Stoicism in Early Christianity

Is the name of a book I recently bought edited by Tuomas Rasimus, Troels Engberg-Pedersen and Ismo Dunderberg, it's a collection of articles written by even more authors but Engberg-Pedersen wrote the introduction.  Engberg-Pedersen has also written books on this subject that on Amazon are way too expensive right now.

I have already on this blog talked about potential affinity between Biblical Theology and Stoicism in God and The Universe and Spiritual and Heavenly what do they actually mean and opposed the common Platonist Interpretation of Biblical Theology in those as well as Pagan Greek Origins of Puritan Sexual Morality, the post on Divine Impassability and Divine Immutability, and also mentioned it in the post on The Sects of First Century Judaism.

These authors however argue for a Stoic Context to the New Testament and other Early Christian texts because they believe in the 1st century AD and even still early 2nd century Stoicism was the mainstream default Philosophical viewpoint and that Platonism took over during the 2nd Century. Which is true, the picture painted in Acts 17 for the Sermon on Mars Hill does imply only the Stoics and Epicureans were really relevant at that time and the Epicureans were the Atheists/Deists so their Philosophy wouldn't have been useful to Christians.  And so the Stoic texts they engage with are mostly the Roman Late Stoicism of Cato The Younger, Cicero, Thrasyllus of Mendes, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.  But earlier a key transitional figure in Stoicism abandoning it's more radical roots was Antipater of Tarsus.

I however believe Christianity was a fundamentally Rebellious religion at it's inception, Pacifist but Rebellious.  Within their Jewish Context the Early Christians were Pharisees but ones who rejected many of the traditions the Pharisees had developed during the Intertestamental period.  And likewise the Stoicism I see in the New Testament is a return to the Old Stoa of Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus.

One of the articles in this book talks about how during the period of Middle Platonism and Later Stoicism the two schools borrowed a lot from each other.  That Platonism that seeped into later Stoicism was the source of it's problems just as it would become the source of Christianity's problems.

The worst thing these Roman Stoics had taken from Platonism was the rigidly Pythagorean Sexual Morality of The Laws, particularly the argument that males lying with males is wrong because it's "Para Phusis".  The Laws was Plato's last work, so late some have argued he didn't actually write it, it is Platonism at the height of it's Pythagoreanism.  Symposium was one of Plato's oldest dialogues, possibly before any of the Pythagorean influence, and the Eros teaching of Diotima is the one thing in the Platonic canon that could have been compatible with Zeno's Eros or New Testament Agape at least in some ways.  But these Roman Stoics ignored that and followed The Laws instead, Musonius Rufus in Rome in the 50s AD used the Para Phusis argument verbatim and Epictetus repeated it.

But famously that argument that Homosexuality is wrong because it is "against nature" or "unnatural" technically appears in the writings of Paul, in Romans 1:26-27.  The context so many fail to get is that Romans 1:18-32 is not Paul's own opinion, it's him laying out the opinions that the rest of the Epistle is systematically refuting.  Romans is like a Breadtube response video, 1:18-32 is them simply playing clips from the PragerU video(s) they disagree with, then it proceeds with the take down.  In chapter 2 verses 1, 3 and 17 are Paul explicitly saying that part was someone else's argument.

The argument that this part of Romans 1 is Paul quoting or paraphrasing someone else isn't even limited to those trying to argue The Bible doesn't condemn Homosexuality, it's made by people who probably still think it's a Sin because of other mistranslated/misinterpreted verses.  It is well known that Romans 1:18-32 is largely based on Wisdom of Solomon 13:1-10 and 14:22-31.  [Update: and here is an article on how the influence of Philo was possibly also relevant.]

One article in this book also says that Wisdom of Solomon is an ultimately Platonist text even though it borrows a bit from Stoicism.  So someone who sees Paul as somewhat of a Stoic should easily agree that if Paul is quoting Wisdom it's a quotation made in disagreement.

