SOCIALISM AND THE TEACHING OF CHRIST By REV. JOHN CLIFFORD, M.A., D.D. WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND PARTICULARS OF EXISTING CHRISTIAN SOCIALIST SOCIETIES. THE FABIAN SOCIETY, 3 CLEMENT'S INN, STRAND, W.C. SOCIALISM AND THE TEACHING OF CHRIST. An Address delivered by DR. JOHN CLIFFORD at the Annual Meeting of the Christian Socialist League, at Westbourne Park Chapel, February, 1895. ONE of the objections frequently brought against the application of the principles of Socialism to our industrial life is that such a process is opposed to the teaching and spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christianity, it is said, moves in a higher realm than that of humdrum toil, and operates for far higher purposes than those of settling the disputes of capital and labor, adjusting profit and loss, organizing production and distribution, fighting a dangerous plutocracy, and mediating peace between the masses of wageearners and a narrowing number of wage-payers. It does not "preach a gospel of material blessedness." It ministers to a mind diseased by sin, banishes remorse, and prepares for death and eternity. It is not concerned with this fleeting life; so brief that "it is like a dewdrop on its perilous way from a tree's summit"; but with the infinite development of the human spirit through the eternity, and in the home, of God. In support of this eclipse of the life of the present by the stupendous and transcendent greatness of the life of the future revealed in Christianity, the saying of Jesus is quoted. "Work not for the meat that perisheth, but for the meat which abideth unto eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you for Him the Father, even God, hath sealed." Hence, many Christians look with misgiving on Churches that venture to study the politico-economical conditions of the life of the people around them, touch with the tips of their fingers the problems for the abolition of poverty, and seek the up-lifting of the wage-earning classes by juster and healthier modes than those of spasmodic charity and unlimited soup. They denounce ministers. who hold and teach that the laws of God run everywhere, even into wages and prices, into houses of toil and the sanitary conditions of factories and drapery establishments; and generally reason that the capacity of the mind for the hospitable entertainment of ideas is so sadly limited that no preacher can be faithful to Christ's message concerning sin and redemption, and at the same time agitate for a "fair living wage," or toil for the reorganization of the industrial life of the country on bases of justice and brotherhood. Is Socialism Christian? Professor Flint, a man of vast learning and great ability, has said in one of the largest and least discriminating and most unsatisfactory books I have read on Socialism: "What is called Christian Socialism will always be found either to be unchristian in so far as it is socialistic or unsocialistic in so far as it is truly and fully Christian "*; and again, "so far as Socialism confines itself to proposals of an exclusively economic and political character, Christianity has no direct concern with it. A Christian may, of course, criticise and disapprove of them; but it cannot be on Christian grounds; it must be merely on economic and political grounds. Whether land is to be owned by few or many, by every one or only by the State; whether industry is be entirely under the direction of government, or conducted by co-operative associations, or left to private enterprise; whether labor is to be remunerated by wages or out of profits; whether wealth is to be equally or unequally distributed, are not in themselves questions of moment to the Christian life, or indeed questions to which Christianity has any answer to give."+ To me that is flat Paganism, and as anti-Christian as it is misleading and delusive. A still more potent voice speaking from the pontifical chair, Leo. XIII., on what are called "socialistic aberrations," asserts their essential antagonism to the Christian Church; and the Right Rev. Abbot Snow, O.S.B., goes as far to say: "Socialists are led to abolish religion in order to get rid of its ministers. They (the ministers) are of the governing class, and let them disappear with the rest. Thus the process of general levelling and the abolition of independent authority leads to the negation of religion and formal worship of God, and makes Socialism tend to Atheism." It cannot be doubted that these citations tend to the widespread feeling on the part of many leisured and comfortably placed Christians, who have had not only the "promise of the life that now is," but, what is much more, the splendid fulfilment of the promise: that a League like our Christian Socialist League has amongst its first duties to give an account of itself before the tribunal of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Social Question. II.-In doing this let me first of all fully recognize that these objecting Christians and Churches allow that the Christianity of Christ Jesus is not averse to the denunciation of the wrongs of modern society and the exposure of the miseries of our present condition. Indeed, it is eagerly maintained that Christ condemns every manifestation of individual selfishness, backs every earnest crusader against personal covetousness and greed, and justifies the strongest language we can use against the abuses of individual Socialism. By Professor Robert Flint; p. 441. competition. All Christians agree in these outbursts of righteous indignation, and rather enjoy seeing the vials of oratorical wrath poured out on the heads of their neighbors; and some of them are beginning to think that after all the "accumulation of gold is not the highest virtue, and that there is something wrong in that mediæval interpretation