Halo Halo (2026)

The Halo Halo Column from the March 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the sixth century Pope Gregory the First sent monks to Britain to convert the pagans. The pagans worshipped nature and believed that animals, plants, trees and other things in nature had souls and a protective god. The pagans were not so readily seduced by snake-oil salesmen. Greg, not wanting to miss out on the corporate opportunities offered by expanding the business and potential for increasing cash flow through tithes, land ownership and so forth, sent another vanguard across the channel a little while later.

This time, through guile, the pesky pagans were placated with the promise that pagan festivals would basically remain but under the new ownership of Christianity. Over a few hundred years the takeover was complete and Christianity was now top dog.

The Venerable Bede, Anglo-Saxon monk and historian, wrote in the eighth century, De Temporum Ratione, of Eostre, pagan goddess of Spring, fertility and renewal, and noted that feasts were held in Eostur-monath which was the equivalent of April. Eggs and hares were associated with her.

With Eostur-monath on the horizon the question is, what does it mean to people in the UK anymore? For a child brought up in a strictly non-religious household it offered a break away from school, hot cross buns, and lots of sugar-addictive chocolate. The Easter Bunny didn’t put in an appearance at all, or it would have found itself in the cooking pot in no time. Neither was time wasted having to hunt for eggs.

Fast forward to adulthood and the realisation that features of Easter, were, like many other Christian festivals, knock-offs from the previous various faiths which had been… expropriated. And the recognition that despite the ‘goodies’ associated with that ‘celebration’ there were various elements that should have been withheld from children for a very, very long time.

Learning that hot cross buns symbolised crucifixion and embalming fluids, the spices and dried fruit occasioned a distaste for that food which has long lasted. If you’re okay with Catholic communion and transubstantiation, the belief that bread and wine is transformed into the actual body and blood of JC, then nothing probably strikes you as distasteful.

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s writings were the basis for Krafft-Ebing coining the word masochism. Might not even Leopold have found the actions of modern-day penitents in places like the Philippines, southern Italy, Mexico and Spain who engage in self-flagellation and ritual crucifixion, a case of going a bit too far?

In the internet market place there are thousands of children’s religious books for sale. These cover a multitude of faiths. Grab a bundle, such as a child’s first bible, something about Noah’s Ark and JC’s disciples. A wide taste is catered for, including colouring books, sticker books, and Easter story books. But at what age is the ‘cuddly’ stuff ditched in favour of learning of punishments imposed by the Romans and what a cross really represents?

One wonders whether the works of Donatien Alphonse François, aka the Marquis de Sade, wouldn’t be less harmful?

DC

Messenger boys (1984)

From the November 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

The various Christian churches seem to be hitting the secular headlines recently with the Catholic church, by far the biggest, taking the lead. For the last year or so it has been deeply embroiled with the larger than life moneylenders of the international banking world. But it isn’t (as the innocent Catholic might think) the Children of Christ condemning the moneylenders, calling on them to “Store up their riches in Heaven and not on earth where they will rust and be eaten up by moths.”

A collection of about 120 foreign banks and other creditors want to know what has happened to £916 million of their money which was last seen passing through an intricate network of companies and subsidiaries from Liechtenstein to Peru, mostly owned by the Vatican Bank (IOR). Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, ex-head of the Vatican Bank, has been intimately linked with this mysterious affair. A one-time diplomat in the Vatican, Marcinkus seems to have been unwise in the company he kept while head of the Vatican Bank, for two of his closest associates were Michele Sindona and Roberto Calvi. Sindona, a successful Sicilian banker, has been convicted of fraud and misappropriation of funds while Calvi. ex-member of the infamous masonic lodge P2. belter known as “God’s Banker”, recently slipped secretly out of Italy. He crossed the Gulf of Trieste to Yugoslavia and London, apparently to hang himself from Blackfriars Bridge, first taking the precaution of filling his pockets with stones and placing half a brick down the front of his trousers.

As with any good story, the plot thickens. In July 1978 Pope Paul VI died and was succeeded by a Pope John Paul I. Pope John Paul I died a few months later in September 1978. Allegations have been made that Pope John Paul I was poisoned because he had uncovered the financial wheeling and dealing of the Vatican Bank and objected to it. Contradictory statements by the Vatican about the circumstances of the death only encourage suspicion. Who really did discover the body? What was the Pope really reading when he died in bed?

All this has cast some doubt on the infallibility of the papacy. How could the Vatican get itself into such an embarrassing mess? Even if Pope Paul VI didn't know what was going on under his very nose (Marcinkus’s office was directly beneath the Papal apartments) you would have thought God would have had a quiet word in his ear. After all the Pope, so they tell us, is our direct link with God.

Of course, the Vatican hasn't admitted to making a mistake. It never does. Nevertheless, Archbishop Marcinkus has applied for immunity from prosecution by the Italian Judiciary. The Vatican Bank has also agreed to pay creditors £180 million. confidently expecting to recoup the loss from contributions by working class catholics.

While the Vatican is uneasily wearing the cloak of infallibility the Church of England has attributed falling attendances to the rigidity and inflexibility of ideas, which haven’t changed much in centuries. It has realised that the mumbo-jumbo of the past that worked quite well is seen to be more and more ridiculous. To counter this it has decided to invent some more modern mumbo-jumbo, adapted from the old stuff. Oxbridge theologians have been telling us that a lot of the Bible isn't strictly true, that the meaning and symbolism of what is written in the Bible is more important than whether or not it actually occurred in history. This innovative bit of philosophical sophistry has not gone unnoticed by the more conservative members of the clergy.The result has been a bitter debate about whether the Virgin Mary was or wasn’t.

In July David Jenkins, a leading advocate for change, was consecrated in York Minster as the Bishop of Durham amid protests and interruptions. A few days later there was an unhappy coincidence when the south transept of the Minster was struck by lightning and burnt down. Not surprisingly some of the clergy put this down to a divine thunderbolt, sent by a merciful God as an act of retribution. Fortunately, York Minster was insured by an ecclesiastical insurance company even if it is paradoxical for the church to be insuring itself against acts of God.

So while the Catholic church is grappling with financial corruption and infallibility, the Church of England is trying to reinterpret the work of God. A church that isn't as burdened with outmoded ideas and traditions inherited from previous centuries is Billy Graham's Evangelism. Everybody living in the English provinces must have noticed Big Brother Billy staring down at them from bill boards. His square set jaw. menacing smile and piercing eyes encourage the question “Would I buy a second-hand car from this man?”, especially in view of the personal testimony from ex-President Richard Nixon: “Billy Graham is one of the giants of our time”. But Dr. Billy isn’t the man he was in 1949 when he terrified all those who would like to sec 1950 with Christian threats like “Communism is inspired, directed and motivated by the devil himself. Either communism must die or Christianity must die”. A couple of years ago he went to preach in that nest of demons and devil worshippers, Moscow. Having been well treated by the puppets of Satan, he returned to cause a storm with some inane comments about the benevolent nature of the Russian state.

For a few months this year Graham was on Mission England. Backed up by technicians, campaign managers, thousand-voice choirs, security heavies and the all important $40 million business machine. Billy visited Bristol. Norwich, Sunderland, Birmingham. Liverpool and Ipswich. It must have been quite a spectacle to sec him preaching from the hallowed turf of Anfield. to hear the stadium echoing to the songs of praise, though not the usual irreverent and profane type. No doubt there was a deathly hush as Billy asked the spectators if they could hear Jesus knocking to come in. Jesus certainly wouldn't have been the first to be locked out of Anfield anyway.

Billy is not, as some might think, a man of peace, for when our masters’ property and profits are threatened he believes in the necessity of defence — of killing people and not turning the other cheek. Although he has gone to great pains to appear concerned about the problems of his flock such as unemployment and poverty, these are problems that God has spared Billy, who lives in a converted log cabin on a 200 acre site in America and receives a salary of $55,000 a year.

