. COMMUNICATION 59 powerful. It cannot be, since the dialectical process is also operating. But to wait for the dialectical leap of history, doing nothing, believing in its historic inevitability, would be an un-Marxian position. A Revised Version ? Whereas Mathew Kurian grants Marx's characterization only a borad validity, I believe that it is, simply put, Valid for all class societies, and that only with the disappearance of class societies will religion ultimately lose ground, having no purpose to serve and no function to perform. But this is necessarily a slower process since religion being a part of the superstructure will tend to persist for sometime even after a change in the base. Hence the utter necessity of cultural revolutions in a socialist society. Therefore when Kurian gives only a broad validity to this important characterization of Marx, he is not honest to its philosophical implications. Having seen that Marx's characterization is valid for all class societies, the question arises: Can Christians "by their own practice as authentic participants in the revolution in the days to come" rewrite this characterization? According to Kurian, Christians by virtue of being revolutionaries can make religion a non-opiate. This is wrong,, became the reason why Marx characterizes religion as opium of the people does not depend on Christians becoming revolutionaries or not. Religion is opium because it helps to dull the pain of an alienated existence. This is what al] religions do. Therefore^, when Chr&tians become revolutionaries the real raison d'etre of religion is called into question. Thus there is no rewriting of Marx; only an erasing of Christianity. I do not deny that Christians, Hindus or Muslims can be "authentic participants" in th^ revolutionary process. The point I want to make is that this participatioci will not change (rewrite) the basic postulate that religion is the opium of the people. Such participation only proves the profound Marxian philosophical insight that material conditions would continually assert themselves through the blinding veil of Idea. In other words, objective social reality is more powerful than the opiate of religion. Thus Kurian's invitation to Christians to rewrite Marx and to clear themselves of opprobrium is based on a revision of Marxist philosophy. Hierarchy and Hypocrisy To support his line of reasoning Kurian argues that there is a crisis in the Christian religion which has resulted in attemp-ts of "essentially reformist stuff" to make "Christianity more acceptable to man in the modern scientific age". He adds, "one of the profound positive effects of the whole project is that the hierarchies of the Church and the clergy are forced to enter into a dialogue with the world and with Marxists in particular."9 No doubt individual clergymen have entered into dialogues and even taken part in joint actions with Marxists. One can immediately call to mind men like Camillo Torres in Latin America. But