The Pursuit of Greater Meaning in Community: Communism, National Socialism, Radical Islam, and the Church
Introduction
One
hundred years ago, the search for greater meaning in life led to very different
socialist proposals. Communism posited
meaning in the universal ideals of Marxism, national socialism in the
particular identity of a people, and Islam in a universal submission to its
religious and political authority.
Socialism entails a concentration of power and exercise of authority
over a people for perceived good ends.
In its various forms, it proposes a reshaping of community in which the
individual can find meaning above and beyond himself or herself. Capitalism is said to be focussed on the
individual and to be bereft of meaning in the pursuit of profit. So-called ‘social media’ platforms create shallow
‘friendships’ and fake communities. The
crisis of community and the crisis of meaning in the West are linked, and the
proposals of a hundred years ago remain appealing to some searching for both.
Why
did people find communism and national socialism (Nazism) appealing between the
World Wars? The two political systems
are at odds in many ways, and yet both are developments of socialism. In The
Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought, Jerry Muller explains
the appeal of both systems in the
early 20th century. In a
single chapter, Muller includes the turn to communism of the Hungarian Jew,
Georg Lukács, and the turn to national socialism by the German, Hans Freyer, as
a search for higher meaning in some form of socialism or corporate identity.[1]
To
this, I will add Sayid Abul
A’la Maududi’s proposals for an Islamic state in the same period. Islam experienced a resurgence even as the
Ottoman Empire lost its dominant position in 1923. The question of the status
of Muslims in India was an increasingly important issue and boiled over once
British rule was withdrawn after the Second World War. This led to the establishment of Islamic
nations to the west and east of India—Pakistan and Bangladesh—when India was
partitioned in 1947.[2] Maududi argued for something greater, more
universal in an Islamic state. Opposed
to the partition of India, once this happened, he advocated for a state under
Islamic governance. This meant a
rejection of a pluralistic state in which Muslims might participate rather than
rule.
The
search for meaning in these three alternatives offers a window into the appeal
each had to some people, even if the driving force in each was political
control by elite party or religious officials.
By understanding communism, national socialism (also fascism), and Islam
together in terms of the search for meaning and community, one can see the
‘religious’ dimensions of each, even if the first two are atheist.
Once
brief descriptions of each of these early 20th century offerings for
meaning and community are presented, I will conclude with a few comments about
where we are today as we once again face major challenges and changes in
culture.
Communism: Finding Greater Meaning in the
Idealism of the Communist Party
Communism
appealed to many European intellectuals for dimensions of community that it offered
above the individual’s search for meaning.
With reference to Lukács’ History
and Class Consciousness (pub. 1923),[3] Muller
says that communism offered (my enumeration):[4]
1. A cause
2. A holistic purpose (giving meaning not just to a part of
one’s life but to one’s whole life)
3. A discipline for life deemed to be worthwhile
4. An all-encompassing community to which one might devote
one’s entire self
5. A promise of ultimate freedom for the community by
submission of individual freedom (which was seen as nothing more than
corrupting privilege) to the Party
6. Party activism, which removes the tension between rights and
duties
7. A special role for intellectuals as spiritual guides in Marxism
for the community
8. A universal, communist community that is transnational and
transethnic[5]
In
the aftermath of the First World War, Hungary toyed with communism in a
government lasting 133 days, and Lukács played a role in the government. Its agenda in that brief time period captures
the practical outworking of communist values.
Again, a list from Muller’s description quickly captures communist views
and activities. In this, note the social
restructuring and communal dimensions of Party activism. They
1. Opposed capitalism
2. Ridiculed the family
3. Threatened to convert church buildings into movie theatres
4. Nationalised estates over 100 acres
5. Nationalised businesses with over 10 employees
6. Nationalised apartments
7. Nationalised property deemed superfluous (furniture, gold,
jewellery, coin and stamp collections)
8. Made wages uniform
9. Required graves to be uniform
10. Censored the press
11. Toppled statues of Hungarian kings and national heroes
12. Banned the national anthem
13. Attempted to set all prices[6]
Any
individualism, private property, and alternative to the communist understanding
of community became the object of oppression.
National
Socialism (Nazism): Finding Greater Meaning in Submission to the People
The
Nazi Party got its name from combining ‘National’ and ‘Socialist’ from its full
name, the ‘Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National
Socialist German Workers Party). While
various countries had national socialist movements, in Germany the Nazi Party
formed around three distinct notions: anti-semitism, social Darwinism, and lebensraum (the notion that Germans
needed more room in Europe—hence the invasion of other countries where Germans
were a minority of the population).
