IF WE WANT
a Christian society we must make up our minds about the relation between Christianity and politics. Sir Richard Acland’s
Unser Kampf
in the Penguin series offers an occasion for clarifying our ideas on this subject. It provides such an opportunity, first, because it is a plea that the only means of saving the world from destruction is the adoption of a new morality in place of the prevailing one – an appeal to which no Christian mind can be indifferent; secondly, because it directly challenges the Churches regarding their attitude; and thirdly, because it has achieved a circulation of over 75,000 copies and appears to be attracting a good deal of popular attention.
In the writing of this paper I have had the help and advice of several of our collaborators.
We must begin by recognizing that there are certain attitudes of the book which are fundamentally Christian.
The Big View
First, the situation is viewed in a large way. What is happening in the world is no hole-and-corner affair. The foundations of society are being shaken and have to be rebuilt. Consequently it is laid down at the start as a basis of mutual understanding that we should agree to think in really big terms. There is no course of action – even though it be our one and only hope of salvation – against which some plausible objection cannot be brought. We can always find some small-scale argument to block the effect of a large-scale argument. Little minds can easily find convincing reasons for resisting change. The author wants, therefore, to be sure at the start that we are talking about the same situation; that we know beyond question that it is a big situation and can be dealt with only in a big way.
This large view is characteristic of a genuine religious faith. It is the attitude of those who in the bottom of their souls believe in God. Such men do not want to see the world in blinkers. They know that God is other than man. His ways cannot be measured by the human understanding.
This was the attitude of the Hebrew prophets to the events of history when they won their way to monotheism. They contended that it was Jahweh, the God of Israel, who called enemy nations to power. Isaiah makes Jahweh declare that the pagan Assyrian power was the rod of His anger and staff of His indignation. Do we hold to this first article of the Christian creed, or have we fallen back more than two thousand years and become polytheists? To put the matter concretely, if we believe in one God, who is the Lord of history, we must acknowledge the possibility that atheistic communism may be the instrument of His judgment on the failure of a professedly Christian civilization to achieve social justice.
Lift Up Your Hearts
Secondly, there is in the book a refreshing hopefulness. Its optimism, as we shall see, may be too easy. But those who believe in God must be ready to see in the conflicts and strifes of our time an unmasking of the evils which are destroying society – a judgment on what is false and a mercy which is calling us back to an understanding of the true values of life. If the Christian salvation means anything at all it ought to mean deliverance from fear. If a new world is to be born out of the ruins of the old it will be created by those who are able to take risks. There is a bond which unites those who, however much they may agree or disagree about a particular policy, are ready for a large venture of faith.
Who Is My Neighbor?
Thirdly, the book is significant, if for no other reason, because with obvious sincerity it poses the question what it means in modern society to love our neighbor. The future of Christianity turns on the practical answer which it gives to this question. In modern society we cannot, as in more primitive conditions, fulfill our whole obligation to our neighbor directly as man to man. He has a multitude of needs which can only be met by collective, political action.
We are not fulfilling our obligation to our neighbor so long as the present grossly unequal distribution of wealth, income, social power, and social opportunity continues; nor while unemployment destroys men’s self-respect and sense of being members of a community and brings about a steady deterioration both in health and in morale; nor while more than half of the youth of the country receive no further education or fostering care from the community after the age of fourteen.
It is only by our acts that we can convince the outside world, and ultimately the people of Germany, that we are fighting for a new and better order. We need a clearer idea of our social purpose than at present, and we must at the same time demonstrate the sincerity of our beliefs by definite moves in the direction in which we intend to go.
Ideal and Fact
If we pass now from agreement to criticism the latter must not be allowed to weaken the force of what has been said already.
The book abounds in judgments of facts relating to very complex situations. With many of these judgments some who share Sir Richard Acland’s fundamental attitude would disagree. However excellent our intentions, if we read the facts wrongly we shall find that reality in the end always takes its revenge. This does not mean that the people who like to call themselves realists are necessarily reading the facts rightly; they are just as likely to be wrong about the total facts as anyone else. It only means that to mistake the facts is to miss our aim.
There are no short cuts to wisdom. To fail to bring this truth home to the people is to deceive them. It is not kindness to suggest that there is an easy or quick solution to our problems.
The book betrays a somewhat naïve faith in the goodness of the common man. The same high hopes were cherished at the time of the French Revolution. It was believed by many ardent spirits that it was only necessary to get rid of kings and aristocrats and the natural goodness of the people would ensure a reign of justice, goodwill, and happiness. What has followed ought to have disillusioned us. But once again we have the suggestion that we have only to rid the world of tyrants and capitalists and all will be well. It is the perennial temptation to locate evil in some external foe or oppressor and to forget that its seat is in the heart of man.
The experience of Russia ought to enlighten us. Communism began as a revolt against social injustice. It raised in the most challenging form the question of radical social reconstruction, and thereby awakened high hopes throughout the world. It may yet prove to be a turning-point in human history. But subsequent developments show the folly of believing that any class as such has a superiority in virtue. No class or group is immune from the corrupting influence of power.
The excessive optimism about human nature is especially apparent in the chapter on the international order. If we have a chance in this country of creating for the benefit of mankind as a whole a more Christian order of society, we owe it to a long-established Christian tradition that has left a deep mark on our culture and habits, our laws and standards, and to a training extending over centuries in the art of self-government and the exercise of responsibility. It is purely fanciful to imagine that other peoples who have lacked this experience, training and discipline are likely either to accept our democratic ideas or, if they did, to be able at once to apply them in practice.
