The founding of Marxist study of religion and its theoretical sources of humanities

Abstract

Marx and Engels have elaborated the new system of their thought in German Ideology, including some important ideas on religion, from 1845 to 1846. Engels firstly applied the newly founded worldview and methodology to the systematic study of religion in his monograph Peasant War in Germany in 1850. Both events marked the founding of the Marxist Study of Religion. The Marxist humanity theory of religion benefitted from the religious critiques of Neo-Hegelian, Feuerbachian and religious philosophy. The social theoretical sources of Marxism on religion are supposed to be the topics of other articles.

Contribution: The general view in Chinese academia has been that the study of religion in the West was founded by Friedrich Max Müller in 1873 when he coined a new terminology ‘Science of Religion’ for his book. Comparatively speaking, the classic Marxist writers had only ‘a view of religion’ and not a view of ‘the study of religion’. The authors argued that there is a systematic study of religion from the very beginning of Marxism. Marx and Engels constructed the humanity theory of the Marxist Study of Religion by adopting and developing religious critique of Neo-Hegelian, Feuerbachian, critical theological thought. The academics in Western countries do not have such kind of views and this resulted in limited contributions in this area.