Romans goes on even to refute stuff from Wisdom of Solomon not included in that specific paraphrase, like in Romans 5 when Paul says Death and Sin entered the world because of Adam's Sin, he's directly disagreeing with Wisdom of Solomon 2:24 which says Death entered the world because of the Envy of The Devil.  But the main argument of Wisdom and Romans 1:18-32 is that God gave up on the heathens and surrendered them to their sins.  In Romans 11:30-32 Paul says that God consigned ALL to disobedience so that he might have mercy on ALL, God doesn't give up on anyone, in Romans 5 he says ALL will be made righteous in Christ.

However the Para Phusis argument is the one thing in Romans 1:18-32 not taken from Wisdom.  To people in Rome in the 50s AD this might have seemed like a direct reference to the teaching of Musonius Rufus in Lecture XII.  But as I said it came from Plato's Laws (though was probably a Pythagorean teaching before that) and so that is why it fits in with the Platonism of Wisdom of Solomon.  And in a first century Jewish Platonist context the basic concept is found in Philo even if not the exact phrase.

Paul in all his writings uses the phrase "Para Phusis" only twice, this section of Romans 1, and then again in Romans 11:24 where he uses it to describe what God does grafting Gentiles into Israel. Now Paul saying God did something that is "contrary to nature" sounds like something those who argue for a Stoic reading of Paul need to explain, since in Stoicism God and Nature are in a sense the same thing.  Well the explanation is that the context is Paul using this wording to refute the anti-Homosexual argument he quoted in chapter 1.  If males lying with males is "Para Phusis" because it can't result in biological reproduction, then God making people who don't biologically descend from Jacob into Israelites is even more "Para Phusis" since it's reproduction without sex.  

Diotima argued that all Love is Generative whether it results in an actual new baby person or not because you are generating the mind of both yourself and your lover when you love, and to me that fits in well with Zeno's understanding of Eros as well New Testament Agape.  1 John 4:7 says that all who Love are Born(Gennao) of God.  Isaiah 53 speaks of the Suffering Servant having Seed, but to Christians that Prophecy is of Jesus and He didn't biologically reproduce, His Seed was His Disciples who He called the Children of the Bridechamber (Matthew 9:15, Mark 2:19 and Luke 5:34).  In Galatians 3 Paul says that all who are Christ's are the Seed of Abraham.  Revelation 12:17 says the rest of the Remnant of the Seed of the Woman are those who keep the Commandments of God and Testimony of Jesus Christ, John's Gospel and 1st Epistle repeatedly teach that the commandments of Jesus are to Love one another.  This Spiritual generation is what Romans 11 is all about, that is how the Fulness of the Gentiles will be Grafted into Israel and then ALL Israel shall be Saved.

Romans 1 isn't the only time Paul has been painted as more "Conservative" then he really was because he quoted someone to refute them.  1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is also taken at face value by Engberg-Pedersen in his Paul on Identity book, but I've studied the chapter and it's clear to me those verses are Paul quoting someone else that he then immediately calls an idiot in the following verses.  

1 Corinthians 7 is Paul responding to being asked a question, and he more then once pretty much says that this is his personal thoughts and not God speaking, I think Paul was personally Asexual and so knew this wasn't his areas of expertise, but with all those qualifiers I still think what Paul says here is not as prudish as it's made out to be, most importantly he clearly contradicts the notion that marriage and sex are for biological reproduction.

Some other books on Stoicism I own are The Making of Fornication by Kathy L. Gaca, The Stoic Idea of The City by Malcolm Schofield and Cities of The Gods: Communist Utopias in Greek Thought by Doyne Dawson.  These books tend to fall into the outdated trap of thinking Paul was a Platonist, but they are useful in how they are in part attempts to reconstruct Zeno of Citium's Republic, and in doing so argue that the original Stoics were both the Communists and Free Love Hippies of the Hellenistic world.  And that is useful for the Christian Stoicism argument because I agree with Roman A Montero's All Things in Common that Jesus was a Communist and that the Church continued to be even for awhile after Constantine, but I do disagree with his conclusion on the Essenes who I feel were the Pythagoreans of 1st century Judaism, the most Stoic Jews were the Zealots.