of the words of the Master, "The poor ye have with you always," which regards the continuance of poverty as a necessary condition to the exercise of the spasmodic charity of the rich. Many Christians, if not all, at last admit that there is a social question and that they must do something for it, if it is only to talk about it and to denounce somebody or something. They see the poor separated by a great social gulf from the rich, though geographically not far from one another. They lament overcrowding and ask what is the chance for chastity and health, for decency and comfort, to say nothing of happiness under such inhuman conditions. Here in West London-in West London-is a house of eight rooms and a small ante-room containing not less than forty-two persons; and it is a sample of the way in which we are violating God's idea of society, and destroying the very germ of social well-being in the extinction of the decencies and wholesomeness of the home.t The awful facts borne in upon us by the gathering masses of unskilled, decrepit, and hopeless laborers, the appalling armies of the unemployed, are forcing Christian men to think and to say "Something must be done." It is not wholly a question of "plenty of room at the top " for the men of tough fibre, clear brain and iron will; but of the "strong bearing the infirmities of the weak," and of brother caring for brother. The bitter separation of class from class, the tyranny of drink, the vice of gambling, the debasement and misery of early marriages, the degradation of women, "the huddling together of thousands of workers, the prey of the sweater"-all these increasing wrongs are, it is confessed, inextricably involved in our vast egoistic industrialism; men, women, and children are caught and crushed in the revolving wheels of this competitive machinery and then flung aside to perish in the workhouse, or to overweight the earlier efforts of their offspring. So that not a few observant souls are ready to accept the strong words of Ruskin and say, "to call the confused wreck of social order and life brought about by malicious collision and competition an arrangement of Providence, is quite one of the most insolent and wicked ways in which it is possible to take the name of God in vain." The Sense of Spiritual Brotherhood. III. Some of the disciples of Christ will go further and give personal service. A real hearty, loving sympathy carries them to the homes of the poor and suffering, to feed patience, to brighten life, to uphold the afflicted, to sustain the workers in the fierce struggle with toil and want. They believe Christianity bids them * Time and Tide. By John Ruskin; p. 9. † See Fabian Tract No. 5, Facts for Socialists; Id. preach justice, love, and brotherhood. They even plan for co-operative production. They inculcate stewardship and bid men remember that they have to give account of all they have and use to their Father in heaven. To them the social organism is a reality; and the spiritual brotherhood of men more than a phrase. They have seen God in Christ Jesus, and to them the Incarnation is the revelation of their obligations to their brother man, the widening of the definition of sin so as to include transgressions of the parish and city, of the nation and of humanity. No man lives to himself. Cain is anti-Christ. There is a solidarity of man. The kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ. Law and government are not beyond His policy; and even our industrial civilization may be shaped according to His will. It is a great change; and those who have experienced that regeneration of the social consciousness in the Churches of Christ are shaping the future of labor and of the life of the world. Where Christians Part. IV. But it is when we come to a social policy, to a method or industrial re-arrangement, that the question arises whether we are moving along the lines of Christ's ideas, and are providing the best industrial body for the incarnation of His spirit. It is at this third stage we part. Christian men are agreeing more and more-(a) In their antagonism to individual greed and injustice; (b) in personal and sympathetic devotion to the welfare of the people; the parting of the ways is (c) as to the real basis on which modern industry shall organize itself. It is when scientific Socialism or Collectivism says— (a) Our industrial life should be based not on individual but on a collective ownership of the chief elements and material instruments of production, (b) that production should be managed not according to the will or caprice or might of private individuals, but collectively, and (e) that the results of toil should be distributed to all who have a share in the toil on the principles of absolute justice, i.e., on the principles of equality in value; it is then we are charged with opposing the teaching of the Master. Now, let there be no mistake as to what this Collectivism is. It does not advocate the absorption of the individual by the State; or the suppression of the family; or the total extinction of private property; or the direction of literature, and art, and religion by the collective wisdom of the community; it does not involve the sudden overthrow of the machinery of industrial life; but in the light of the historical development of industry it seeks to accelerate the evolution of the industrial life, so that it shall free itself from the defects and evils that now belong to it, and shall fulfil its Divine mission in the enrichment of the whole life of mankind. It seeks to build a far better body for the soul of Christ's teaching, and the spirit of His life and death, than this fiercely competitive system, through which He • Socialism: its Nature, Strength and Weakness. By Professor R. T. Ely; p. 9, et seq. † See Fabian Tract No. 51, Socialism: True and False; id. |
