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SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY

NEW EDITION.

BY

The Rev. PERCY DEARMER, M.A.

VICAR OF ST. MARY-THE-VIRGIN, PRIMROSE HILL. SECRETARY OF THE LONDON BRANCH, CHRISTIAN SOCIAL UNION.

"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples."-THE MASTER.

"If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us."-ST. JOHN. "In whatsoever way a man can do good to his neighbor, and does not do it, he shall be deemed an alien from the love of God."-ST. IRENÆUS.

"If you wish to love your neighbor as yourself, divide your money with him." -ST. AUGUSTINE.

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THE FABIAN SOCIETY.

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LONDON:

THE FABIAN SOCIETY, 3 CLEMENT'S INN, STRAND, W.C.
PUBLISHED MAY 1907. REPRINTED NOVEMBER 1907.

SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

"I seriously believe that Christianity is the only foundation of Socialism, and that a true Socialism is the necessary result of a sound Christianity." FREDERICK Denison MauriCE, 1849.

IT is extraordinary how little many Christian people realize the meaning of their own religion, so that they are actually shocked very often at Socialism; and yet all the while Socialism is doing just the very work which they have been commanded by their Master to do. This fact is so obvious that no representative and responsible Christian body can be found to deny it.

Take as an example of this the most representative official English religious gathering possible-the Pan-Anglican Conference of Bishops which met at Lambeth just twenty years ago. These prelates, drawn from all parts of the world, belonging by birth to the propertied classes, by station to the House of Lords, and by tradition to the Tory Party, made a solemn pronouncement on the subject of Socialism. Here, if anywhere, we should find a denial that Socialism was Christian. But no! They turned and blessed it. Here are the words of their Encyclical :—

The Christian Church is bound, following the teaching of her Master, to aid every wise endeavor which has for its object the material and the moral welfare of the poor. Her Master taught her that all men are brethren, not because they share the same blood, but because they have a common heavenly Father. He further taught her that if any members of this spiritual family were greater, richer, or better than the rest, they were bound to use their special means or ability in the service of the whole. It will contribute no little to draw together the various classes of society if the clergy endeavor in sermons and lectures to set forth the true principle of society, showing how Property is a trust to be administered for the good of Humanity, and how much of what is good and true in Socialism is to be found in the precepts of Christ.*

So, then, in 1888, when there was no Clarion and no Labor Party, we parsons were told in the most solemn way by our official leaders that we were to be social reformers, to preach the Brotherhood of Man, and to show "how much of what is good and true in Socialism is to be found in the precepts of Christ." In writing this tract, therefore, I am but obeying the instructions of my Fathers in God.

An old agricultural laborer once admitted to me that Socialism was "all backed by Scripture"; and I need hardly remind anyone who reads his Bible, that if I were to put down every passage that

The next Conference, that of 1897, endorsed this view and, in fact, distinctly strengthened it.

makes for Socialism, I should want a pamphlet several sizes larger than this. But nothing is more futile than the unintelligent slinging of texts; and I shall therefore confine myself strictly to the central features of Christianity, and not pick out chance sayings here and there, since that could be done with the writings of every great moral teacher that has ever lived. Christianity is different. It does not only provide a few noble sayings that Socialists would welcome. It is Socialism, and a good deal more.

And because I have only space for the central features of the Christian faith, I must pass over the magnificent utterances of the Old Testament prophets and confine myself to the strictly Christian documents, and in these to the sayings and doings of Christ and His Apostles, with a reference to some leading principles of the Church universal.

How Christ Came.

How did Christ come into the world? That is the most important point of all, the most central. We Christians believe that God the Son became man. He could have come in any class He chose, and the Jews expected the Messiah to appear as a great Prince. If Christ had come thus, as an Oriental potentate, in pomp and luxury, with a crowded harem and troops of soldiers, the influential Jews of the day would have welcomed Him. But He was born in a stable. He came as a working man. He worked at His own trade till He was thirty and then, choosing other working men as His companions, He tramped about the country as one that had not where to lay His head; doing innumerable secular works of mercy, besides preaching spiritual regeneration; and blessing the poor, while He condemned the rich and denounced the proud teachers and leaders of the national religion; and, after three years, He was executed by the law of the land, because He preached revolutionary doctrines, which the common people "heard gladly," but which were detested by the religious authorities of the day.

This was not only a reversal of all that the Jews expected, but it was also a new phenomenon in the world's history. No one before had ever thought of setting on such a basis the message of social regeneration. Nay, even the noblest of Greek philosophers, the constructors of ideal States, had utterly failed to take account of labor, and had based their ideal republics upon slavery. To Plato, even, the masses had but "half a soul"; while Aristotle, who regarded slaves as "living machines," and women as nature's failures to produce men, wrote: "Certainly there may be some honest slaves and women; nevertheless it may be said that woman generally belongs to an inferior species, while a slave is an utterly despicable being" (Polit. i, 13).` And in Athens, B.C. 309, the slaves are said to have numbered 400,000 out of a total population of 515,000.

But by the Incarnation not only was labor given its true position, but the unity of the whole human race was proclaimed. Humanity in its solidarity was taken upon Himself by the Divine