economic Summitt]conference in Denver this weekend and is interested, I'm speaking on a couple of a different panels sponsored by faith community folks, one on the question of "What is Real Wealth?", the other on "real international security" and the faith community. The conference as a whole should be an impressive gathering... cheers, Thad At 01:30 PM 6/17/97 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >Yesterday I posted a rquest for sources on the origins of religion (Marxist >preferably) and got no response. Yet we now are having a discussion of >religion. So let me repeat my request. > >Am I mistaken or has it been suggestd in recent posts that religion has an >anti-consumerist bent? (somehow the discussion of shorter hours veered off in >this direction). I don't see much of this. Go into any suburb. People are >consuming like mad but they are surely, for the most part, religious. Teh >people who buy addictively on the Home Shoppers Network no doubt go to church on >sunday. And so forth. In fact, religion is often used as a vehicle to sell >things. A rich business man from Pittsburgh has the concession for selling >facsimiles of the Vatican art treasures. Very devout fellow too. and an avid >consumer. One of the tenets of protestantism is that faith (not consumption) is >what really counts, so go ahead and spend. > >The solace which religion allegedly gives people in a heartless world does very >little to keep religious persons from acting heartlessly. The solace is often a >very exclusive kind of thing. > >I became an atheist in college, circa 1964 ( a catholic college at that). I know >that there are exceptions but I doubt religion has caused very many people to >take heroic stances in defense of the workers and the poor. quite frankly I'd >rather make alliances with the godless communists than with the Berrigan >brothers, who while they are cetrtianly bravea and in many ways admirable, still >think abortion is a sin and march against it. The hypocrisy of religion and its >own numerous and execarable sins against humanity helped me to become an atheist >and nothing I have seen since has made me even begin to doubt that I made the >right decision. > >Michael Yates > > Thad Williamson National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives (Washington)/ Union Theological Seminary (New York) 212-531-1935 http://www.northcarolina.com/thad
