In the last few years, I’ve been interested in learning more about religious tradition and historical materialism, two schools of thought which seem contradictory on a surface level. Of course, historical-materialist analysis divides society into categories of base and superstructure, arguing the former, which represents the economic foundation, primarily determines the latter, which represents the ideological system. Thus, the classic Marxist view is religion, as part of the superstructure, will wither away as the base changes and it no longer serves an ideological purpose.

Friedrich Engels expressed this consensus perspective in his 1877 text Anti-Dühring. “All religion, however, is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men’s minds of those external forces which control their daily life,” he wrote. “When society, by taking possession of all means of production and using them on a planned basis, has freed itself and all its members from the bondage… only then will the last alien force which is still reflected in religion vanish; and with it will also vanish the religious reflection itself, for the simple reason that then there will be nothing left to reflect.”

Following the totalitarian experience of the Soviet Union, when state atheism was so often used in Red Scare propaganda, I believe a more accommodating socialist relationship to religion would be productive. The American socialist pioneer Eugene Debs has long been an inspiration to me, and I think his example in this respect could be a good model. While he was suspicious of organized religion, he peppered his political commentary with biblical references and had a portrait of Jesus of Nazareth hanging in his cell during his imprisonment for opposing World War I.

There’s a famous quote, that I understand to be somewhat apocryphal, frequently attributed to the anarchist Emma Goldman, which goes, “If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution.” In a similar vein, I would argue: if I can’t pray, it’s not my revolution. This is not only because I feel a genuine pull to spirituality, which I think anyone should be free to pursue, but also because I think government crackdowns on religion of the kind seen in the Soviet Union are indicative of a wider authoritarianism which will ultimately move beyond spiritual communities and impact the whole of society.

While I’m not an academic, reconciling religious tradition and historical materialism doesn’t actually seem too difficult theoretically. What would be required is for the spiritual perspective to concede specific forms of religious expression are influenced by a society’s base. Meanwhile, the historical materialist view would have to acknowledge that at least some people have an innate drive toward spiritual life. Admittedly, this would be quite hard in practice for many, perhaps most, representatives of both schools of thought. However, it seems achievable for more open-minded thinkers.

For instance, these days, I think of myself as a Christian perennialist, by which I mean I feel most at home in the Christian tradition, but interpret it through the lens of perennialism. If readers are unfamiliar with the term, perennialism is the belief all religious traditions are describing a single, universal truth; differences between faiths can be ascribed to different cultural filters through which seekers perceive that truth. Mapping historical materialism over this outlook appears fairly easy. I would argue these cultural filters, which might be called the superstructure, are largely determined by the base.