Christian Marxist Commends God to ‘Apostate’ Conservative

American economist Glenn Loury recently confessed that he is now a “lapsed Christian” and is struggling with nihilism.

The confession took place on a recent podcast where Loury discussed the contents of a new book with Union Theological Seminary Professor Cornel West. West is a self-professed Marxist Christian. He pressed Loury, a conservative economist professor at Brown University and the first African American tenured professor of economics in the history of Harvard University, on his change of heart and sought to provide consolation. The conversation was amiable, honest, and fruitful, but ultimately inadequate.

There were a few reasons Loury gave for why he “fell away from the church.” He admitted that his wife is going through a similar deconstruction and that she is “a recovering Seventh Day Adventist who was scarred.” He also said that his “cover story” for his lapsed belief is “my rationality, you know I don’t believe in magic, a man raised from the dead come on” and that he has “a Ph.D. from MIT” so he cannot be asked to believe.

He confessed, however, that this was only the cover story and that the real reason was much more existential. He had a profound experience of the problem of suffering when his assistant died.

He says she was ”a wonderful woman, Sherry Dupont, and she was 42 years old, had just made law review having finished her first year of law school … I can still see her pulling her bookbag behind her as she walked around on the campus … She made law review and got a viral infection in her heart and died. Died just like that. Died within months. I mean we knew she was sick and then she was dead.”

This sent Loury into a feeling of intense nihilism. He confessed that “I thought at that moment: my God there is no account for this. There is no easy answer to this. This is the abyss, it goes all the way down, all the way down and we won’t look into it.” Loury is not simply having a problem with one aspect of Christianity, but with the entire idea of objective meaning itself.

Loury asserts that we ignore this existential dread because “we’re too busy in our emotionality and we want to spare ourselves the agony of the existential condition in which we, in fact, find ourselves, of which this woman’s demise is only one instance.” 

From this pit of despair, Loury was “driven from that church to looking for [his] Nietzche.” 

Loury is in the middle of an honest struggle; he is facing the difficulty of the human condition head-on. It is an essential part of human nature for us to face the tension between doubt and belief. This is not just a problem for the Christian, but equally for the honest Atheist. Even if one has no reason to doubt one’s convictions there can always lurk the nagging question of “What if?” As then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote in his Introduction to Christianity, “It is the basic pattern of man’s destiny only to be allowed to find the finality of his existence in this unceasing rivalry between doubt and belief, temptation and certainty. Perhaps in precisely this way doubt, which saves both sides from being shut up in their own worlds, could become the avenue of communication.”

Cornel West was in the difficult position of trying to console Loury in his moment of pain. He gave some meaningful responses, but it was ultimately inadequate. West aptly admitted that oftentimes the road is dark and that “we see partially.” We are required to continue on in faith even when it is difficult to see the end. He noted that these questions are not new to Christianity saying “You’ve read St. Francis of Assisi, you’ve read St. John On the Dark Night of the Soul.”

However, Cornel’s consolation falls short when he appears to deemphasize the reasonableness of our faith in favor of an abstract fideism. He says “It’s not about dogmatism or about religion, it’s about love” and that “the Christian faith is the living of the questions, not the providing of the answers.” He is right to assert that it is an essential part of the Christian life that we don’t know everything, but he is wrong in his lack of defense for the reasonableness of Christianity. Perhaps he does believe Christianity is reasonable, but he at least does not show it in this conversation.

Loury takes West’s advice to mean “we have to have these stories … They are the way that we survive. They are the way that we maintain hope. It’s why we keep trying, why we do not despair and simply throw up our hands, now I see what you are saying is very powerful.” 

It is true that the story of Christianity is the great ground for meaning and value, but it is only that because it has a basis in history. It cannot be just a story that we have faith in regardless of its historic validity. It is important to emphasize both faith and reason for Christianity when talking about why one should believe.

Historic Christianity does not simply claim to be a good story, there are many good stories, but unlike others, Christianity claims to exist in the facts of history. As C.S. Lewis put it, “incarnation transcends myth. The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact.”

Christianity contains the claim on history that Christ “was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day.” The version of Christianity that West puts forward is only abstract, not historic. But if Christianity is merely abstract it can never be the remedy to nihilism that Loury genuinely wishes it could be. Historic orthodox Christianity is the bridge between the world of abstraction that West is talking about and the realm of fact of which Loury is feeling the full force. The two realms meet in the person of Christ. As St. John put it “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

There are good arguments to be made for the historicity of the Christian story. I think when it is looked at honestly, without the bias of our self-hating, post-Christian culture Christianity is the most plausible creed, as surprising as that may be. Unfortunately, West’s consolation does not give Loury the necessary push in this direction.

The nihilism Loury is facing cannot be remedied by a mere story. As St. Paul puts it “If Christ be not raised your faith is in vain.” Loury is asking honest questions that are necessary for good faith, and they need to have serious answers. Much of what Cornel says is very good, but it does not go far enough. For greater assurance of the reasonableness of Christian faith even in these modern times, one should turn to C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, or Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. 

The full podcast can be accessed on YouTube here.