It’s all very easy poking fun at the Church now that the age of inquisition and witch burnings is over, but it is beside the point. Why do these ridiculous people and institutions exist? Why do so many people believe in what they say?

It is not possible to prove or disprove the existence of God. who exists only for people who have "faith”, a belief in something for which there is no material evidence. The evidence that Christians will give for the existence of a God is their faith. How could they believe in something of which there is no material evidence (except a book of dubious origin and authenticity) unless that belief was inspired by God himself? Their god is supposed to give them faith and this explains, for them, why they have faith. To break this circle of "God exists because 1 believe in God", it is necessary to understand why Christianity is so appealing to many people.

We live in a friendless society of competition. insecurity and. for many of us, absolute poverty. We live in a cruel and impersonal world, over which we seem to have no control. Most Christians would refer to all this as "suffering”. But they offer a unique "solution” to those who arc suffering, which is most of us — a philosophy, a set of ideas, that turns this suffering from something pointless and wasteful into something worthwhile. If we believe in God and Jesus Christ and accept the suffering doled out to us by the world, so they tell us, we will go to a much better place at the end of it and there live forever. The meek acceptance of suffering is a sort of lest and the better we do. the better the chance that we will be rewarded.

This, in essence, is very much like working for a wage. You graft for eight hours a day in a job you hate for the promise of a wage packet at the end of the week. The difference is that there is no pie in the sky at the end of your stint down here. Only worms and maggots. The idea of Christianity also gives you a sense of control over your ow n life for you can participate in the kingdom of Heaven. In every sense Christianity is masochistic, it dupes you into enjoying pain and suffering. It anaesthetises you against the stresses and strains of society. Once accepted, it becomes more difficult to face up to the real horrors of society

DB

Halo Halo (2025)

The Halo Halo! column from the October 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Artificial Intelligence has moved into the market for religion. We’ve learnt that there are at least five AIs competing for the favours of the easily led.

Techxplore.com did a consumer test on the five listed; AI Jesus, Virtual Jesus, Jesus AI, Text with Jesus and Ask Jesus. The site posed the same question to each: ‘is there a hell?’ The replies of all suggest that Jesus suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder. The response from AI Jesus was ‘yes, there is a hell. It is a place of eternal torment and suffering, where the souls of those who have rejected God and his teachings will go’.

Garbage in, garbage out. One is curious as to what data AI Jesus has been learning from. This response has most impact – we’re joking of course — if declaimed out loud in the manner of someone like Ian Paisley, the late Northern Irish politician and protestant evangelist. If you prefer, then aver in the manner of any American evangelist exhorting his audience to contribute even more dollars to their personal wealth.

Virtual Jesus comes across as slightly more circumspect: ‘yes, there is a place known as hell in the afterlife, where those who have chosen to reject God and live in sin will face eternal separation from Him’. We imagine this response being given by an academic, perhaps a Doctor of Divinity answering a student’s question in a seminar.

Jesus AI is as dogmatically certain as the previous two that such a place exists: ‘Yes, there is a place called hell, where those who reject God’s love and follow their own desires go after death.’ So basically God behaves like an autocratic dictator who, allegedly, having created various desires in human beings, then says don’t do that or else I’ll hurt you forever and ever! God sounds more like O’Brien, the Thought Police apparatchik who tortures Winston Smith in Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, because ‘thought criminals’ must be ‘cured’ of their antagonism towards the all-powerful State. This ‘God’ is just one of the many brought into being through human imagination. Intuitively the human mind perceives that all-powerful entities are malignant in some way.

Text with Jesus sounds like a self-deprecating ageing hippie with a spliff: ‘The concept of hell can be quite a heavy topic … It’s important to remember that God’s desire is for all people to come to Him and experience His love and grace.’

Ask Jesus sounds as if it has been programmed by a Guardian-reading English vicar who lost their faith many years ago but continues in the occupation with one eye on their pension and the other on trying to engender niceness in folk wherever they can. ‘Ah, the question that has stirred the hearts and minds of many throughout the ages…’

AI is indulging in make believe like all those humans all over the globe who believe now, as in the past, in the fictions provided through all the deities created from the human mind.

DC

DC

What is religion? (1953)

From the August 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Most people think they know what religion is, but nearly everybody has different ideas, even more so than with economic terms like Socialism, Capitalism, etc.

The pamphlet “Socialism and Religion” published by the party in 1911, and reprinted in 1925, and since then out of print, states that the fundamental idea of religion is a belief in the persistence of life after death. It goes on to say “ Originally, and in essence throughout, religion is a belief in the existence of supernatural beings, and the observance of rites and ceremonies in order to avert their anger or gain their good-will. ‘Corpse-worship’ as it has been tersely called, is the protoplasm of religion.” This is more a description of the salient points of religion than a definition.

In the chapter on religion in the pamphlet “Questions of the Day” the following statement on religion occurs at its commencement “Religion is woven like a thread into the texture of human society from early times to the present day. It is based upon man’s ignorance of natural forces and has been propped up by rulers as a means of keeping slaves in subjection.” This again is scarcely a definition, but explains (quite correctly) what religion does.

Marx’s well-known statement that “Religion is the opiate of the people ” (or a more correct translation “opium for the people”) which occurs in his letters to Kugelmann and his essay on Hegel, is scarcely a definition, but rather a statement on an aspect of religion.

Thousands of divines have had a shot at giving a definition of religion, but most of them define religion as “appreciating God’s love to mankind” or “accepting Jesus as our Savour,” etc. All such ideas could never be accepted as a basis of discussion if we wished to examine religion and its influence.

Matthew Arnold defined religion as “Morality touched with emotion.” But Matthew Arnold was himself touched with religion, and therefore somewhat unreliable.

One thing is very certain, and that is that all ideas of religion are bound up with belief in God or gods. God of some kind is essential to religion, and next to a God or gods, something which God does, i.e., performs miracles, gives us or promises after fife, writes or inspires men to write religious literature, and accepts prayers from those he has made or created. Religion, then can be said to consist of five things:—

1. Belief in God or gods.
2. Belief in Miracles.
3. Belief in Life after Death.
4. Belief in the Efficacy of Prayer.
5. Belief in Holy or Inspired Books.

It is true that not all religions have all these five characteristics. Buddhism for instance does not have a personal God or Deity as does the Christian religion and in that sense can be claimed as somewhat Agnostic although not Atheistic. But most religions have these characteristics, while Christianity—that cemetery of dead religions—is endowed with them all.

We do not place these in order of their importance, although everything emanates from the Belief in God or gods.

Horace Jarvis

(To be continued.)

Was capitalism historically inevitable? (2024)

From the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

As with any ‘origin’ story it is notoriously difficult to know where to begin. We might start with the demise of the dinosaurs due to the ‘lucky’ asteroid that struck the Earth some 66 million years ago allowing mammals to flourish in their stead; or we might start with the transition of hunter gatherer communities into private property slave city states; or we might avoid all of these hypotheses and go straight to the Battle of Plataea in Greece in 479 BC.

Why? Because arguably the global capitalism we see today is mainly of a European origin and, in particular, many of its curses and blessings can be assigned to the little island of Britain. We will try to seek out all of the whys and wherefores of this theory and ask if the described economic developments could or would have happened anywhere else on the planet. Inevitability is the totem of any theory of determinism but can we ever be certain that any area of human activity could aspire to this fatalistic description? So let’s return to the Greece of 479 BC where the story begins and see if it will prove to be a robust theory or even elevate it to a tale of historical inevitability.

