[Opinion] Socialism is Incompatible with Religion
December 13, 2020
“[Socialism] is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. [Socialism] is the opium of the people.”
In the past couple of years, my generation has embraced socialist ideas. We scream, “Eat the Rich,” “Abolish the Police” and even support self-proclaimed Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
We’re a generation long past the cold war, living in immense political polarization, and a mental health pandemic.
Socialism is again targeted at youth and presented as a cure for our woes, but time and time again socialism has failed. Why? Because its goal isn’t just to take down capitalism but to completely annihilate God Himself–what brings happiness, peace, diversity, knowledge, art, and charity to billions of people across the world.
In an ideal socialist society, religion is not welcome. This comes straight from theory.
Socialist Theory
Let’s start with the basics, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Marx said: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
He taught that work instead is God, which any Abrahamic faith would know breaks and twists the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:3)
“Labor is the prime basic condition for all human existence and this to such an extent that, in a sense, we have to say that labor created man himself.”
Oh yeah and let’s not forget his object in life was “ To dethrone God and destroy capitalism.”
A 1970s revolutionary named Dotson Rade agreed with Marxism and commented, “You’ve got to change people’s sexual attitudes, people’s attitude towards the church, people’s attitude towards education, towards business.” He admitted that drug use, “sexual promiscuity and sexual deviancy is a device,” because they create “natural allies to a revolutionary movement.”
In 1905, Vladimir Lenin encouraged the Bolsheviks to “Follow the advice Marx and Engels once gave to the German Socialists: “To translate and widely spread the literature of the eighteenth-century French Enlighteners and atheists.”
Socialism and Religion: History Crash Course
From 1920-1940, the Soviet Union enacted its anti-religious campaign. The main targets being the Russian Orthodox Church and Islam.
Nearly all of their clergy and many of its believers were shot or sent to labor camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited.
Similarly, during China’s Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong’s government vowed to eradicate religion. During the Great Leap Forward, Mao shut down schools and mobilized the youth to “embrace the revolutionary spirit.” The population was urged to rid itself of the “four olds:” old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas.
Sounding familiar?
Socialism and Religion: Current Events
Today in Cuba, the government treats religious activists like common criminals— banning their freedoms, and blocking them from leaving the country.
In China, they’re closing churches, Sunday schools, and youth ministries. They’re jailing pastors, even rewriting scripture.
Most notably and absolutely horrifying is that China has detained millions of Muslims and Christians in conception/reeducation camps.
And before I get, “Well that’s communism” or “That’s not true socialism” or “Isn’t there a Christian socialist party in Canada?”
Let’s discuss.
What does America represent?
America was founded by people who fled from religious persecution and wanted to freely practice their religion.
To quote Thomas Jefferson: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”
A fundamental part of socialism is the abolishment of private property. So to those who call themselves Christian socialists, do you want your church to be owned, taxed, and even controlled by the state?
And To the self-proclaimed socialists reading this typing away, “China and the Soviet Union are not true socialists, look at the European countries!”
Let’s look at the European Countries.
In Germany, Catholics, Protestants, Jews pay a “religious tax” of 8 or 9 percent of their annual tax bill. This “church tax” was introduced in compensation for the nationalization of religious property. As of 2018, $610M was collected from churches.
In Germany, 2.2 million people have reportedly de-registered from the Catholic Church since 2000.
It’s not a coincidence that socialist countries are predominantly atheist.
So where’s America at?
Whether you agree with this or not, the government right now has the power to restrict our church services, Sunday schools and seminaries. They’re even going as far as telling us we can’t even sing in church.
What was really concerning was in California when the governor banned at-home worship.
And many Democrats have advocated for taxing our churches, especially targeting the Catholic and LDS church along with many Islamic Centers.
In a mixed government, we already see the government taking more control of the church than what our founding fathers wanted.
To enact a bigger government is bad news for religious people.
“Building Zion” Does not Mean I want Socialism
In other words, Jesus was not a socialist. Stop saying He was.
Around the 1920s, the same time around women’s suffrage, the government started getting a lot bigger. First-wave feminism and social activism had a lot to do with this.
Why?
Because the church was lacking so people started turning to the government. The issue with that is that the people at the time were looking to address social issues that the church should have been addressing.
We know from the Bible that a sign of a good church is a church that takes care of its people and its community around it.
“Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” James 1:27
To illustrate in my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we follow the law of Consecration, which is a principle where we dedicate our lives and material substances to the church.
In our church, we pay tithing and do not have paid clergy. We dedicate billions to charity across the world; we have church welfare, a bishop’s food storehouse, have orphanages, among a lot of other humanitarian work.
Sounds like socialism right?
No.
The law of consecration is actually a perfect example of why a smaller government benefits my church.
When Jesus said to help your neighbor and give to the poor, he didn’t mean to give all your money to the Romans and let them try and do it for you.
Socialism is involuntary and forceful and the church is voluntary because we should have agency and freedom.
