Ruud Welten From Marx to Christianity, and Back 1 Michel Henry’s Philosophy of Reality ‘Marx is one of the most important Christian thinkers in the West.’ (Michel Henry) Recently, two volumes of miscellaneous articles and papers on politics and Christianity by French philosopher Michel Henry (1922-2002) came out. Today, Henry is chiefly known for 2 his phenomenology of Christianity, but during the 1965-1975 period he closely and exclusively focused on Marx. Such a career—from Marx to Christianity—might lead one to imagine that the Montpellier philosopher and writer underwent some radical conversion during the last ten years of his life. However, as I will demonstrate in this contribution nothing is further from the truth and, on the contrary, Marx inspired Henry’s philosophy of Christianity which reveals an intrinsic bond between Marxism and Christianity. When Michel Henry re-reads Karl Marx’ oeuvre in the 1970s, his approach is phenomenological. That is to say, he brackets off all Marx’ dogmatism in order to reveal a phenomenological foundation that is primordial all through Marx’ philosophy and that cannot be reduced to mere theory or political ideology. The last sentence before the conclusion of Henry’s text reads: ‘Marx is one of the most important Christian thinkers in the West.’ It is 3 therefore not a surprise, that Henry finds an identical primordial slant in Christian discourse at his alleged turn to theology in the 1990s. Superficially, reading Henry’s work might convey 4 the impression that this turn to theology was radical indeed: what bigger difference is there, than the one between Marx’ atheist philosophy on the one hand, and Christianity on the other? The philosophical implications of a study comparing Henry’s Marx with his later phenomenology of Christianity result in more than just a confidential academic representation of the German philosopher. Such a study might be a useful introduction before re-reading and re-appreciating Marx today. It might be used to parry all of the clichés about Marx’ so-called atheism and his totalitarian idealism, and the fact that he was casually dismissed after the collapse of Soviet communism in the early 1990s. And that is important because today, capitalism and liberalism claim victory over the political left (‘there’s no alternative!’) while there is no reason whatever to suppose that the basic motivation of Marx’ philosophy, the need for social reform, has been superseded. Henry, however, does not approach Marx As published in Bijdragen: International Journal for Philosophy and Theology. Volume 66, Issue 4, 2005 1 Michel Henry, Phénoménologie de la vie, volume III : De l’art et du politique. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France 2 2004), [PV III]; and volume IV : Sur l’éthique de la religion. Paris : PUF 2004, [PV IV]. Michel Henry, Marx II. Une philosophie de l’économie. Paris : Gallimard 1976, [M II], p. 445. 3 Michel Henry, C’est moi la vérité. Pour une philosophie du christianisme. Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1996, [MV]/ I Am the 4 Truth: Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, (Stanford University Press, 2003), [IT].