Christianity and Communism

An excerpt from Milan Kundera's The Joke:

"Of course the Communist movement is godless. Though only those Christians who refuse to cast out the beam in their own eye can blame Communism itself for that. I say Christians. Yet where are they? Looking around me, I see nothing but pseudo-Christians living exactly like unbelievers. But being a Christian means living differently. It means taking the path Christ took, imitating Christ. It means giving up private interests, comforts, and power, and turning toward the poor, the humiliated, and the suffering. But is that what the churches were doing? My father was a working man, chronically unemployed, with a humble faith in God. He turned his pious face to Him, but the Church never turned its face to my father. And so he remained forsaken amidst his neighbours, forsaken within the church, alone with his God until he fell ill and died.

"The churches failed to realize that the working-class movement was the movement of the humiliated and oppressed supplicating for justice. They did not choose to work with and for them to create the kingdom of God on earth. By siding with the oppressors, they deprived the working-class movement of God. And now they reproach it for being godless. The Pharisees! Yes, the socialist movement is godless, but I see in this a casting of divine blame on us, on Christians. Blame for our hardheartedness toward the poor and suffering.

"And what am I to do in this situation? Should I be shocked at the drop in church membership? Should I be shocked that the schools are bringing the children up in an antireligious frame of mind? How silly! True religion does not need the favour of secular power. Secular disfavour only strengthens faith.

"Or should I fight socialism because we made it godless? Sillier still! I can only lament the tragic error that led socialism away from God. All I can do is to explain this error and work to rectify it.

"In any case, why this anxiety, brother Christians? Everything that happens happens according to God's will, and I often wonder whether it isn't God's design to let mankind know that man cannot sit on His throne with impunity and that without His participation even the most equitable order of worldly affairs is doomed to failure and corruption.

"I remember those years when people here thought they were but a few steps away from paradise. How proud they were: it was their paradise, they were on their way to it with no need of anyone in heaven above. And suddenly it melted away before their eyes."