Space of Utopia: Convergence between Marxism and Christianity in Allende´s Chile

• In Event: Minor Utopias and the Left

Abstract

In Chile, from the late 1960s when liberation theology gained transnational appeal, scores of priests and nuns moved to rural and urban peripheries, urging socio-political transformation while breaking up with traditional evangelical paradigms. This liberationist wave reached its peak in 1971 with the formation of the clerical movement, Christians for Socialism (CpS), which supported Salvador Allende’s socialist project. CpS’s embrace of Marxism was polemical and caused rifts within the Church hierarchy and tensions among the clergy. The notion of transcendence and the construction of a “New Man” appealed to the utopian aspects of both religious and Marxist thinking. In most studies of the Chilean Church, the CpS is mentioned as a short, ineffective, far-left blip in a longer history of accommodation and moderation. This paper argues that Allende’s government had unprecedented consequences for the Catholic Church. It demonstrates how utopian thinking allowed CpS to navigate uncharted epistemological territory as they sought to undo the hold of dogmatic perspectives that influenced the Latin American left of the 1960s and 1970s. In so doing, CpS pointed the way forward for a dynamic and creative convergence between the single two most important forces of Latin American twentieth century social movements, Marxism and Christianity. The experience of CpS in Chile demonstrates that while Marxists and Christians were in dialogue, there was not a particular ideological mold to which they subscribed. On the contrary, radical Christians drew inspiration from a variety of sources, from the utopian left to Marxism, and from their own religious texts.

Author

• Denisa Jashari, Indiana University