The Battle of Plataea saw the Persian attempt to conquer Greece finally come to an end. The outcome of any battle can be unpredictable both in terms of who will win and the long-term implications of an outright victory but on this occasion we see that the colonisation of Greece and all of the cultural implications that this implied did not occur. The subsequent intellectual and political flowering of Classical Athens could not have taken place under Persian hegemony. Thus, the adoption of Greek culture by Imperial Rome would not have happened and its rediscovery during the Renaissance could not have occurred in Europe.

It might be argued that, like Vietnam and Afghanistan in our time, the Greek states could never have been completely defeated by the superpower of its time but it was not close to being inevitable that Greece would become the dominant cultural force in European history. And again if Rome had not finally defeated the Carthaginians at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC the conquest of Europe and the subsequent spread of the death cult of Christianity – albeit in constant tension with the rationalism of the Classical inheritance – would not have evolved into the European Reformation where the protestant cause became the ideology of the revolutionary bourgeoisie.

In its Puritan incarnation in England this ideology would be the foundation of the revolutionary victory of the capitalist class and the release of finance to invest in inventions and their application during the industrial revolution. This was all made possible by the victory of the parliamentary (bourgeois) army at the Battle of Naseby in 1645. In ideological terms it would seem that too much was dependent on the outcome of battles and the adoption of a historically arbitrary religion to maintain that capitalism was inevitable. But if we look at the underlying material economic trajectory and the class struggle it created what do we find?

We can see that all of the ancient civilisations of note were based on a slave economy. The majority of these slaves were captives of war but as the major empires consolidated the wars became fewer and so the number of slaves decreased. This together with the obvious economic advantage of letting the slaves (now called serfs) have a small holding of land for their self-sufficiency (thus saving the lord their upkeep) made the transition to feudalism ubiquitous in Europe.

There had always been trade between cities and principalities (mercantile capitalism) and many of these merchants became rich and yearned for commensurate political power. Eventually this conflict became violent and these merchants (proto-capitalists) displaced the kings and lords in revolutions that enabled capital to invest in wage labour and amass their fortunes from the subsequent accumulation of surplus value.

The particular nature of the ideologies that were used to get the majority to fight and die for their cause seems secondary to the class struggle and productive innovations that provoked them. In this Marxian scenario the classical inheritance and the ideology of Christianity would not be of primary importance – the human capacity for technical innovation would initiate different modes of production which in turn would create antagonistic social groups (classes) which alone could drive progress and be independent of the contemporary ideologies that were used to understand and justify this phenomenon. It would not be until the emergence of socialist thinking that these dialectical economic and social forces could be fully understood.

It is challenging trying to imagine alternative histories – Europe without the inspiration of classical Greece and Rome; the world without the combination of an early bourgeois revolution and a preponderance of surface coal to power the industrial might that allowed the small island of Britain to rule much of the globe; the world without the capricious act of Constantine the Great making the obscure cult of Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire etc.

Yet these phenomena were all dependent on the uncertainties of war and could have gone either way depending on various elements including blind luck. Europe’s state religion might have been one of the forgotten cults of Carthage and the lingua franca of the world might be Phoenician-based instead of English. But the Marxian contention is that we would still have ended up with global capitalism even if it would have taken longer (the French had to wait a full 150 years after the English for their revolution and Germany didn’t have one at all). Speaking of warfare, some soldiers came to believe that if a bullet had their name on it there was nothing to be done other than accept one’s fate – let’s hope that the world can enjoy many years of the equality and peace delivered by socialism before a meteorite crashes into Earth with our species’ name written on it.

Wez.

A Glance at Christianity (1950)

From the June 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was recently reported in the Press that a clergyman held a special religious service before the F.A. Cup Final in order to offer up prayers for an Arsenal victory. At least one national newspaper ridiculed the whole affair and accused the unfortunate clergyman of reducing religion to a cheap commercial level. It is worth pointing out that although the Almighty has been called upon to perform some peculiar deeds in the past, it is the first requested intervention into league football.

Most people dismiss such irresponsible episodes as sheer nonsense, but there is no doubt that many of the working class still harbour a feeling of awe towards the Church and its teachings. Few people understand how Christianity originated, least of all those who profess to practice it.

Christianity was born during the period when the great Roman Empire commenced its decline. To understand the reason for this phenomenon appearing at this time it is necessary to delve into Roman history to discover the conditions that were peculiar to this period. A very suitable book that deals exhaustively with this subject is “The Foundation of Christianity” by Kautsky.

The early Christians were mostly recruited from the oppressed and property-less classes, slaves, etc. Hence the vehement hatred towards the rich that is expressed in the early Christian writing. This attitude was modified as the cult grew and rich and influential members became an obvious advantage to further expansion and power. By the time that Christianity was adopted as the state religion by the Roman Emperor Constantine little remained of the early ethical teachings of the followers of primitive Christianity. The whole religion had undergone a very efficient watering down process with certain necessary modifications that made it more palatable to the ruling class of that period.

As society has changed so we find that Christian teachings have also changed to keep pace with the intelligence and aspirations of the congregation. But there is one sermon that the organised Church has always preached—the sanctity of private property and the necessity and justification of a ruling class.

Under Feudalism the church would attempt to frighten the simple serf into accepting the unquestionable rule of the Aristocracy with spine chilling accounts of the fate that would befall wrongdoers and rebels deep in the fiery bowels of the earth. Most churches at this time made a practice of displaying, in a prominent position, a picture of Hell showing vividly what ghastly tortures might be expected, just in case the verbal description did not penetrate and produce the desired results.

Of course modern wage slaves would scoff at such amateurish and obvious attempts to encourage acceptance of their lot, and the church is astute enough to realise it. The church these days will emphasise the other side of the picture and teaches the working class that the rewards of after-life will amply repay them for a miserable existence on earth. They offer no solutions to the problems of this world; accept war, poverty and want as “inevitable,” indeed they are not concerned with causes only the effects. In the event of war the churches support the cause of their respective masters. We had the spectacle during the last war of the churches in all countries praying to their God for victory. The only consolation that the Church can offer after the wholesale butchering of millions of people is that it is “Gods Will.” Perhaps this God emulates the Roman Emperors of bygone days and regards the earth as a vast arena, gloating with sadistic delight at the sight of human beings torn limb from limb and workers’ bayonets ripping open each others bellies. The socialist recognises that the Church under capitalism, as under previous forms of society, offers support to the ruling class and opposition to any change that would endanger the supremacy of this class.

Workers will one day realise that the remedies to their problems lie in their own hands and that no supreme being is concerned with their welfare, the outcome of wars, football matches or any other earthly pursuits. They will learn that it is the present arrangement of the machinery of production and distribution for sale that lies at the root of their problems. Once these conditions have been swept away and production for use replaces them, there will be no need for religion, sky pilots, supreme beings or any of the other unintelligible jargon.

G. L.

The Bishop of Woolwich Squares the Circle (1963)

From the August 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

A great deal of attention has recently been focused on controversies within the Church of England by the publication of a book written by the Bishop of Woolwich entitled Honest to God. The book has prompted wide interest in issues basic to religion, but although this controversy has been extended within the Church itself, propositions involving the modification of assumptions fundamental to the religious outlook have been argued about for some time.

These arguments, forced upon the Church by social developments external to it, have been reluctant but inevitable, bitter and agonised. There is no doubt, however, that the publication of this book has brought these arguments under wider public scrutiny, has stepped up the intensity of the discussion, and has brought about a new phase in what is quite frankly a time of crisis for the Church of England. Its problem is how to reverse mounting indifference to it and its dogma. This may be a problem for the Church itself, which quite obviously will resent and strive against becoming a social anachronism, but in relation to the crucial social problems facing man today it is irrelevant and superfluous. The significance of the controversy is that it opens a fresh chapter in man’s long struggle to free his existence from service to outside agencies—the gods.

