Revolutionary Christianity

Frederic Engels
Revolutionary Christianity

In 1850, Engels wrote The Peasant war in Germany. While the study was within the larger framework of historical materialism, that is highlighting the economic and material forces and down-playing the political and religious, Engels found scope in it to highlight the differential role that Christianity played in the course of the scattered battles of the peasants….

Engels approvingly refers to Renan who says that, how in order to get a glimpse of the collective life of the early Christians, one should not go to day’s parishes but go to the modern, Socialist workers’ councils!....

However, Engels himself may not endorse all these academic and activist extensions of his insights, for the larger framework within was historical materialist, whose stance towards religion ultimately was always and unambiguously critical.