According
to Muller, people finding national socialism appealing were typically young apostates
whose ancestors were Christians. One
should qualify this: ‘Christians in some sense.’ By 1900, German Lutheranism had reduced Jesus
to a moral teacher and Christianity to beliefs in the fatherhood of God, the
brotherhood of mankind, and the infinite worth of the human soul. These abstract convictions were insufficient
for Christianity, which is Christ following
and believing in all its aspects. Yet,
this German Liberalism was precisely the ineffective version of Christianity
that German nationalists rejected.
The
young apostates were also in search of an alternative society or community with
a higher purpose than anything offered by capitalism. That is, as Freyer put it, the intellectual
drawn to Nazism in Germany is one whose ‘religious organs are highly developed,
but have lost their function’.[7] Nazism, like its other opponent, communism,
had a moral drive and sought to provide a substitute religion devoted to the
nation and its people (Volk).
Children
of the educated middle class (Bildungsbürgertum)
in Germany, they felt capitalism lacked morality, with its materialism,
association of wealth with prestige, hedonism, anti-intellectualism, and
unhealthy lifestyle. (Some young Nazis
abstained from tobacco, alcohol, and meat.)
Critics of the culture in Germany at the time, they found meaning in
nature, poetry, folk songs, and pagan customs.
In search of a spiritual principle to which they might dedicate
themselves, and in light of their intense military community while fighting for
their country during the First World War, these young Germans found larger
meaning and purpose for themselves as individuals in their subordination to a
national, communal sacrifice for the German people.
Freyer
rejected the notion of a universal ethic and humanity. Capitalism, he argued, reduced people to
their utility. Its goal of making a
profit for individuals undermined the people’s interests as a nation. Capitalist individuals or groups would pursue
their interests apart from the Volk. ‘The revolution of the right,’ on the other
hand, ‘was the revolution of those who did not define themselves by their
social and economic interests....’[8] Both capitalism and technology, Muller
explains, were seen as supra-nationalist or universal in their pursuits (cf.
globalism). Thus, national socialism
sought to undermine capitalism and tie technological development to the Volk. Different nations developed along their own
trajectories, and the key to finding meaning was in the preservation of the
particular people. The German people’s
identity gave people meaning where the individual pursuit of profit did not.[9]
Islam: Finding Greater Meaning in
Submission to the Islamic State
Islam’s
revitalization in the 20th century took two paths. One sought to liberalise the religion by
making it compatible with Western culture while the other retrenched itself in
7th century Islam. Both
versions seek a role for Islam in the world, the former by adapting and the
latter in a permanent jihad against
everything outside Islam.
Writing in the context of issues facing India
and Pakistan in the 1930s, Sayid Abul A’la
Maududi articulated a plan for a
supra-national Islamic State whose foundation was the restoration of the
Islamic caliphate.[10] In Arabic, ummat-al-Islām means the community of Muslims drawn together across
national borders, wheras sha‘b is the
word for a people defined by geography, ancestry, and history. Maududi’s opposition to nationalism was due
to his claim that Islam called for a Muslim ummah,
not participation in a sha‘b. He opposed nationalism as inconsistent
with Islam, since the religion transcends national boundaries and unites people
with its common, religious devotion. He
established a transnational Islamic movement, called Jamaat-e-Islami, within the political state of India around 1940. When Islamic Pakistan did become separate
from India, the Jamaat-e-Islami movement
threw its support behind it. In a paper
delivered in 1971, ‘The Theory of Political Islam’, Maududi commends a
political system that he termed a ‘theo-democracy’.[11] That is, since Allah has revealed his law,
humans can only interpret it and not legislate it. The Islamic state is to be guided by a leader
supported by a body of officials who have moral credit, an advanced understanding
of Islamic law, and who govern justly.[12]
Western democracy, by contrast, affirms the
sovereignty of people in producing laws of for the people.[13] Western law stands in the tradition of Greek
and Roman legal thinking, in which distinctions are made between natural law
(of the gods), international law, and civil law (a nation’s or society’s
laws). In Maududi’s view, there is only
divine law and its interpretation in various contexts.
Maududi rejected the concept of human rights,
preferring to speak of responsibilities.
There are only divine rights.
Also, any Muslim is more importantly a part of the Islamic state that
transcends geographical or national borders.
