Observations: Hooked on the opium of the people (1986)

The Observations Column from the September 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whatever Marx's description of religion — "the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the soul of soul-less conditions. It is the opium of the people", most religious people would probably deny that they are oppressed or live in soul-less conditions. But there is obviously something missing (even if it is only logic) from the lives of people who will go to great pains to live their lives in the way that is approved by their particular god, but will never be able to explain just what god is. or why he should be so concerned about the use of contraceptives by catholics, or why it is so imperative that muslims and jews slaughter their animals by slitting the throat and letting them bleed to death.

In an attempt to make some sense of the Christian faith, the Bishop of Durham has probably come as close as anyone to telling us what god is:

We are faced with the claim that God is prepared to work knock-down physical miracles in order to select a number of people into the secret of his incarnation, resurrection and salvation. but is not prepared to use such methods in order to deliver from Auschwitz, prevent Hiroshima, overcome famine or bring about a bloodless transformation of apartheid. Such a God is surely a cultic idol.

(From a speech to the York Meeting of the General Synod - 6 July 1986)

Understandably, the bishop is out of favour with some of his colleagues who prefer not to mention these contradictions in god's character. This is not the only thing rocking the boat in the Church of England at the moment. Another problem that the hierarchy are wrestling with is whether women should be able to become priests. This should be much easier to solve however. The Bible itself gives clear guidance on this - 1 Corinthians 14. verses 34-35:

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the Church.

Another rather sexist passage, which Margaret Thatcher, as a Christian, will have read, is I Timothy 2. verses 11-14:

Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a women to teach, not usurp authority over the man. but to be in silence For Adam was first formed, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Christianity of course does not have the monopoly on nastiness, racism and sexism. The Koran also has its fair share. For a religion which claims to teach universal brotherhood. it's hard to see what the angel Gabriel was getting at when he passed on this, from Surah V. verse 51:

O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for friends. They are the friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.

"Opium of the People" is possibly a more appropriate description than Marx intended. The junkies of religion who graduate to the stage where they are taking regular injections of this kind of mind blowing salvation share the symptoms of the heroin and the crack addict. Both realise that they have been hooked but have no desire to escape from the power that has gradually taken over their lives. Indeed, they both look for hope for the future in a never-ending supply of their own particular drug.

Nick White