Based on a careful reading of Lenin's Collected Works, Roland Boer pursues the implications for linking Lenin with religion and theology and seeks to bring Lenin into recent debates over the intersections between theology and the Left, between the Bible and political thought.

This study examines the phenomenon of Marxism-Leninism from a perspective of the history of religions, in order to cull the lessons that students of both religion and society might draw from the collapse of that once seemingly impregnable ideology. After considering the reasons advanced by a variety of scholars for calling Marxism-Leninism a religion, as well as at Marxism-Leninism's own claim to be a science, the author suggests that a more fruitful way of looking at is would be as a form of civil religion.

Based on a careful reading of Lenin's Collected Works, Roland Boer pursues the implications for linking Lenin with religion and theology and seeks to bring Lenin into recent debates over the intersections between theology and the Left, between the Bible and political thought.

In Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition, Roland Boer presents key moments in the 2,000 year tradition of Christian communism, moving from its roots in New Testament texts to unique developments in North Korea.

In view of the enormous number of works on Marxism in general and in light of the many books and articles touching on the relationship of Marxism to religion in particular, it may fairly be asked why yet another such work should be produced. My reply is that in eliciting answers to the kinds of questions posed by the methodology I have used, it was necessary to go to the primary sources almost exclusively. This is not to bemoan a sad fate but to affirm that there are notable deficiencies in the secondary sources relevant to my topic. By way of general indictment, I contend that the major difficulty with existing studies of the Marxist critique of religion is that their authors, whether expositors or critics, have failed both to specify their own presuppositions concerning religion and to approach the subject with an adequate comprehension of its many dimensions. Since, in most cases, the reader is equally unprepared, anthropologically, sociologically, psychologically, and historically, for clear and informed thought in this vast and nebulous area, the result has been widespread confusion. As if this were not enough, numerous writers with little more than polemical interests have compounded the confusion by failing to distinguish between religion in general and their own brands of faith in particular. Others have not discriminated between the concepts of metaphysics and the supernatural items of religious belief.