Early in his career, he wrote that
Islam requires the earth—not
just a portion of it—not because the sovereignty over the earth should be
wrestled from one or several nations and vested in one particular nation—but
because the entire mankind should benefit from the ideology and welfare program
or what would be true to say from Islam, which is the program of well-being for
all humanity.[14]
Thus, Maududi’s vision for community is
international and religious, and all humans are to submit to divine law. Community is formed across ethnic and
national boundaries by means of Islamic jihad,
a struggle to enforce submission to Allah and his law. This struggle is not just personal submission
but also geo-political, and since Maududi’s writings, Islam has continued to
spread in especially Africa and Europe through immigration, multiplication
(birthrates), and aggression (even terrorism).
The individual is to find meaning in submission just as all peoples and
nations must.
The
Post-Christian West
Since the Second World War especially, the West
has been in a continuous decline in certain ways relevant to the present
discussion. After the War, colonial
powers gave up their control abroad and permitted nations their
independence. This relinquishing of
geo-political unity and community had its parallel in a philosophical and
religious sense. While communist nations
continued to offer a vision for international community and meaning in the
individual’s participation in communist ideals and the Party’s activist causes,
the West asserted individual rights, capitalism, and secularism. The charges that individuals need to find a
higher meaning in some larger community and that capitalism is all about profit
and therefore lacks moral value still carry a sting in our day.
Indeed, the West is far more secular than it
was 100 years ago. Its population seeks
entertainment, not meaning, and many are left feeling a great void in their
lives. Social media platforms have left
people feeling anxious and friendless.
The Church relinquished one of its major roles of providing community
and offering a higher meaning in life in the face of the Covid epidemic. The mainline denominations have been in
constant decline since the 1960s as they revise historic Christian doctrines
and ethics.
Returning to the appeal of communism for
finding meaning and community, we might note three weaknesses in present-day
understanding of the Church and local churches in some cases in the West. This may or may not apply to specific cases
but is my understanding of problematic trends of ecclesiology in the West. First, some churches have undermined their
own evangelistic and missional cause. The Christian life for some is mainly about a
belief system or attendance of a service once a week or so. For such people, Christian community is not
formed around a cause that unites them, provides meaningful fellowship, and
offers meaning.
Second, religious purposes are at times compartmentalized,
being separated from other purposes.
These other purposes to which one devotes oneself may or may not relate
to any religious purpose. The secular
culture’s pursuit of social justice—with a very specific understanding of what
this means—is something in which Christians might join in the public square. Such activism might find motivation from
Christian faith, but it does not form Christian identity or community. Meaning in such purposes is outside the
Church. In fact, many have sought in
various ways to undermine any ecclesiastical or religious element in the
pursuit of social justice causes with the rest of society, and social justice
gets defined by the culture rather than by religious faith. Party activism in social justice campaigns
provides meaning instead of the Church. If
the Church offers a purpose, it is not a holistic purpose in life, being
relegated to meeting some spiritual part of a person. Some go further, saying that spiritual purpose
can be found in various religions. The
community that develops in such cases is not necessarily founded on specific,
Christian convictions, Christian devotion, and Christian practices.
Third, the progressive West does not define
society and community around some specific people’s geography, history, and
identity (Nazism). It does define
community around certain ideals or values—though it is still trying to
articulate these. As it does so, it is
giving up certain traditional values, such as marriage, the family, Christian
faith, the role of the Church in society, sexual mores, etc. and such liberal
values as freedom and equality (versus equity).
It advocates globalism in the economy, transcendence of borders and
citizenship, and the notion that a multicultural state offers higher value than
a monocultural state (which is misinterpreted too often as nationalism rather
than as conservativism). Churches caught
up in these changes come to advocate the humanistic, multicultural Church
rather than the universal Church united in Christ.
Combining these three points, the Church loses
its mission. It lacks a cause as a
community working together according to an all-encompassing purpose. It encourages people to find their motivation
in the Church but their activism outside the Church in social justice
activism. The worldwide, evangelistic,
and ecclesiastical mission of the Church is replaced with a multicultural
agenda that silences evangelism, eclipses the Church, and is more devoted to
human identities and community than to Christ and the community formed in Him.
While
national socialism enveloped much of the Church in Germany during Nazism,
this is not the case in the same way today.
That is, the problem is not today a nationalist Church. Conservatives do sometimes speak as though a
Christian nation is possible, and they sometimes confusingly combine patriotism
and the Church. The Church needs to be a
separate, prophetic voice offering a different community altogether from the
nation. In this, the Church has some
slight parallels with the distinction suggested by Maududi. The difference, importantly, is that the
Church—when it is a truly Christian Church—rejects power and authority,
including militarism. Its mission is
carried by witnessing in Word, community, and deed to the world, not enforcing
religious rule through the arm of the state.