Of all the churches in this country, it is the Church of England that has suffered most from the erosion of what was once a compelling enthusiasm for religious activities, especially in urban areas. At least until the turn of the century, the Church of England remained a powerful force that intervened actively in the everyday affairs of the community. Quite apart from providing spiritual balm to a 19th century working class depressed by acute poverty, it was the authoritative keeper of the community’s moral conscience. It was the father confessor to an era in trouble, as well as a positive force in political and economic affairs. The pulpit was a platform, and congregations were large enough to make them worth talking to.

But since those days, the thunderous voice of the Church of England has softened to a whisper, largely ignored and unnoticed. The declamations from its pulpits re-echo around virtually empty caverns; its morality is flaunted! the soporifics that it once dispensed are now found elsewhere in more acceptable forms. But it is not a situation that has been created by mass active opposition, coherently articulated or positively demonstrated. The majority of the population are not even atheists, let alone aware and convinced of Marxist theories, but the attitude of a growing number of people is of massive indifference and crushing unconcern. The consequences for the Church are just the same. Although there is still a degree of social esteem accorded to baptisms, marriages and burials presided over by the Church, they have more significance as desirable conventions than as conscientious acts of faith; as customs they have become drained of their religious and spiritual meaning.

The steady withdrawal of active support for Church affairs does not apply in equal degree to every branch of religion in this country. Quite certainly, the Roman Catholic Church retains a firmer grip over its members than the Church of England. But there are good historical reasons for this, and whilst the Catholic Church makes it much more difficult for individuals to drift away, and although it still remains a powerful bastion of superstition based on fear and ignorance, it is unlikely either that in the long term it can resist tendencies fundamental to modern capitalism—scepticism and individual self-interest.

The dogma of the Church of England boils down to an expedient. It summed up the aspirations of a 16th-17th century trading class seeking freedom for the development of its own activities outside the influence of the establish landed interests whose political and economic power was based, at least in part, on the Roman Catholic Church and which expressed themselves in its ideology.

The Roman Catholic Church secured subservience by the weapon of tyrannical superstition. Thus its god was a tyrant and a taskmaster; a god who imposed a duty of constant adulation and who threatened wrongdoers with the nightmare penalty of eternal damnation. Beyond this, since the Church itself was the physical embodiment of God on earth, the worship of God had to be the worship of the Church. The Catholic Church’s claim was and is to be the only gateway to heaven and its followers were forced to submit to its authority on all aspects of moral and political behaviour. It involved its adherents in the agony of thorns, a hierarchy of sin, the bleeding heart of Jesus, the pain of eternally stoked hellfire and other frightening fundamentalist accoutrements of primeval religious fervour. And by means of its power over ignorant and bewildered men, it secured their economic subservience.

Protestantism then was the expedient ideological innovation of a dynamic social element which still felt the need for religious justification but which sought freedom from the authoritarian strictures of the Roman Church. Thus with the Reformation and the establishment of the Church of England, a god was invoked who dispensed with the Church as a necessary turnstile between himself and his flock. A dogma was created that allowed entrance to heaven merely on the condition of belief in the holy trinity. The expedient changing of cherished beliefs is in the long-standing tradition of the Church of England, and it is not surprising that Catholicism retains a more enduring grip over its members.

As a true child of his age, and in emulation of the image-mongering techniques of advertising, the Bishop of Woolwich believes that in order to combat the growing lack of interest in the Church and Christianity, it is necessary to change the image of its god. He holds that it is no longer acceptable to think of God as some supernatural, yet objectified, reality existing “out there,” somewhere in outer space, holding omnipotent sway over a universe of his own creation. He holds that God should no longer be thought of as an external to society’s own existence, to whom individuals owe personal worship. For the Bishop of Woolwich, the idea of God represents all the best aspirations of man towards brotherhood, mutual tolerance and dedication to community interests. God to him is a force for common good inherited by contemporary man from the most obscure beginnings of history. Different from the beer-swilling vicars singing Nelly Dean with contrived yet conscientious enthusiasm, the absurd indignity of ton-up parsons, hymns sung to skiffle and other props, the ideas of the Bishop of Woolwich form the more credible substance of today’s radical theology.

The Bishop has realised that social consciousness has developed past the point of an easy acceptance of the supernatural imagery of traditional religion that sprang from social conditions in which science was in its infancy and man's technical apparatus crude. The evolving scientific culture of the space age displaces the superstitious faith of religion and reduces it to an irrelevance. It could once be truly observed and easily demonstrated that the Church was a fundamental support of capitalist society; but the order of priorities between religious faith and scientific method in a society driven towards greater technical complexity has changed all this.

Because capitalism is essentially a competitive form of society, and because this competition takes the form of struggle for commercial success both within nations and between nations, society is impelled to seek greater efficiency and productivity of labour. Thus technical change and scientific research and all the social consequences of them, including a bias towards technical education, are basic features of modern capitalist society. The fact of continued technical innovation so deeply permeates our culture that even momentous achievements are accepted with equanimity. Man lives today in an atmosphere of intense scientific enquiry which results in new discoveries daily. The means of communication are developed to a point where this new knowledge, whether it be about stars a million light years away, or the breeding habits of some obscure species of tropical fish, can be communicated immediately to all men. It is an age that emphasises the contrast between knowledge that can be proved and assumptions that require faith.

The first premise of historical materialism is that all man’s thinking is social thinking; that there is no idea that man discusses, no interest that he fights for, and no ideal that he aspires to, that is not derived from social origins. When the Bishop of Woolwich denies God a supernatural existence outside human society and uses the concept to mean a social force between them, then whether he is aware of it or not, and whether he likes it or not, he has taken a faltering but definite step into the materialist camp.

In the face of a developing scientific culture, the nature of religious belief undergoes gradual but definite qualitative change. Appropriately, it is during National Productivity Year that the Bishop of Woolwich articulates his death wish.

Even in the early 19th century, the economic structure of society was justified as being God-given, and to advocate its change was a sinful and heretical challenge to almighty predetermination. The relationship between man and God was close and personal. Earthly existence was merely a brief testing time for one’s fitness to live eternally in heaven. It was a life in the service of God rather than a life of service to self. Today, even for those who are yet religious, God is not thought of with the same awesome fear and only a few believe seriously that if life on earth is unsatisfactory, there remains the second chance in heaven. In the space age, the control of man’s destiny is gravitating from outer space to earth itself.

Where the working class accepts allegiance to religion, to royalty or the state, or accepts a false ideology or economic subservience to the capitalist class, it denies itself the realisation of its own interests. The poverty of the modern proletariat still results from the fact that its labour operates in commodity form, is bought for wages and exploited by capitalists with a view to profit. To buy a man’s labour power and set him to work is to reduce his existence to a commercial transaction and alienate his individuality.

In offering religion in more credible form to an age that is increasingly sceptical, the Bishop of Woolwich seeks to strip it of its supernatural paraphernalia and present it as an indispensable system of morals. But from the time that the Church cornered men’s superstitious fear and exploited it with declamations of nature as the created province of the almighty, it has evolved to a position where it is no longer even confident in its dogma and is reduced to weak exhortations to live in good neighbourliness and brotherly love. And even these appeals are nothing more than hypocrisy since at the same time that it spuriously wishes social harmony it condones and supports a competitive economic system whose fundamental feature is the exploitation of men by men.

The evolving technical culture of capitalist society will go on revealing the Church as more and more of an outlandish anachronism and in time will heap greater and greater embarrassment upon its dogma. Yet in spite of this and of the attempts by churchmen to modify the image of the Church and alter its social role, it will retain one enduring characteristic, that of an anti-working class institution. The Church supports the present method of producing and distributing wealth—capitalism. The ideas that it disseminates, its concepts about society, and the universe it trades in, are either irrelevant or hostile to the ideas that the working class requires to achieve its economic emancipation.

