Dear Editors
Having just read with interest the article God and the Market (November’s Socialist Standard) I felt that socialists may like to hear my views and opinions.
As an adult, I made the conscious decision to be baptised. That was ten years ago, and ever since then I have struggled with my faith because of the blatant hypocrisy that we all know exists within the Church. Indeed, Robert Tressell’s portrayal of the Church in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is, in my opinion, not too much of an exaggeration. Jesus Christ and his disciples spoke very plainly about the familial relationship of all people under our parent God, the requirement for “Children of God” to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9), to shun riches (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13; Acts 8:20; 1 Timothy 6:10; Hebrews 13:5) and to care for all people (1 Corinthians 13; 1 John 4:7-21). Such is the true Christian faith: it does not seek the division of humanity in any way. True Christian faith, I believe, is socialist.
But Church practice is very different from the way it should be, as you all know. The Church, the faithful bride of Christ, has unwittingly embraced capitalism and is unable (or its leaders are unwilling) to escape from its grasp. These leaders, among other things, commit “daylight robbery” by sending out “tax-collectors” with bright shining plates during each act of worship to take money from their “beloved” flocks, and they celebrate (or, as they say, “Remember”) the inhumanity of war and support future killing among siblings, even going as far as “blessing” destructive weapons (e.g. battleships). At the heart of each spiritual community is the local church, and how many local churches resemble market places? How would Jesus react to such things (Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:13-16)?
To be fair there are groups within the Church who do remain faithful. These include the Pax Christi movement, Tearfund and the Mothers’ Union. But unfortunately, the humanity of such groups as these is hidden within the shadows of the Church’s capitalist image within the world.
From its earliest beginnings, the Church applied the pious practice of lending without adding interest. But it wasn’t long before Church authorities saw this practice as “bad for business”. In the same way, I wander how long it will be before the greed of Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury and the Anglican Bishop Wallace Benn of Lewes (who claimed that the credit crunch is God’s punishment for society’s obsession with money (Premier Radio News, 29th October 2008)) resurfaces and they change their minds.
Paul Boyce,
Lincoln
Reply:
We agree that what evidence there is seems to show that the first christians practised a form of what Kautsky in his Foundations of Christianity called “a communism in articles of consumption”, but it also shows that they were more interested in the world “to come”, which they believed to be imminent, than in changing the corrupt (as they saw it) world in which they lived. The case for socialism, as the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, is a secular doctrine based on the facts of the situation today and not on quotations from the sacred texts of one particular religion,
– Editors.
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