Yet
the real problem facing the Church in the West is a combination of certain
aspects of Christianity, vaguely represented, with cultural values and
activism. All the state Churches of
Europe—Lutheran, Catholic, Dutch Reformed, Anglican—have caved to culture and
the respective states’ authority. Beliefs
and ethics are shaped by the culture.
Power over the Church is exercised at a whole new level in communist
China, with its programme of ‘sinisization’--the practice of drafting whatever is
left of the Church into the communist, cultural expression of China today under the authority of the Party. This term refers to state-enforced
enculturation of the Christian Gospel and Church according to communism and
Chinese culture.[15]
Conclusion
In
this article, I have described propositions for finding higher meaning that
have been suggested in communism, national socialism, and radical
Islam. One major part of this is the
vision each presents for community—something larger than the individual. All three options from the early 20th
century posed alternatives to both individualist capitalism, among other
things, as well as to the Church. By
exploring these, we can see ways in which the Church might offer something
else. These have not been presented in
any depth, and problems in the Church have been more in focus. Yet I conclude with the challenge for the
Church in the West today to offer a truly Biblical ecclesiology that offers a
truly Christian community in which people might find a higher meaning than
purely individualist entertainments, economic profit and social status, and shallow
community.
The
beginning of Christian community lies in Jesus Christ. Christian community begins by being introduced
to a person, the Son of God. His costly
and free gift for us establishes our relationship with Him and our fellowship
with one another. Through the Church,
the offer of community is extended universally.
Meaning is not found in our own identity as a Volk any more than in our own identities (as in intersectionality, ‘LGBT
community’, etc.) or a celebrated collection of diverse identities (multiculturalism). The expansion of Christian fellowship is
through faith and by invitation, not by enforced subordination and coercion. Various forms of socialism reach for power to
control people, sometimes exclude, incarcerate, even kill undesireable elements
of society. Christian community is
established through faith, characterised by love, and offers people hope.
[1] Jerry Z. Muller, The Mind and
the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought (New York: Anchor Books, 2002),
ch. 10, ‘Lukács and Fryer: From the Quest for Community to the Temptations of
Totality.’
[2] Today, Bangladesh is a secular constitutional state with Islam as
the state religion, whereas Pakistan is an Islamic state.
[3] Georg Lukács, History and Class
Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics, trans. Rodney Livingstone
(Cambridge, MA: 1971).
[4] This is my enumeration of points identified by Muller, and there is
some overlap between them. By separating
them, one can see that each point provides some dimension of communist ideals
that the individual searching for meaning in a community might find appealing.
[5] Muller, Ibid., pp.
274-275.
[6] Muller, Ibid., pp.
266-267.
[7] Hans Freyer, Theorie des
gegenwärtigen
Zeitalters (Stuttgard, 1955), p. 127, cited in
Muller, p. 276.
[8] Muller, Ibid., p. 286.
[9] The so-called ‘MAGA movement’ in the USA is wrongly called ‘Nazi’
by socialists. Nazism was opposed to capitalism,
contrary to this movement. The MAGA
Republicans are not interested in some ethnic particularity but are committed
to the American notion of a melting pot of people, as long as they are legal
immigrants. The MAGA movement itself does
not offer a higher meaning for life or an ultimate community. Its value is in offering freedom for people to
find meaning and community elsewhere.
[10] Cf. Jaan S. Islam, ‘Abul A’la Maududi: Innovator or Restorer of the
Islamic Caliphate?,’ International
Journal of Political Theory 3.1 (2018); online: https://philpapers.org/archive/ISLAAM.pdf
(accessed 9 September, 2024).
[11] Abul A'la Maududi. Political Theory of Islam (Lahore: Islamic Publications
Limited, 1976), pp. 4-22;
online: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-61955-9_25
(accessed 9 September, 2024).
[12] Ibid., p. 58.
[13] Abul A’la Maududi, Islamic
Law and Constitution, trans. Khurshid Ahmad (Lahore: Islamic Publications
Ltd, 1960), pp. 147-148.
[14] al-Jihad fi al-Islam, 1930: 6-7. Quoted from
‘Sayyid Abul Ala al-Maududi,’ New World Encyclopedia; https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Sayyid_Abul_A'la_Maududi (accessed 1 August, 2024).
[15] Cf. Rollin G. Grams, ‘Sinicization: State-Enforced Enculturation of
the Gospel and Church,’ Bible and Mission
blog (10 August, 2023); online https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2023/08/sinicization-state-enforced.html. Also cf. Rollin G. Grams, ‘What Enticed
Israel to Go After Other Gods? Part 4,’ Bible
and Mission blog (25 August, 2023); online https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2023/08/what-enticed-israel-to-go-after-other_25.html.
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