Socialists seek the universal brotherhood of men, but for the Church to sloganise ideals and in practice support a system that precludes their realisation, is a worse than hollow gesture, it erects a barrier to their practical achievement. What an organisation that genuinely aspires to social harmony on a world scale should do is relate it to specific social situations within actual experience, and discern and illuminate and explain the reasons why men now behave in a manner contrary to their mutual interests. It should argue a valid social theory and advocate a practical course for political action that offer the sure prospect of the unity of all men based on relations of genuine social equality. Only Socialists do this.

Pieter Lawrence

Virgin on the Ridiculous (1995)

TV Review from the August 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Channel Four has recently been showing a season of horror films, and viewers could have been forgiven for thinking that the kind of torture exhibited in Witness: True Love Waits (4 July, 9pm) was an entirely new addition to the horror genre. The action centred on Nashville, Tennessee, where the devotees of the local Baptist churches have taken to insisting that their children take vows of celibacy until they marry. Much of the documentary was taken up with film of local church “leaders" instructing teenage children in what is, and is not, permissible behaviour before marriage according to the “Holy Scriptures". Teenage girls were advised to spend six months "finding Jesus" before entering into any sort of relationship with the opposite sex whatsoever, and after this period of holy probation, only talking, holding hands and some forms of dancing were deemed permissible.

And were the teenagers happy with this state of affairs? Were they buggery. Most were torn between guilt at offending Jesus before descending into hell for all eternity, and expressing their natural sexual inclinations in a healthy manner. The boys were sad and guilt-ridden, the girls either brainwashed automatons or tearful would-be rebels. Most demonstrated signs of what is commonly called neurosis. One teenager was so deliriously happy with her lot that, when asked to recant her past sexual indiscretions before the church, she spent the entire time sobbing her heart out, barely able to speak the guilty words that were tearing her apart. After the ordeal, she ran back into the congregation to the arms of her parents, looking for consolation from the twisted mentalities that were so intent on making her life a misery. She probably had nowhere else to run.

Truly, what bastards these Christians can be, like most fundamentalist religious fanatics. Brainwashing, manipulation and humiliation were the techniques used to get the right result for Jesus and that was only the public face of it. Without a doubt, True Love Waits was one of the most terrifying programmes seen on television this year, and should have been compulsive viewing for anyone toying with the ideas of any of the barmy god-squad outfits that infest modern capitalism. It was a truly disgusting sight to see slick twenty-something preachers feeding guilt on a plate to vulnerable teenagers. "No touching below the neck! No 'dirty talk’ and certainly no passing of bodily fluids!" Verily, the devil's liquids are everywhere and are not to be trifled with until couples are “united in Christ".

Good News

Despite all this nonsense there was some good news. For despite the attractions of the "community" of church, with its friendships. singing and sense of common purpose, there were doubts. Oh yes, big doubts, and the flock were forever in need of shepherding away from the green grass of Satan's meadows. Straying from the path seemed quite common, and the leaders always needed to be on hand to quell any misgivings or slap wrists (mind you, we weren’t told of their views on masturbation but can guess).

In one ceremony reminiscent of Nazi Germany, the young believers were encouraged to bring the Devil's Music to church and burn their tapes and records in front of the congregation. To put it mildly, most looked less than ecstatic at the thought, and one girl said that secular music played such an important role in her life that she wouldn’t. Some eventually turned up with bags of old tapes to destroy, but most did so with what was visibly no enthusiasm for the project These were, in truth, the sort of people who were manipulated into burning Beatles' records in the sixties when John Lennon made his famous remark about the Beatles being "bigger than Jesus". However, most modern Bible-bashers should care to remember that the fuss soon died down when American teenagers realised that Lennon wrote better lyrics than Jesus and could play the guitar as well.

What True Love Waits showed was what history demonstrates all the time. Religious indoctrination can never be wholly successful for the very reason that much of it is so evidently at odds with human instinct. Primarily the instincts to love, to play, and to have sexual intercourse for the sheer pleasure of it which characterise the human species. The turnover of adherents to Evangelical and Baptist churches seems to be even greater than that for those mind-numbing Trotskyist groupings, and it is not surprising.

Of course, even a broken clock is right twice every twenty-four hours and not absolutely everything in the Christian creed is wrong, just most of it. Indeed, if the teenage church-goers of America care to take one piece of advice from the Bible it might be "go forth and multiply", an adage which, in a slightly different context, should be directed at their religious manipulators and tormentors too.

Dave Perrin

Duff and David (1943)

Book Review from the September 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Christian Ethic” is the slogan now blared from ugly little godboxes to venerable fanes of this Precious Island; hot gospellers join hands with Soviet-loving Deans; ecclesiastics clinging tenaciously to a Good Job in inverse ratio to their hold on the “tenets” of their faith join lustily in the racket; the Church dubbed by their fellow Christians as the “Scarlet Woman” pitches the loud speaker to its own peculiar note, assured that it alone is sole arbiter of what constitutes “Christian Ethic.” This by way of introduction to Duff Cooper’s book, “David,” which is just, a clumsy revelation of the mentality of Duff Cooper and his set.

Look up this rather mythical biblical character’s record; it is no better, and not much worse, than Carlyle’s favourite “heroes,” or of the “heroes” of our own time. There will yet be a haloed Stalin in the Christian Calendar. Holy Writ roundly declares David to have been a “man after God’s own heart”; he was accorded the privilege of ancestoring the Messiah himself. Duff Cooper is hard put to it to justify the ways of God to Man through his enthusiastic write-up of a lecherous, treacherous guerilla chief; he even has to blacken the character of Uriah, with no warrant whatever from the Book of Kings, to make some excuse for the dirtiest action of his hero. David, while “on the run,” had the chance to slay his enemy Saul while asleep. Duff Cooper’s treatment of this episode is revealing.

“His statesmanship told him that that was not the way to win a throne. . . . David, believing himself to be the anointed of the Lord, would not raise his hand against the only other man who had been so anointed. … It was a great act of statesmanship, and a great act of faith.”

Our author gapes in wonder and admiration at David’s exhibition of “patience and prudence”; a genuine Blood-Tears-and-Sweater of the olden time.

“The future could not have been darker for David, yet even so, he was prepared to leave it to the Lord in whom he trusted.” In the name of Faith, St. Augustine, substantially the codifier of “Christian Ethic,” sanctified brutal Intolerance, quoting Christ for his authority; in the name of Faith Christians tortured and burned each other; in the name of Faith chattel slavery was strenuously defended, elementary rights to women denied. None of the horrors resulting from Capitalism in its worst Moloch period but found its apologists among bishops and hired Christian “economists.”

It seems incredible that anyone can be found to throw away half-a-guinea on this outrageous castration of vigorous Authorised Version English, eked out with fluffy “corroborative detail” in the familiar B.B.C. juvenile religious broadcasts, and comments in the flabby style and unctuous spirit so mercilessly flayed by the unfortunately little known “The Four Gospels ” of Tolstoy.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is fairly and squarely opposed to “Religion,” whatever guise it may assume. It respects the sincere Christian reformer, but deplores his fundamental errors based on superstition. It is under no delusion that a Secularist political regime would ensure Socialism. Germany, and more especially Russia, are sufficient warning that skilful training with emotional appeal on non-religious lines can produce a youth fanatically attached to the equivalent of “Altar and Throne.” But the Secularists of Britain seem hardly alive to the serious recrudescence of the worst sides of Spiritism, the subtle danger of “agreed syllabuses,” and the rest of the present religious racket.

Augustus Snellgrove

Much ado about nothing (1999)

Book Review from the May 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Jesus Myth by G. A. Wells, Open Court, Chicago, 1999.