One subject covered in those books is how Zeno essentially tried to redefine Eros, Eros in the classical Pagan Greek understanding was uncontrollable Passion, Zeno wanted to make it something more genuinely positive.  I talked in a prior post about how Agape was rarely used at all by Polytheistic Greeks, well my new theory is that among some Stoics, perhaps specifically Hellenized Jews in Galilee and/or Tarsus, Agape become their word for Zeno's Eros, and this is the Agape meant in the New Testament and the Septuagint version of Song of Songs, especially 1 John where God is Love.  Eros is also the name of the City in Zeno's Republic, in Romans 9:25 Paul uses a specific form of Agape as a title for God's people, which like some other forms is translated Beloved in the KJV, the only other time that exact form of Agape is used is of the Beloved City in Revelation 20:9 but I think one justify translating the word order different to instead read The City of Love.  Diogenes Laertius in Book VII of Lives of Eminent Philosophers in the chapter on Zeno does use a form of Agape.

In Revelation 21 it is stated that there is no Temple in New Jerusalem.  On my Prophecy Blog I've explained that entirely in the context of Old Testament Prophecy.  But perhaps in addition to that it was also meant to remind some of the Greek readers of how in Zeno's Republic the ideal City of Eros should have no Temples.  One of these books (I currently forget which one) argued this and other things the City is not supposed to have is a response to Plato's Laws where a major Temple is at the center of Magnesia, but it's also been argued that Temples are abolished in Zeno's city because his God doesn't need Temples but rather is Imminent and Omnipresent, which sounds a lot like Stephen in Acts 7:48. 

1 John 5:6-8 gives Biblical support to the Stoic World Soul

My somewhat Stoic readings of The New Testament are also consistent with Hebrew Bible ideas, when it says that for God the Heavens are His Throne and the Earth His Footstool (Isaiah 66:1 quoted in Acts 7:49), that to me shows He's not Outside the Universe as we have come to traditionally think of Him but within it as He is in Stoicism.  That God made Adam a Living Soul by breathing His Breath of Life into him, and how Ezekiel 37 describes the coming Resurrection the same way fits the Stoic view of Pneuma pretty well I think.  Even the association of God and His Pneuma with Fire has roots in the Hebrew Bible stuff I talked about in my Baptism of Fire post.  Ecclesiastes 12:7's description of the Spirit returning to God who gave it also anticipates The Stoic ideas about Pneuma, the same idea is also in Psalm 104:29.  Isaiah 46:9-11 also agrees with Stoics over Middle Platonists on divine foreknowledge.  And when you fully understand the nuances of the Hebrew and Greek words translated "living" then God being called The Living God does support the Stoic view of God being corporeal.

Before I got into this research of Stoicism I was very hostile to using any kind of Greek Philosophy in studying the New Testament because I don't like trying to explain anything in it in a Greek context rather then Hebrew.  And some of this Stoicism in Early Christianity stuff can seem like it too is going there.  But the key difference is Zeno was a Phoenician, and so was Chrysippus, so some of their ideas may have been Semitic in origin and that's why Stoicism is more compatible with the Hebrew mindset then any other school of Greek Philosophy, and so their ideas made a good context in which the Early Christians could explain their ideas to the Greeks.

At first one is inclined to assume those the Greeks called Phoenicians were simply the Biblical Canaanites particularly of Tyre and Sidon.  However I think the Greeks used that term of maybe even all the ancient Israelites, but particularly the Tribes of Dan and Asher had strong ties to the same coastal regions that the Greeks and Romans called Phoenicia.  But even the Canaanites while Polytheistic still spoke a similar language and I think had basically similar ideas to the Hebrew Bible on Metaphysics simply using Polytheistic rather then Monotheistic framing.  Some have already argued Zeno's ideas about Eros could be related to the cosmology presented in Philo of Byblos, Byblos is part of what I believe became Danite, but also in that same Danite region was Apheca with it's cult of Aphrodite and Adonis.  The Danites became Pagan Polytheists, but even if there was a minority who tried to stay faithful to YHWHism they wouldn't have had a text of The Hebrew Bible as we know it, that Canon was developed in the Southern Kingdom, up North even The Torah was only Oral Tradition.

Zeno of Citium was contemporary with when the Septuagint is traditionally said to have been written.  I think the actual history of the Septuagint is more complicated, it developed over time and it's final form we have comes in part through Christian copyists.  But the process may have still began then, and thus some of the key words Stoic Philosophers used could have come from Zeno independently making similar translations of Semitic words/concepts into Greek, while perhaps translating some others differently.

