a Christian society we must make up our minds about the relation between Christianity and politics. Sir Richard Acland’s
in the Penguin series offers an occasion for clarifying our ideas on this subject. [...]
Ideal and Fact
[...] 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.
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
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