Simple Church Minute 99--Karl Marx

99-Karl Marx

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            History tells us that the parents of Karl Marx were Jewish and converted to Christianity at a time when many German Jews did the same.  Whether it was real or something merely socio-political is God’s business.  Be that as it may, Karl himself rejected faith in Jesus, but was still highly influenced by it, as his utopian ideal society was built on the Christian idea of heaven, with the difference being that he was imagining a way of creating such a society as heaven will be on earth.  Incorrectly, he didn’t have a grasp of the reality of sin, much less how imbedded that aspect of the fall of man is in our souls.  Therefore, he came up with the idea that, when his principles were installed in a society, that government would fade away.

            We, having 20/20 hindsight, can see that the opposite of his dream occurred.  His social idea was not attractive to union workers, but instead took hold where backward nations with weak rulers could be overthrown, and the dictatorship that followed grew in power over time, and instead of all people having equality, there was a small leadership class and a large amount of people who had no hope of getting ahead, removing incentive to doing better for themselves.

            Albeit accidentally, Marx got one aspect of Christian life correct that much of the true church is missing.  The head of the church is Jesus, the Holy Spirit speaks into each believer who desires to serve Jesus.  God is a sufficient leader of his people, that, within the church, when properly operating, the idea of the human leader could naturally fade away, in favor of what would appear to a sociologist to be a headless community.  This is an ideal that takes an exceptional amount of commitment from those with gifting for leadership.  Personally, I haven’t seen it, but, then, I live in a land of freedom, for now.

            If you have a comment, and I know this blip should stir up some brothers and sisters, you can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic church*, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally, (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.