That includes Theos/Dios/Zeus being El/Eloah/Elohim. And from something like Psalm 33:6 he could have gotten both The Logos being the Dabar/Deber (1697 and 1698 in the Strongs Concordance) and Pneuma being Ruwach, but Nshamah is sometimes used interchangeably with Ruwach. Also Psyche for Nephesh, Sophia for Chokmah and Phronesis for Binya.  And then Zeno's Eros could have been a translation of Ahav/Ahavah.

The main thing the Stoics lacked was the Resurrection, but their Cyclical view of the Universe is what I'd expect from getting most of the basic metaphysics right while still lacking The Resurrection.

Further evidence that even the Hebrew Bible can be read Stoically are the existence of Modern Jewish Philosophers who's Theology and Metaphysics sound fairly Stoic, from Baruch Spinoza to Moses Hess to Aaron David Gordon.

The Three Types of The Hebrew Roots Movement

The Hebrew Roots Movement can be divided into three different types.  However it is a very diverse movement where on each of these levels there can be a variety of disagreements on interpretations of various Scriptures and Bible Prophecy and related issues like the Sacred Name Movement and which version of The Hebrew calendar to use.

Type 1 would be people like the late Chuck Missler who believe Christians should study the Torah and Hebrew customs to help understand The New Testament's cultural context and symbolism.  But they still believe in the basic Christian Doctrine that we are not under The Law anymore, they believe it can be good to do things like observe The Holy Days of Leviticus 23, but they should never be made obligatory.

Now maybe someone reading this has had some very limited and specific experience with American Evangelicalism that makes them think there are none who aren't at least Type 1.  However there are Independent Baptists like the Pastor I do not like to name who engage in what I call Reverse-Legalism considering it sinful to do any "Jewish Customs", and to some extent that problem goes all the way back to Ignatius of Antioch..  And related to that is the belief of hyper KJV Onlyists that you should never even check the original Hebrew Text or even the Greek for that matter.

But even among people who aren't Reverse-Legalists there is still a common lack of interest in studying The "Old Testament" beyond what we absolutely need to know, or will quote a Torah Law only when it suits their Conservative Politics.  Being even a Type 1 Hebrew Roots person requires more then just a willingness to check the Hebrew when you're unsure what a Verse is saying, or the basic understanding of how Passover works required to even have an opinion on Easter chronology.  

Type 1 is what I consider myself, though to what extent I externally act like it may depend on my mood.

Type 2 are those who reject the basic Christian Doctrine that we are no longer under The Law, but while still keeping Paul just reinterpreting him.  

Type 2 has become the most common form even though back in the 2000s people like Chuck Missler were more common.  Type 2 has became what you're assumed to be if you engage in Hebrew stuff at all.  Though a lot of Type 2s don't like to be called Hebrew Roots because they don't want to be associated with Type 3 and will prefer to be called Torah Observant.

Type 3 are those who reject Paul as a False Apostle.  Though not all Anti-Paulians are even doing Hebrew Roots stuff, some Anti-Semites think even Paul was too Jewish (like Alfred Rosenberg), some Anti-Paul people blame his problems on the Pharisees rather then the Greeks, kind of shows the duality of Paul when you think about it.

As I said there are disagreements even within each type, and among Paul rejecters the disagreements include whether or not to add Hebrews and Luke-Acts to what texts they condemn as Heretical.

The Reverse Legalists probably feel the existence of Type 2 and especially Type 3 vindicates their condemning even Type 1s like me, they will insist it's a gateway drug that inevitably leads to the more full blown heresies.  However I have been a Type 1 Hebrew Roots Believer since long before any of this was as popular as it's become, and the ways I've changed have gone in the opposite direction, I've become even more of an Anarchist, even more Antinomian.

Semitic vs Greek Primacy for the New Testament

I've talked about my thoughts on New Testament Linguistic Primacy disputes before, but I've perhaps slightly changed my mind on some things since then, I'm going to give a sort of Tier list style break down here.

