The Opiate of the People

In 1843 Karl Marx (and his epic beard) wrote a paper in which he claimed that religion was "the opium of the people." 

At the time, opium was a powerful prescription drug. It was used as a sedative and painkiller.  His point was that religion was being used by the masses to ignore and mask their own suffering and the suffering of the world.  This view probably isn't helped by the fact that we call our churches "sanctuaries."  For years I've heard Christians rail against Marx for this view, and I dismissed it as well.  After many years of study and experience I realized something:

He was right.

The Church has portrayed the gospel of Jesus in terms of escape.  "This world is a mess, but thank God, someday I'll fly away!"  I've been just as guilty of this at times in my life.  In tough times, I've sought to use God as an escape from my problems.  I've prayed for God to remove crappy circumstances from my life, because frankly, I didn't feel like dealing with anything.  In short, the prayers and cry of the Church have gone something like this, "God, take away our suffering and, if it be your will, fix the problems of this world." 

Marx's critique of religion was spot on, but it isn't supposed to be that way.

Religion may be the opiate of the people, but the gospel that Jesus presented was anything but an opiate.  If anything, it was a heightened sense of awareness and reality. 

Far from an escape, what Jesus offers is hope, joy, and peace...in the middle of the daily garbage of life.  Never once did Jesus shy away from pain, his own or anyone else's.  As he's hanging on the cross in excruciating pain, the soldiers offer him wine mixed with gall.  Gall was a numbing agent.  Just taking a few drinks would ease some of his pain, but he refuses.  He didn't refuse to numb the pain, because he refused any sort of escape from his reality. 

We all suffer.  Some of us suffer in ways that many of us cannot even fathom.  While a joyous afterlife may be true, God isn't offering escape from the pain.  He's offering life in the midst of the pain. 

It's time for the Church to stop preaching "pie in the sky, bye and bye" theology.  The world has real problems.  We have real problems.  If all you're hearing in your religious context is escape, then you need to escape that teaching.  If the best God can do is wait around for us to die so we can go to heaven, then we're all in trouble.

Brad can be reached at awaken.oswego@gmail.com.