In the latest issue of "Christianity Today" magazine, Philip Yancey quotes George Orwell's essay "Notes on the Way". My curiosity was piqued, so I checked out the essay. At the end Orwell mentions that Karl Marx's statement "religion is the opiate of the masses" is taken out of context. I've always heard that Marx was indicting religious leaders for keeping people "drugged" so that political leaders could do whatever they wanted. But Orwell points out that the sentence immediately preceding the famous quote is: "Religion is the sigh of the soul in a soulless world." In other words the soul itself creates religion as a way of coping with a world that is becoming less and less human.
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." (John 14:6) Jesus didn't offer religion, he offered himself. And through His Church he continues to offer himself. We are offering, not a drug, but that which souls are truly longing for.
(BTW, Orwell wrote his essay in 1940. But Marx is still being taken out of context.)
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This line from Marx is probably most often mis-used in Communist countries where it is used for political purposes of reducing and controlling church and religion. After all, a totalitarian regime cannot exist if there is another authoritative voice in the country. Is any communist leader the world over, past and present, religious? I believe not a single one.
- Andrew
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