New Testament books that based on their stated original audience and/or who wrote them I am 100% certain were originally written down in Greek.

Luke-Acts, all 13 Epistles that Explicitly Self identify as being written by Paul, 1 Peter and Revelation.

Books that I think were more likely then not written in Greek but are at least open to dispute.

The Fourth Gospel and the 3 Epistles definitely by the same author as the Fourth Gospel, 2 Peter and Jude.

Books that I feel are 50/50 on if they were Greek or something else.

Mark and James.

Books that based on what the oldest Church Sources say on the subject I am 100% certain were originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic.

Matthew and Hebrews.

For Greek texts I still favor Textus Receptus Primacy and for Semitic Texts I favor Peshita Primacy not random Medieval Hebrew manuscripts of dubious origin.  And the Latin Mark theory I've already talked in depth about.

Capitalism is Atheistic in Nature.

Economic Liberalism is what I mainly mean by Capitalism for the purpose of this post, the current Justifying Ideology of Capitalism.  But that being the title of the post is problematic because too many Americans don't know what Liberalism means.

Adam Smith is often called the "Philosopher of Capitalism" as if he is to Capitalism what Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels are to Communism. Adam Smith was also an Atheist, there is some dispute about this technically, some try to argue he was more a Deist (which was basically Atheism with plausible deniability) but from my research he was definitely an Atheist.

Before Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations he wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments which was basically an attempt to explain the development of morality naturalistically.  His Economic Philosophy was built on this secular moral philosophy.  David Hume was an English Economic Philosopher who came just a little before Smith and overlapped with him, in some ways his ideas are more inline with the beliefs of modern Apologists of Capitalism them Smith's and he was even more of an Atheist.

A French laissez-faire Economist contemporary with Hume and Smith was Paul d'Holbach who was also an Atheist, as was Denis Diderot and Jacques-Andre Naigeon, meanwhile Voltaire and Montesquieu were Deists and also didn't speak much on Economics directly.  The Physiocrats were also definitely Secularists though exactly what they believed about Religion I can't pin down.  And don't think you can pretend Voltaire could have bene a socialist, he was a Bourgeoise intellectual who "never intended to enlighten shoemakers and servants".  The only Socialist among the major French Philosophs was Rousseau who was also the most Christian of them.

The most actually religious Economist of the late 18th early 19th Century was Thomas Malthus, but while some of Malthus's most well known ideas were influential on future Capitalist Economists he himself was not one, he was critiquing the rise of Capitalism from a more old fashioned late Feudalist perspective.

Later in the 20th Century a woman named Ayn Rand would develop a philosophy that is essentially Capitalism in it's purest most unrestrained and unapologetic form.  She was also a rabid Atheist who was frequently enraged at seeing American Christians try to co-opt her ideas to serve their Christianized Capitalism.  Rand was also a stated influence on the philosophy of Anton Levy the founder of the Church of Satan, which is exactly the Satanism people mean when they say Satanists are actually Atheists and Satan is just a symbol to them, their Satan is a symbol of Capitalist Individualism.

Between Smith and Rand it continued to be Atheists making vital contributions to Individualist philosophy, from the Atheist Existentialist Philosophers cited in Josh McNamee's Man of Steel video, to Charles Bradlaugh to Nietzsche and Social Darwinists like Herbert Spencer, to H.L. Mencken, Charles Lee Smith, James Hervey Johnson and Irving Fisher.  John Stuart Mill was also an Atheist though this wasn't publicly known while he was alive, between Mill and Smith were Jeremy Bentham, Francis Place and James Mill.  And to more specifically look at mid 20th century Economists, whether you're looking at the Austrian School, the Keynesian School or the Chicago School, secularists like Milton Friedman, Keynes, Murry Rothbard and Hayek are always at the center.  

Capitalism as a Mode of Production was very much forming already before we reach Hume, d'Holbach and Smith, but that happened because of economic developments that were not exactly pre-planned or premediated.  The Philosophers of Liberalism who came before them were not thinking much about economics but mostly focusing on what they and the Socialists had in common, opposing Absolute Monarchy.  The 1640-1660 English Revolution was Socio-Economically speaking an internal dispute within Feudalism as it had been operating in England for Centuries, the only group involved in all of that who were calling for a total reworking of how society is Economically structured were the Diggers lead by Gerrard Winstanley who were Anarcho-Communists, and they were basing their ideas on The Bible.

