In this paper I defend a ‘strong compatibility’ thesis. According to this thesis Marxism is not only not inconsistent with Christianity; Christianity is compatible only with Marxism. I further argue that for Marxists to accept this proposition on the grounds that they have no reason to object to the personal combination of Marxism and Christianity is to miss the point both of Christianity and of their own Marxism. This concession is, from the point of view of the Marxist, quite unprincipled. It is to misconstrue both the true nature of the Marxist critique of religion and the true nature of the religion of which Marxism is the critique. But more about this in due course.

First, though, what sort of reasons are invoked against the ‘compatibility’ thesis? They seem to fall, generally, into two categories. First, there are objections to the Christian belief system itself. Secondly, there are objections to the social and historical role of the set of institutions which has espoused that belief-system.

To the belief-system of Christianity on almost any account of what it maintains, defenders of the incompatibility thesis have a form of objection which I shall call ‘ontological’. This objection, taken on its own is, it seems to me, both the most widely canvassed and the weakest. It is roughly this : Christians believe that the universe is peopled with entities and agencies and activities and events—a God, an act of creation, an act of redemption, souls, grace, post-mortem survival and all the rest—all of which the Marxist is, as a Marxist, committed to the denial of. Christians are, thus, ontologically theists, spiritualists and mentalists; Marxists, on the other hand are ontologically materialists. Since ontological immaterialism and ontological materialism cannot both be true, one cannot consistently hold both.