Because we have separation of Church and state, my church should be able to operate without regulations and restrictions and forcefully made to hand over the money that we create and use to uphold a strong and healthy church that benefits people and turns them to Christ, not turns them to dependency on social programs and false hope, trapped in a ruinous and vicious cycle of compromise and corruption.
“But doesn’t your church have like a hundred billion dollars?”
Make it a trillion.
No seriously. I trust my church, not the government.

Jori O'Grady is a senior at Grandview Highschool. She has been on staff since her freshman year. She was named "2018-2019, Best of Colorado Columnist,...
Girl, your in a cult. Brainwashing sure does it’s thing to people who are lost in their life.
I’ve found the perfect short case study in cognitive dissonance for my psych degree, thank you!
Did he pick you?? Girl, we just want to have healthcare, not to stop you from singing your cult jams.
The jumps you’re making in this are hilarious. Yes feminism = bigger government = socialism = no religious freedom. You really had great evidence to back this up. The countries you mentioned also are not socialist. They just happen to have some social programs. Please learn what you’re talking about. Also way to go, stealing someone else’s quote and rewording it for your own agenda lmfao.
Separation of church and state. If our economics don’t align with your religions that’s tough cookies. Cry about it :/
Facts don’t care about your feelings
I am Jesus and I do not condone this. We are, in fact, not homies. By the way, God is a woman and she’s gay. Also, I use they/them pronouns. You will not be receiving the pass to heaven until further notice.
since we are quoting sky daddy, keep in mind that capitalism is based off of several deadly sins: pride, envy and greed. Also, you are wrong on several topics: A- the idea of implementing socialism in today’s america does not mean we’re going to tell christians to stop worshipping what they want to, we just don’t want people to be starving to death while others are making more money than one could spend in a lifetime. christians really love to play the victim card when really they have been the opposite throughout history, colonizing, forcing religion on others, and being blatantly against certain groups of people. please do not use the grandview newspaper to spread your flawed political views.
If you’re trying to argue that socialism will “completely abolish religion”, then you should go more in depth about how America was founded upon the belief of “separation between Church and State”. The reason why the colonists fled is literally because they were being legally persecuted for not following the majority religion, and so, America is a thing. People wanted to stop being persecuted for their religion. Why do you think we’re a “mixing pot” of cultures? If religion was going to truly be abolished under socialism, then it wouldn’t be just Christianity, it would be Islam, Buddhism, etc etc. And you claim that the government is trying to control the church by “telling [you] we can’t even sing in church.” Did you ever stop to think about why, perhaps, the government is doing that? I, myself, would attend church weekly before the pandemic hit. I currently still don’t even go to church. If I were to go to church, I would have to RSVP for a spot because of limited occupancy. Instead, I am choosing to stay at home because it is safer for both me and other people as we don’t know who does or doesn’t have the virus. The government is saying not to sing in church because you could increase the spread of the virus. It’s the same thing as the government saying that choirs can’t perform live and in person. Oh, and would you look at that? Choirs are, in fact, not allowed to perform live. They are instead filming themselves singing their own, individual parts and compiling them into a video. If you really feel like the government is infringing on your rights to practice your religious freedoms by telling you not to sing in church in order to lessen the spread of the virus, then by all means, do what the choirs are doing in order to continue to sing.
Although this is an opinion piece, I believe it spreads misinformation about the pandemic/COVID-19 and leaves out some key details behind the reasoning of California’s policies.
“They’re even going as far as telling us we can’t even sing in church.”
This quote from this opinion piece creates a sense of alarm about how the government is overstepping and going as far to ban singing. I believe it creates the false idea that the government is targeting religion and religious worship. Evidence/studies on the spread of COVID leads us to believe that the act of singing might contribute to transmission through emission of aerosols. Just because there is a separation of church and state does not mean a church can be exempt from all rules/regulations/laws especially when a government is trying to act to protect people from this deadly virus that has taken the lives of over 290 thousand people in the United States.
honestly, every article that i’ve read from this author has been ill researched and supplemented with a pathetic and blatant lack of understanding of the topic. this, however, is on an entirely new level. firstly, let’s make one thing very clear. despite her desperate decrying of how ‘inherently evil’ and ‘anti religion >:(((‘ socialism is, you’d be hard pressed to find many governments that aren’t a combination of socialism and capitalism. she’s fundamentally lacking any comprehension of the distinction between socialism and communism. this portrayal of socialism as some sort of all consuming authoritarian system is painfully indicative of a communist mindset. this article misses the primary distinction between the two, which is that socialism can work hand in hand with democracy, where communism is (to reiterate) an authoritarian system. stop demonizing democratic socialists who want to implement socialist systems. social security is also a socialist system; that works pretty well for us, in your diatribe against socialism do you also think we should inhibit people from being able to retire comfortably? you are far too comfortable just suckling at the teat of literal cult ideology. if you’re going to try to spew nonsense back to the student body you may as well research the topic first.
Ever heard of the Kibbutz movement? It’s a successful mix of socialism and Judaism. Socialism may not mix with Mormonism, but it does with others. Americans want free education and healthcare. We’re not here to destroy G-d. This article shouldn’t have been taken down. But it’s still a load of crap.