John Locke is the one commonly cited exception to all that, he is frequently given the credit for truly innovating the modern Capitalist notion of Private Property.  But James Tully in A Discourse on Property: John Locke and his Adversaries showed that what Locke actually said is more compatible with Socialism.  David Hume was actually quite critical of Locke, the problem is Locke's Labor Theory of Value would be co-opted by d'Hollbach, Smith and their followers.  The Labor Theory of value is often associated with Capitalism because of it's association with Locke and Smith, but the truth is only Socialists and Communists believe in it unconditionally, Capitalists keep needing to qualify it.

Nicolas Barbon was another Christian Whig who contributed to economics, but he was mainly advocating for Paper Money which in the short term Communists are more supportive of then Austrian School Liberals.  John Law continued his work in that regard.  Their ideas were first put into practice in a Proto-Capitalist context but still not necessarily inherently Capitalist.

Some people both for and against it like to tie the origins of Capitalism to the "Protestant Work Ethic", and yeah to a certain extent early Primitive or Proto Capitalism emerged in Protectant parts of Europe earlier then it did in Catholic countries.  You could even parallel different forms or elements of Capitalism to different forms of Protestantism, Lutheranism was it still mixed with late Feudalism, Arminianism the hyper Individualism, Calvinism would be Fascist-Capitalism, and then Britannia is where they all mixed together before being transported to her Colonies.   

But it's important to remember that during the first 2 or 3 centuries the Reformers really wanted to be seen as more rationalist then the Catholics and rejecting of their superstitions, that's why Cessationism was invented by the Reformers and why for a long time they didn't do Exorcisms.  

And that in turn is why a lot of things Atheists believe in are partly protestant in origin but simply taking the next step.  A lot of the bad history New Atheists perpetuate began as protestant myths to demonize the Catholic Church, the Hypatia and Library of Alexandria stuff came form Edward Gibbon (as does many bad ideas about how and why Rome fell) and the comparative mythology stuff started with Alexander Hislop, and the Christmas is actually Pagan stuff started with the Puritans.  As I've said on this blog before, Existentialism is basically Atheistic Arminianism, and others have called Objectivism Prosperity Gospel for Atheists.

All that said I also have a lot of skepticism of the "Protestant Work Ethic" thesis.

A lot of Internet discourse over the last decade or so has been tied to how the Skeptic Community on YouTube and other New Atheists revealed their true reactionary colors (Christopher Hitchens' Legacy is lucky he passed away just before all this started, because if you look into him you'll see he'd absolutely have been with them), and that came with them being bold evangelists of Capitalism, seeing Capitalism along with Democracy as a great Enlightenment accomplishment of Secularism overthrowing the "Dark Ages" of Feudalism which they incorrectly blame on religion.

Atheists on the True Left still exist, but people making Atheism the first thing they care about, the core of their identity, are even when trying to distance themselves from the Reactionary New Atheists usually Social Democrats at best.  

New Atheism isn't actually new, Antitheists co-opting Gibbon's bad history began with Voltaire.  And then during The French Revolutions the immediate successors of d'Holbach were the Hebertists who showed a lot of Proto-Fascistic tendencies with their forced Dechristianization campaign and helping send many of the Communists (called the Enragés at the time) or even just Liberals who wanted to Redistribute Property like the Girondins to the Guillotine.  

Even the Antifeminism that started the 2011 downward spiral was already there in how they Martyred early Feminists like Olympe de Gouges, she was beheaded 7 days before the Festival of Reason and she was later specifically as example to silence other women by supporters of the Dechristianization campaign.

Then in the 19th Century Bruno Bauer began popularizing the absurd thesis that Jesus did not exist which went hand in hand with his well known opposition to Karl Marx.  You see Marx and Engels were Atheists but like sane Atheists they believed Jesus existed and that the Early Christians were ancient Proto-Communists and thus part of his thesis of all history being Class Struggle.  So to Bauer refuting the very existence of Jesus was an attack on the Marxist understanding of History as much as it was mainstream Christianity.