Communal Ownership
The morality of loving one’s neighbor leads, in Sir Richard Acland’s view, directly to the common ownership of property.
The present unequal distribution of material wealth, and consequently of social power, is a question which cannot be shirked by those who desire a more Christian order of society. The difficulty of the problem is no excuse for evading it. If we want to achieve social justice and harmony we must be prepared for radical changes.
But we shall not solve the problem by making it appear more simple than it really is. Sir Richard Acland, for example, interprets the present distribution of income as signifying that out of every two hundred people in our country
- 3 people take £8 6s. 8d. a day.
- 17 people take £1 9s. 3d. a day.
- 180 people take £0 5s. 6¾d. a day.
Leaving on one side the question of the validity of these estimates, the figures suggest that the question is primarily one of personal expenditure, and viewed from this angle none of us can be content with the low spending capacity of the third group, which comprises nine-tenths of the population. But the fundamental difference is not one of personal expenditure but of social power, of which ability to spend is, of course, in our society a principal instrument. If we are seeking social justice and harmony it must be our objective to lessen the disparities of social power. But there is no short and simple road to this end. It cannot be achieved by legislative fiat. Whatever may be the claims of Communism and Fascism the inequalities of social power in those systems are as great as elsewhere.
If we are to achieve a more just distribution of social power and to liberate social activities from the domination of financial interests without succumbing to the evils of a totalitarian system and the tyranny of officialdom, a religious passion for justice must be united with vigorous, disinterested, creative thought. The end we seek will not be achieved by any single stroke, but by a fruitful combination of principles and a rich variety of expedients. Are the creative energies of our people exhausted, or is there still a mission for this country to fulfill in history? Are there among us sufficient resources of charity, justice, and imagination to find in the revolution through which we must inevitably pass the opportunity of creating a more harmonious and worthier social life?
The Church and Politics
Finally, the question is raised by this book of the attitude of the Church to a political program of the kind which it advocates. No real answer can be given to this question until we have made certain distinctions in respect both of the Church and of what we mean by politics.
As regards the Church, we must keep clearly in mind the distinction between what is proper to the Church in its corporate capacity as a society organized for religious worship, preaching and teaching, and what ought to be expected from its members acting in their capacity as citizens or as sharers in the economic activities of the community, and exercising their individual judgment and responsibility in these spheres. Failure to make this vital distinction has been a source of endless confusion.
In the political field it is necessary to distinguish three issues which concern Christians in different ways.
The first is the question of a fundamental social and political philosophy. By this is meant a common tradition and outlook underlying the differences between political parties and binding the nation together. In Great Britain this tradition has been the unreflecting acceptance of certain common values and standards, derived largely from Christian teaching, together with a belief in liberty, a readiness to give and take, and a reluctance to push one’s own view too far – what Adolf Löwe has called a tendency to “spontaneous conformity.”
This underlying political philosophy, which has been the bond of unity in the nation, has been largely unconscious. Because it has been taken for granted we have failed to realize its basal importance. It has now become a serious question whether these traditional assumptions are strong enough to meet the challenge of the new rival philosophies of nationalism and communism, and still more to stand the new strains resulting from a fundamental change in the position of this country in relation to the rest of the world. The habits which have served us well in the past were formed under the protection of a security which no longer exists.
It is one of the gravest weaknesses in our national life that, in contrast with the totalitarian states, we lack a clear and definite social purpose. It may be a condition of our survival as a nation that we should discover such a purpose and, having found it, should make it the inspiration and driving force of our educational system. The whole of our education has suffered from the fact that through fear of bringing in party politics we have refrained from teaching ultimate beliefs.
With this aspect of politics – i.e., the formulation and propagation of a true social philosophy – both the Church as a teaching body and individual Christians have a direct concern.
Secondly, there is the wide field covered by parliamentary, executive, and administrative action. In the whole of this sphere moral issues are involved, but are also for the most part inextricably entangled with technical questions, demanding knowledge of a complex body of facts and a skilled estimate of the probable consequences of a particular course of action. Where judgment depends on expert knowledge, the Church as a corporate society is not competent to pronounce judgment. The demand that the Church as an ecclesiastical body should keep out of politics is a proper demand, in so far as it means that the clergy, or assemblies mainly guided by the clergy, are not as such competent to dictate policy in political and economic affairs.
But it remains true that the whole mass of legislative, executive, and administrative action is imbued from first to last, with moral significance. Every decision, even in the fields which seem most technical – often precisely in those fields – has its effect in determining whether society moves in a Christian or in a reverse direction. Hence if the Church, as a corporate society, must in the main keep out of party politics, it is vital that its members should discharge their responsibilities in the light of their Christian faith. In this sense a recall to religion is necessarily a recall to politics.
There is a third sense in the political sphere to which we may not close our eyes in times like these. There may be periods in history when not only individuals but the Church as an institution is confronted with the necessity of making a fundamental choice. Its power to serve men in the days to come may depend on its choosing rightly. A revolution always attacks the religion which is associated with the system which it supersedes. The experience of the Church in Russia is a sufficient illustration. To discover amid the confused struggles of today which forces are making for greater justice and a nobler future may be beyond the power of finite minds. But to be blind to the possibility of momentous choice and to the consequences that may follow from it would be a grave default. History has its moments of great decision. An understanding of the signs of the times should drive us to unceasing supplication that God may bestow on the Church the gifts of wise discernment and great courage.
*Originally published in The Christian News-Letter No 24, The Supplement, April 10, 1940