Christianity is patently untrue. Its basic premise—that an all-powerful god who had created the universe caused a virgin to have a son by him who became a religious preacher and miracle-worker in an obscure border area of the Roman empire, was killed and then rose from the dead and eventually ascended into the sky and disappeared—is not only ridiculous but also biologically and physically impossible. It just never happened.

But was there even ever a historical person called Jesus? Opinion, even amongst anti-Christians, has been divided. So what is the evidence? The only evidence that we have is the Christians’ holy book which they call the New Testament. This does have some value as a contemporary document. Part of it—Paul’s letters (those he wrote himself)—was written in the middle of the first century, i.e. shortly after Jesus was said to have lived. The other part—the accounts of his life and death known as the “gospels”—was written towards the end of the same century, i.e. about fifty or so years after he was said to have died. However, as Wells emphasises in his new book, there are two problems.

First, Paul, who wrote nearest to the alleged events, says nothing about the life of Jesus; he was only interested in his death or, rather, in his supposed resurrection. This in itself is suspicious. Paul was a Jew, not from the core Jewish area in Palestine but from Tarsus, a town now in southern Turkey, and his main language was Greek not the Aramaic which Jesus and his original followers would have spoken. As a Hellenistic Jew he was influenced by Greek religious ideas, in particular that of a saviour-god; a god who died to save his followers and then later rose from the dead, as for instance Dionysus was believed to do by his followers. In other words, Paul saw Christianity as a saviour-god religion in which a divine figure called Jesus (a name which in Hebrew is linked to the idea of being “saved”) died to save those prepared to follow him. Paul did retain some Jewish ideas: that of an Old Testament character called Wisdom (who he believed Jesus to have been before he was born) and the apocalyptic view that the end of the world was nigh.

Second, while the “gospels” do claim to tell us about the life of Jesus, the trouble is that nearly every event in his life is paralleled either in Greek mythology (virgin birth, resurrection) or, particularly, in the lives of Old Testament figures who also walked on water, fed thousands, raised the dead, rode on asses and ascended into heaven on a cloud (Jesus does, however, seem to have been unique in walking through walls). It is clear that the authors invented a life for Jesus which corresponded to Old Testament traditions and predictions. Even the account of his death is not trustworthy. As a saviour-god he had to die a particularly humiliating death, which at the time was crucifixion but, as only the Roman authorities could carry out this punishment, he had to be made to be condemned by them.

When all this crap has been cleared away, what’s left? Nothing, say those who claim that Jesus was an invented, mythological character who never had any historical existence. Not much, say the others. Only that there was somebody called Jesus who preached that the Jews should reform their ways as the end of the world was nigh and perhaps healed a few cases of people suffering from psychosomatic illnesses, in Galilee in the first part of the first century.

Wells, who in his earlier books such as Did Jesus Exist? (1975) and The Historical Evidence for Jesus (1982), had embraced the Jesus-is-pure-myth theory (see correspondence in April 1980 Socialist Standard) has now in this and his last previous book, The Jesus Legend (1996), come round to the view that the Jesus story “may derive ultimately from the life of a first century itinerant Galilean preacher; but to separate out such authentic material from the mass of unhistorical narratives is a well-nigh hopeless task”.

Adam Buick

The Twilight of Christianity. (1926)

From the October 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you increase the sum of twopence 50 per cent., you get threepence. But if you reduce threepence by 50 per cent., you get threeha’pence. Simple, isn’t it ! Everybody knows that, of course. Do they? There were some hundreds of innocent workmen who did not know it during the war, and when wages began to fall, and the same percentages were taken off as were put on, it was a long while before many made the discovery. We simply refer to the matter now so that the trickiness of percentages may be perceived. For instance, when the readers of the Daily News saw the result of their Religious Questionnaire announced in huge block letters, “70 per cent. strictly orthodox,” what did they gather? Very little reflection would have taught them much. Did they do that little?

The Daily News has upwards of 700,000 readers. For a fortnight they were daily urged to answer a series of questions, designed to find out the extent of their religious belief. Fifteen thousand, or 2 per cent., replied; 98 per cent. did not. So that the heavily leaded 70 per cent. is only 70 per cent. of 2 per cent. In the quieter regions of ordinary type, the Daily News Editorial sees this objection, and, whilst regretting the paucity of the poll, is of the opinion that, like the deep-sea drag-net, its contents are tolerably representative. We beg to differ. The analogy is not a good one. This was not a shot in the dark as the heaving of a deep-sea drag-net would be. This was a sustained appeal, in a prominent daily paper with a pronounced Nonconformist flavour, to its readers to testify that their belief in Christianity was a real, live thing. And for every 2 that answered, 98 did not. Innumerable preachers and teachers made it the theme of their sermons. The interest, we were assured, was widespread. And only two in each hundred answered. So that the heavy heading, “70 per cent. strictly orthodox,” is only part of the sum. A more cumbrous, but possibly more truthful, heading would have read, “98 per cent. indifferent, 2 per cent. muddled.” Yes, muddled; for whilst 70 per cent. of this tiny fraction are described as strictly orthodox, only 38 per cent. accept the first chapter of Genesis. Further, there were 1,500 more persons who were active members of Churches than believe in the formulated tenets of any Church. Again, “a number declaring themselves active Church members confess to a disbelief in a personal God.”

So that muddled seems the mildest word to describe them. And if the first chapter of Genesis is dubious, what of the second and third. If the Fall of Man is a fable, where is the necessity for a Redeemer, a Reconciler, an Atonement, and all the other things with capital letters that hinge upon the Fall.

We may reasonably admit that a plebiscite of this sort has but a limited utility. As an indication of the trend of current thought it is interesting without being valuable. Its significance lies in its being held at all. If the Christian religion were the great factor its adherents claim, a plebiscite would be superfluous. One does not take votes on the self-evident, the universally obvious. We assume, therefore, that a vote was taken because the connection between religion and behaviour is not apparent to ordinary observation. If an impartial, uninformed observer were to try and discover the connection: between the philosophy “Blessed be ye poor” and the Bishop of London’s .£10,000 a year, or the, slow, brutal, relentless crushing of the miners, and the Church’s £300,000 coal royalties, or the message of “Peace on earth, good-will toward men,” with the Christian Church’s attitude during the War, or all the contrasts of riches and poverty, magnificence and squalor, satiety and sheer hunger, wisdom and pathetic ignorance, contained within modern society, with the Gospel of Love, would he not be bewildered? If he were told our morals rested upon a basis explained to him as the Christian religion, would not his bewilderment increase?

No ! We think the true lesson to be gathered from the Questionnaire is that the average man is indifferent to the Christian religion. To openly avow oneself free from traditional superstition requires a definite effort and often some courage. The average man declines to make that effort. He finds indifference more comfortable. Indifference may not be definite disbelief, but it is nearer to that than to Christianity. How often do people refer to their God for guidance in their daily lives? In business matters, which gives them the greater concern, God’s blessing or the solvency of their customer?

The literature of former periods is filled with constant references to God. Even Acts of Parliament describe natural happenings as acts of God. If a battle was victorious, thanks were duly rendered to God. If a king escaped assassination, again to God the praise. The hand of God was seen everywhere, in the most trivial as in the most momentous happenings. The common people thanked Him ceremoniously at every meal, the uncommon people whenever worship could be combined with display.

As an instance of the change that has taken place, perhaps we cannot do better than quote the Daily News itself, the very issue following its comments on the Questionnaire, that of September 13th. The Editorial is commenting upon the escape of Mussolini from assassination, thus :

” ‘God has saved Italy,’ begins the Fascist order of the day, recounting Mussolini’s escape. It is an exaggeration. What happened was that a delay time fuse saved Signer Mussolini.”