And speaking of the Marxist understanding of history, every time a New Atheist talks about Wars being caused by Religion, that is fundamentally incompatible with a Marxist analysis of history which always looks for the economic causes and sees them as the primary cause.  And in turn Evangelical/Conservative Christians seeking to "debunk" the notion of Religious Wars by emphasizing the Economic Causes are unwittingly engaging in Marxist analysis.

Max Stirner was another Atheist Individualist Philosopher who connected Christianity and Communism in his opposition to both.  

Another problem with letting yourself get lost in the nominal Anti-Religionism of Marx and Engels is that Marx actually had a lot of good things to say about Capitalism, he considered it an improvement over Feudalism and a good contributor to Human advancement that was simply now beginning to outlive it's usefulness.  Contemporary Christian Socialists like Philpe Buchez, Edward Vansittart Neale and Frederick Denison Maurice were actually more Anti-Capitalist then Marx was though sometimes they did have their own problems, I have come to believe there's a lot Christian Communists can and should learn from Marx and later Marxists, but I still disagree with Marxism on some key issues.

Marx and Engels "Opiate of the masses" quote is misunderstood, at that time no one thought of Opium mainly as a harmful addictive drug but rather it was still most well known for it's medicinal use.  Neither meaning of "Opiate of the masses" fits how New Atheists view Religion however, they see it as Crack.

Honestly I'm growing skeptical of Marx and Engels even being as Atheist as they seemed.  It is after Liebknecht family tradition says they were Karl Liebknecht's God Parents at his Baptism at the St. Thomas Lutheran Church.

Christian Capitalists exist because since we became the Mainstream Religion of The West we've made it possible to force anything to be compatible.  But when it comes to Socio-Economic Systems it's always been clear Capitalism is the most difficult to make fit given everything The New Testament says, the truest Reactionary Christians inevitably give away that they really want to go back to Feudalism where the ruling class had some incentive to at least pretend they cared about those beneath them, Noblesse oblige.

There are degrees to how much various kinds of Christians in the modern era have embraced Capitalism.  Megachurches and the Prosperity Gospel are Capitalist Christianity at it's worst, to me they are the modern Laodicea.  But I find it interesting how many Christians on YouTube seeking to preach agaisnt them are unwilling to straight up say or admit that Capitalism is the root of the Problem, like a Secular Centrist they don't want to admit that you can't separate that extravagant Greed from our Socio-Economic Mode of Production, everything about how the world works encourages it, they are people eager to condemn the most egregious symptoms but unwilling to address the Root cause of the Disease.

Then maybe you'll have some willing to go a bit further then that.  They might say "Christians shouldn't be Capitalists but the world is certainly less evil under Capitalism then it is when it's COMMUNIST".  Or maybe they'll say "yes Capitalism is bad but that doesn't mean we should support SOCIALISM".  The problem is opposing Capitalism without supporting Socialism leads to Fascism, Nazism or Neo-Feudalism.  You need to also promote the good alternative.

And there is also the way that these people preaching agaisnt Laodiceanism will focus on it's Aesthetics just as much if not more then the Substance of what's wrong with them and wind up tying their Social Conservativism into it, including the Sexual Morality that comes from Plato not The Bible.

The branding of Communism as Godless and Capitalism as Godly was the result of Cold War Propaganda. Communism was inherently Christian for 100% of it's history until The French Revolution when some Communists started borrowing from the Atheism of the Liberals they were fighting alongside against the Monarchy and Feudalism.  Capitalism is what wouldn't exist without the Secularism of the Enlightenment, and now thanks to the Climate Crisis the entire world is paying the price for the Godlessness we embraced.

The YouTube Channel Praxis & Theodicy has a series on the Sin of Usury and how Capitalism as a system is dependent on Usury.

Update August 2023: I rewatched a bunch of the Anime Tanya The Evil recently and that show is kind of aware of what I'm arguing here, the main character absolutely connects their Atheism to their "Free Market Principals".

You should also check out the sister post to this The Reformation and The Resurgence of Democracy.

https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-reformation-and-resurgence-of.html