• JamesConeZone [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    91·
    8 months ago

    We are mostly in agreement here. Yes, I 100% agree that liberation theology and other grassroots religious movements that incorporate dialectical materialism has to be incorporated at some level, superseding the bourgeoise strains of religions in totality. My username’s namesake is named after the guy who is credited with black liberation theology after all. No disagreement here.

    But my argument is that we can’t look at capitalist countries to tell us what will happen in communist countries. Its the wrong dataset. We need to look at folks in AES countries to determine how materialism and religion have interacted post-revolution. China’s Christian population has grown significantly in the last two decades. North Korea has had presbyterian members of the upper cabinet, even having a Christian political working group at one point. Vietnam’s folk religion continues to grow, and over half of Cubans are religious. The theory that religion will eventually disappear post-revolution simply hasn’t happened and, in fact, many people have embraced religion post-revolution.

    • soiejo [he/him,any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      13·
      8 months ago

      North Korea has had presbyterian members of the upper cabinet, even having a Christian political working group at one point

      This seems fascinating, do you know a source where I can learn more about this? Everything I’ve found about NK’s relationship with religion is filled with “you get executed if you have a Bible”-style propaganda.

      • JamesConeZone [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        14·
        8 months ago

        Sure. Kim Il Sung grew up Presbyterian, his maternal grandfather was a Presbyterian minister, his mom was a deacon and lifelong Presbyterian, and his family especially his mom worshiped at a presbyterian church in DPRK. Several members of the dprk cabinet (or whatever it’s called) were Methodist or presbyterian ministers. As long as they were anti-imperial and supported the dprk, there was no issue. There was a Presbyterian seminary in Pyongyang until 1938 that resumed training in the 1970s though I don’t think it’s specifically Presbyterian any more, but it’s still open and training ministers within DPRK. Kang Ryang-uk was an incredibly important figure in the early DPRK. He was the vice chair and chair of the KSDP, the 2nd & 7th Vice President, and secretary and vice president of the People’s Assembly. He was a Presbyterian minister and maternal uncle of Kim Il Sung and studied theology at the Pyongyang Seminary. Kang also helped found the Korean Christian Federation which continues to this day.

        You can read more here (best bits at the end): https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1093/jcs/48.3.659

    • 小莱卡English
      13·
      8 months ago

      Lets remember that the conditions of these AES countries are still relatively bad, it is understandable that religion is still popular. It is still a fundamental contradiction that has to be resolved.

      • JamesConeZone [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        5·
        8 months ago

        China’s conditions are not bad, and their dialectic has already taken reality into consideration as it seeks to solve this contradiction. Read “The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question during Our Country’s Socialist Period” released in 1982.

        We Communists are atheists and must unremittingly propagate atheism. Yet at the same time we must understand that it will be fruitless and extremely harmful to use simple coercion in dealing with the people’s ideological and spiritual questions–and this includes religious questions. We must further understand that at the present historical stage the difference that exists between the mass of believers and nonbelievers in matters of ideology and belief is relatively secondary. If we then one-sidedly emphasize this difference, even to the point of giving it primary importance–for example, by discriminating against and attacking the mass of religious believers, while neglecting and denying that the basic political and economic welfare of the mass of both religious believers and nonbelievers is the same–then we forget that the Party’s basic task is to unite all the people (and this includes the broad mass of believers and nonbelievers alike) in order that all may strive to construct a modern, powerful Socialist state. To behave otherwise would only exacerbate the estrangement between the mass of believers and nonbelievers as well as incite and aggravate religious fanaticism, resulting in serious consequences for our Socialist enterprise. Our Party, therefore, bases its policy of freedom of religious belief on the theory formulated by Marxism-Leninism, and it is the only correct policy genuinely consonant with the people’s welfare.