We can ignore the subtle sarcasm wherein Mussolini is reminded that he is not Italy. Such distinctions are not stressed nearer home. But even the orthodox Daily News is compelled to admit that a murder was averted, not by the intervention of God, but by the breakdown of a piece of mechanism. And so we find with man’s advance in knowledge and his consequent control of natural forces, God becomes ever more nebulous, and religion a matter of husk-like forms. Even the so-called act of God is practically confined to strokes of lightning, and the lightning conductor makes His task ever more difficult.

W. T. Hopley

Marx v. Christ. (1926)

From the January 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

“During his long rest in the Welsh Hills this summer, Rev. Thos. Phillips, of Bloomsbury, has been examining carefully all the alternatives to Christianity in setting the world right. The only one that has greatly impressed him is that of Karl Marx, and he believes the battle of the future lies between Marxian Materialism and Christian Idealism.” — (“Christian World,” Sept. 24, 1925.)

Our nonconformist divine omits to tell us what this Christian idealism has been doing for 1900 years.

Adolph Kohn

Has Christianity a Solution for Social Problems? (1939)

From the March 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism is its own grave-digger. That is to say it provides and develops the means by which the capitalist social order will be brought to an end. Before historical processes mature thus far capitalism will have virtually buried many of the philosophies and religious ideas which in its day it nurtured. It is almost self-evident that where capitalism is the more developed there religion has the least influence over the minds of the workers. The explanation lies in the material conditions peculiar to capitalism.

Religion had its origin in the childhood of the human race. The farther man’s history is traced back, the cruder his religious superstitions. Each group had its god, which primitive man invested with the miraculous powers of being able to influence tribal fortunes in the struggle for existence. In the workings of nature he saw manifestations of the god’s pleasure and displeasure, of his power to deprive him of his sustenance. Crudely, therefore, he supplicated the gods with offerings and sacrifices. Refined examples of these rituals are practised among Christians to-day.

Tribal man’s god-ideas were related to his material conditions of life and to his degree of understanding of those conditions. As the material conditions changed, so his god-ideas changed. With the growth of larger tribes and confederacies of tribes, the tribal gods disappeared and new ones took their place, which reached maturity in the slave civilisations. Thus the way was prepared for a new conception of the god-idea—the abstract God of Christianity. The slave empires had reached the civilised stage where man’s knowledge of the world, his philosophic speculations upon life, demanded a conception of God which the older religious superstitions did not meet. In the Roman Empire Christianity arose to meet that need. It did not introduce the god-idea, but a particular conception of it, which was a modification of the God-ideas evolved from savagery.

Socialist teaching is not concerned with controversies which favour one god concept against another: it is concerned only with god-ideas in themselves and how they arose. This approach is in conformity with the Materialist Conception of History, which holds that, broadly speaking, the ideas of any particular epoch are related to, and can only be explained by the material conditions then prevailing. This approach religionists find devastating. To deny its fundamental correctness would seem like denying what appears to be self-evident. Yet its logic explodes the basis of Christian teaching. The Christian conception of the revealed God, eternal and unchanging, is destroyed by history’s revelations. The Christian god-idea is shown to be just one of the manifested forms through which the god-idea has evolved. The idea of an independent, all-powerful god, laying down laws and precepts which hold good for all time, is just a man-made myth. True, Christianity has persisted beyond the times which gave it birth, but only by adjusting its teaching to changing conditions. Protestantism appeared when Feudalism was breaking up and expressed in a religious form the antagonisms of the new capitalist class to the old regime. No theologian can explain why the Reformation arose in the fifteenth century and not the fifth. To simple minds the amours of Henry the Eighth might seem a sufficient explanation—but that cannot explain its rise in Germany, France and Holland. Nor, except by the material conditions, can it be explained why the Christian god-idea arose in the days of Rome and not in the period of savagery. God-ideas have changed and have become modified as society has evolved to higher forms and man’s knowledge has increased. Capitalism has brought into existence and has developed scientific knowledge of the workings of the world in which we live. Manifestations of nature, which man understands and can explain, are less attributed to the unseen activities of a god. Hence the modern tendency to the abstract and the impersonal in the god concept among many modern Christians. Yet modern Christianity and savage superstition are fundamentally alike: in both the god-idea has its basis in ignorance.

Socialism and Christianity, therefore, are opposites. The one arises from a knowledge and understanding of the material world and the other from ignorance of it. Socialism is based upon science, Christianity upon faith. It is the refined equivalent of savage superstition. Its ritual has features common to the Pagan and earlier savage practices with which they have a common origin. Christian-Socialism is a meaningless phrase. Yet capitalism has produced movements which claim adherence to both ideas. In the early nineteenth century, Charles Kingsley was a prominent advocate of Christian-Socialism. Kingsley’s “Socialism” expressed nothing more than a compassionate interest in the worst evils of working-class poverty. He gave no support for, and, indeed, had no conception of a social order in which class society did not exist. To the workers he was condescending, conventional and pious: he was as sincere as his Church training permitted him to be. Kingsley’s successors in the Christian-Socialist tradition conformed more or less to type. There is, however, one movement which claims deviation from the type. It is a movement within the Church of England which describes itself as the Catholic Crusade. They pose Christ as the militant and revolutionary agitator, opposed to the tyranny and oppression of his day. They claim that general acceptance of Christianity will end oppression and class society; would, in effect, bring about what Socialists are working to get: though they call it the “Kingdom of God on Earth.” It is a pretty theory and adds just one more to the countless |varieties of “true” Christianity.

But it does just not bear critical examination. The Crusaders have the usual Christian habit of giving Biblical extracts just that twist which suits their purpose. Thus they quote such excerpts from Christian writings as “He shall drag the mighty from their seat and shall exalt the humble and meek,” as though such exhortations were intended to have worldly significance. They can bear no such interpretation. To early Christians they meant nothing more than an adjustment in the next world of the inequalities and sufferings endured in the earthly life. It could not have meant adjustments in this world: for the very good reason that the world had not then reached the stage where it was ready for classless society. The idea of Socialism had not, and could not, have shaped itself in the mind of man. Any “dragging down of the mighty from their seats” might have clothed in religious form the antagonisms of the oppressed slaves of the Roman Empire for their particular ruling oppressors, but it had no connection with the idea of society organised without a ruling class. Society then could not have been organised in any other way than on a class basis. The Christian ethic was the opposite of what some of its modem unorthodox interpreters imply it to mean. It offered compensation in the “next world,” not in this one. It exalted poverty and submissiveness. The ruling class of the Roman Empire adopted it because it made the slaves more contented. With modifications it has been adopted by subsequent ruling classes. To the slave, compensation in another world was attractive, because the material conditions of this world did not show a way out of their miseries. It is different with the modern working class. The system of society in which they are the subject class, the wage-slaves, shows the material social forms through which their oppression and poverty can be ended. True working-class consciousness of its purpose is incomplete, but the unmistakable evidence that it is moulding itself is everywhere.

The duty of the Socialist is clear. The material world demands critical analysis in order that social problems are understood. The solution to those problems must be explained in unambiguous and practical fashion. Working-class problems are material; their solution, Socialism, consists of material proposals. To countenance the clothing of those proposals in the mystic garb of a dying superstition does not assist working-class understanding and would be a disservice to the Socialist movement.

