Andrew, I always get nostalgic for my college years in below-zero Bemidji when I hear knuckleheads try to reconcile Marxism and Christianity. I once had a colleague in the university public-relations department that insisted on their compatibility, based mainly on their sympathy for the poor. You could either start laughing at the theoretical problems — how a man who thought religion was the opiate of the people matched up with Jesus, how the Bible teaches the poor will always be with you even allowing for a dictatorship of the proletariat. Or the humbling realities on the ground — even in the mid-80s, you couldn’t make much of a case that communism was a great deal for the poor. Guess what? You still get hunger and slums, and the secret police as a bonus.