Harry Waite

Letter: Crusader Magazine. (1922)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Sir,—Referring to the allusion on page 63 of the Socialist Standard to the "Crusader," will you allow me to say that Mr. Wellock, who is quoted, no longer contributes to the "Crusader," and that his withdrawal from our regular staff was due to differences on the very points raised by your contributor. The charge of inconsistency therefore fails. There is an article in our current issue in which our standpoint is made clear. Referring to a book by Maurice L. Rowntree on Social Freedom, our reviewer says :—

  "It is unfortunate, too, that once more the impressions should be given that the Social Message of Christianity rests ultimately on the teaching of Jesus instead of on the basic facts of revelation—i.e., the incarnation, sacrifice, and resurrection of Christ. When St. Paul wished to impress on his readers the need of cultivating the spirit of service he did not refer to the teaching of Jesus but to the fact that He Who was equal with God "humbled Himself and became obedient unto death." For those who regard Jesus only as a supreme prophet, Mr. Rowntree's method may seem satisfactory, but for those who hold the Christian Faith nothing less than that Faith will serve as a sufficient foundation and guide for their social programme."

It may interest your readers that Conrad Noel, Vicar of Thaxted, is now contributing to the "Crusader" his "People's Life of Jesus."

Yours sincerely,

Stanley B. James.

Reply:

Mr. James states that Wilfred Wellock, from whom I quoted, has left the "Crusader." I wrote, however, at the end of September, more than a month, I believe, before Wellock left.

I had not made a specific charge of inconsistency, but I will certainly make it now. It is inconsistent to have conflicting opinions published side by side without one or the other being accepted as an official view.

It does not seem to me that the "Personal Divinity of Christ" touches on the question of the emancipation of the working class, but the offering of Christian slave ethics to a subject class whose end can be achieved only through a bitter struggle, does touch on it—dangerously.

Incidentally, there is in a recent issue a repetition of this idea. 

  "Christians . . could become helpful critics of the trade unions. Were they alive to the ultimate and deathless realities of love, justice an equality, they would bring alert criticism from inside when material questions of wages were obscuring the spiritual question of revolution." (30th December, 1921).

The question of revolution is not a spiritual one. Its means is the wresting of political control from the Capitalist class, and its object the freeing of the workers from economic subjection. It will be met with hatred, and has nothing to do with abstract justice. The expropriation of private property will in fact be, for the present owners, a most unjust proceeding. Capitalist equality, that is, the equality before the law, of Capitalists in the exploitation of the workers, is desirable—for the exploiters. Might not right will prevail against them.

Edgar Hardcastle

Pie in the sky (2006)

Book Review from the May 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘What Price the Poor? William Booth, Karl Marx and the London Residuum’. By Ann Woodall, (Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2005)

Booth and Marx arrived in London in 1849. Their reactions to the London poor, variously referred to as “the submerged tenth”, “the dangerous class” or “the residuum” were very different. Booth, inspired mainly by evangelical Christianity in his home-town of Nottingham, set up the Salvation Army and offered them pie in the sky when they died. Yet in its early years the “Sally Army” was militant in its defence of the poor. “The Salvation Army”, Engels noted, “revives the propaganda of early Christianity, appeals to the poor as the elect, fights capitalism in a religious way, and thus fosters an element of early Christian class antagonism which one day may become troublesome to the well-to-do who now find the ready money for it”. But it never did become a problem for the well-to-do. As Roy Hattersley wrote in his biography of Booth, his social policy “was intended to ameliorate the worst features of the existing order rather than to change it”. Early the next century, in George Bernard Shaw’s play Major Barbara, the capitalist Undershaft responds to the accusation that he did not understand what the Salvation Army did for the poor: “Oh yes I do. It draws their teeth: that is enough for me as a man of business”.

Marx refereed to the residuum as the “relative surplus population” which was comprised of both the “reserve army of labour”, who could be employed, and the “lumpenproletariat” who could not. Woodall does a good job of explaining Marx’s viewpoint on the necessary role of poverty under capitalism and the revolutionary socialist alternative.

Lew Higgins

Unreasonable Faith (2001)

Theatre Review from the May 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

God Only Knows. Vaudeville Theatre, London.

A number of critics have taken against Hugh Whitemore’s new play, a thriller set in Italy which questions the basis of Christian belief. They argue that Whitemore doesn’t handle the thriller elements well, and that he has loaded the dice in favour of the atheist.

I found myself, not for the first time, very much in the minority. I thought the play compelling and intelligent, and if the narrative line depends upon the telephone failing mysteriously, then I think it fair to say that such mishaps are at the heart of many/most thrillers. Indeed judged by, for example, the naïve standards of The Mousetrap—Agatha Christie’s murder mystery which is still packing them in after 50 years—Whitemore’s text is Olympian in its sophistication. And crucially, I just don’t accept that the debate about belief and Christianity is managed in a one-sided fashion. Rather I would argue that if audiences have occasion to wonder about their own beliefs as they leave the theatre, this is because, unusually, the sceptic’s position has been examined scrupulously, fairly and reasonably comprehensibly.

The plot is simple. Four British holiday-makers playing an Italian version of monopoly in their rural retreat in deepest Tuscany, are surprised when after the sounds of a nearby car crash they are confronted by a bleeding Englishmen, played by Derek Jacobi, wearing pyjamas and bedroom slippers., Jacobi says he is an academic who is being employed by the Vatican to scrutinise an obscure archive and that, following a cocktail party, he was handed a 2000-year-old document which shows that the resurrection of Christ never happened. When his employers discovered this, Jacobi claims that he was drugged and forcibly detained in hospital. He escapes by stealing the keys of the car belonging to a central heating engineer, and is being pursued across Italy by agents of the church and state, who are fearful that he might reveal that Christianity is a gigantic fiction.

Perhaps the story seem comically implausible. But when Jacobi tells us about the evidence found in the document and uses this to demolish the substance of Christianity, his actions, and those of his pursuers, become increasingly credible. And the four holiday-makers wonder, “Has he escaped from a lunatic asylum or might he be telling the truth?” The dramatic events at the end of the play point to the latter rather than the former conclusion.

Socialists will find the play interesting as the following examples might confirm.

Amongst the “evidence” supposedly offer in the document is mention of the realisation, by the Roman state, that there might be mileage in supporting one of their critics whose particular message is that people should “love their enemies”. A perceptive politician suggests to Pilate that they should encourage the Jews forming around Jesus, and then arrange to fabricate his resurrection after he is crucified. (Normally the custom was to leave crucified corpses hanging until they were eaten by birds, but on this occasion permission was given for the body to be placed in a tomb.) The resurrected Jesus—a Galiliean who looked like the dead man and was bribed to impersonate Jesus—wasn’t recognised at first. People thought he was an angel or a gardener. The resurrection is crucial to Christian belief. At St Paul has it, “If Christ is not risen, then our faith in vain.”

Explaining why Christianity became such a popular cult the Jacobi character offers:

  “In the early days, the Jesus cult had a great sense of urgency. When the first Christians spoke of a Kingdom to Come, they weren’t talking about some event in the far distant future, but something that was going to happen in the next few weeks—months at most. They believed that the end of the world was sell and truly Nigh. People became Christians because they were scared. Also—wonderful simplicity. There were so many cults, so many different gods—Christianity swept all that away. One God—one road to salvation and life everlasting.”

But the moment I enjoyed most was when the nature of “faith” was analysed and evaluated. The Jacobi character questions its utility:

  “Would you give cash in advance to a man who promised to meet you on the street corner with a brand new Rolls-Royce? Do you have faith or . . . do you tell him to bugger off and find some other sucker?”

And later:

  “It says in the dictionary that faith is unquestioning confidence. Is that something to be admired? Is it? Not in my book it isn’t. It sounds like plain stupidity . . . The door opens and in walks Jesus. ‘I’ve died but here I am again.’ It seems a perfectly reasonable response to day ‘prove it’ . . . What’s so blessed about unquestioning evidence? . . . People still go in believing in astrology, in statues that weep, alien abduction, Our Lady of Lourdes, scientology, mystical stigmata and the whole wretched farrago of fairy tales and wishful thinking . . .”

Wonderful stuff, full of insight and humour.

Michael Gill