Letter: Jesus Christ! — monetary justice? (1994)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Jesus Christ! — monetary justice?

Dear Editors,

Scorpion claims, in your August issue, that the Bishop of Birmingham "should be coming out against the market in its entirety and not just its application to one of the necessities of life”. But one has to start somewhere; and the NHS. which we use in times of great need, is as good as anywhere.

You yourself, re Tony Blair, suggest that he is "Christian maybe, but socialist never. He openly supports the market economy and all that goes with it". I point out that Christians worship Jesus who said "Lend expecting no return" (Luke 6.35), in accordance with Old Testament precepts against usury (Exodus 22.25, Leviticus 25.36. Deuteronomy 23.19, Nehemioh 5.7-12, Psalm 15.5, Ezekiel 18.8-17 and 22.12).

Now there are markets and markets; and there may be room for one conducted justly. Some local "LETS" schemes aim at this. It is clear to us in the Christian Council for Monetary Justice (CCMJ) that the capitalist system which has evolved over recent centuries is at variance with Christian ethics; but the churches have largely lost sight of this since the last "top-level" denunciation of usury was made in an encyclical of Pope Benedict XIV in 1745.

The traditional teachings about commerce were endorsed by public opinion until self-assertiveness increased at the Reformation, and Calvin offered a limited acceptance of lending money at interest. This put Europe on a slippery slope, with profound consequences. Moneylending became attractive, and the banks gradually developed the practice of lending more money than had been deposited with them, thus acquiring a private monopoly of credit (or money) creation. Rich men who invested in industries based on the new technologies of coal, textiles, steel and steam-power extorted similar unearned incomes whilst they kept wages at semi-starvation level. Now money and shares have lost their physical meaning as tokens of value; but public acquiescence, fostered by the "haves", lets the rich use them to stay rich in a hungry world. Their "riches are corrupted", their "gold and silver” is "cankered” (Epistle of James 5.2-

3) 

(Coun) Frank McManus, 

Todmorden.

Reply:

We can't argue at this level since we don’t regard the bible as holy writ and so don't regard what it says (even when it doesn't say contradictory things) on any particular issue as authoritative.

We are aware that at one time Christianity did condemn the taking of interest on loans but abandoned this with the coming of capitalism, as is well documented in R.H. Tawney's Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. For us, this is a striking confirmation of the materialist conception of history which sees ideologies, such as ethics, religion and philosophy, as reflecting the economic basis of society — and of course capitalism could not function without banks acting as financial intermediaries between those with idle money and those needing funds to invest in production and the exploitation of wage-labour for surplus value. So Christianity had to adapt or perish. This is what the Protestant Reformation was all about, and eventually — a century or so late, as ever — the Catholic Church too followed suit and adapted to the new economic and social reality. To want to impose the old Christian anathema against usury on capitalism today is. in the literal sense of the term, reactionary.

Incidentally, acting as financial intermediaries is all banks can do. They re-lend money that has been deposited with them and make their profits out of the difference between the rate of interest they charge borrowers and what they pay depositors.

The illusion that banks can lend more money than has been deposited with them arose from the fact that they had to hold as cash only a small proportion of the money deposited with them, since experience had shown that on average over a given period depositors were only liable to want to withdraw a small proportion of the total amount deposited. The rest was available for re-lending as short- or long-term loans.

A "cash ratio" of 10 percent does not mean that a bank can lend nine times the amount deposited; it means that it has to hold only 10 percent of the amount deposited as non-interest bearing, ready cash. If banks really could lend more than has been deposited with them as Councillor McManus asserts, and so create wealth out of nothing, then this would be a miracle to rival turning water into wine or feeding the five thousand. 

Editors.

Observations: Hooked on the opium of the people (1986)

The Observations Column from the September 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whatever Marx's description of religion — "the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the soul of soul-less conditions. It is the opium of the people", most religious people would probably deny that they are oppressed or live in soul-less conditions. But there is obviously something missing (even if it is only logic) from the lives of people who will go to great pains to live their lives in the way that is approved by their particular god, but will never be able to explain just what god is. or why he should be so concerned about the use of contraceptives by catholics, or why it is so imperative that muslims and jews slaughter their animals by slitting the throat and letting them bleed to death.

In an attempt to make some sense of the Christian faith, the Bishop of Durham has probably come as close as anyone to telling us what god is:

We are faced with the claim that God is prepared to work knock-down physical miracles in order to select a number of people into the secret of his incarnation, resurrection and salvation. but is not prepared to use such methods in order to deliver from Auschwitz, prevent Hiroshima, overcome famine or bring about a bloodless transformation of apartheid. Such a God is surely a cultic idol.

(From a speech to the York Meeting of the General Synod - 6 July 1986)

Understandably, the bishop is out of favour with some of his colleagues who prefer not to mention these contradictions in god's character. This is not the only thing rocking the boat in the Church of England at the moment. Another problem that the hierarchy are wrestling with is whether women should be able to become priests. This should be much easier to solve however. The Bible itself gives clear guidance on this - 1 Corinthians 14. verses 34-35:

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the Church.

Another rather sexist passage, which Margaret Thatcher, as a Christian, will have read, is I Timothy 2. verses 11-14:

Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a women to teach, not usurp authority over the man. but to be in silence For Adam was first formed, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Christianity of course does not have the monopoly on nastiness, racism and sexism. The Koran also has its fair share. For a religion which claims to teach universal brotherhood. it's hard to see what the angel Gabriel was getting at when he passed on this, from Surah V. verse 51:

O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for friends. They are the friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.

"Opium of the People" is possibly a more appropriate description than Marx intended. The junkies of religion who graduate to the stage where they are taking regular injections of this kind of mind blowing salvation share the symptoms of the heroin and the crack addict. Both realise that they have been hooked but have no desire to escape from the power that has gradually taken over their lives. Indeed, they both look for hope for the future in a never-ending supply of their own particular drug.

Nick White

The waiting game (1985)

From the December 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Millions of people, young and old. are waiting with baited breath. In October, we had the annual farce of the party conferences, where the rhetoric of failure was spouted from various seaside resorts. Now it is the turn of the great politician in the sky. With Christmas and the New Year almost upon us once again, the Christian god will no doubt be looking towards his (or her) 1.986th successive term of unelected office (this makes Thatcher s ambition pale into insignificance). What might this "god" have in store for us in the coming twelve months? A few more tens of millions of people starving to death as in previous years, because their need is not visible as cash demand in the market? A bit of nuclear conflict, perhaps, to sort out which gang of bosses are world champions?

Of course, it is only fair to point out that this "god" is far less powerful than many of his most prized creations down below. Millions of people persist in keeping well away from church every Sunday. They are not struck down by lightning as a result; they just have a bit longer in bed. But if one of those people decides to stay in bed on a Monday morning as well, they would soon feel the consequences. As a direct outcome of this intimidation by our fellow mortals, thousands of infidels can be seen flocking without fail every Monday morning towards the altars of profit, which have been erected to honour the names and the bank accounts of our earthly bosses.

Once a year, however, things are different. We enter the season of good will. Overcome by an irresistible wave of generosity towards their wage-slaves, employers sometimes even lose all touch with reality and buy their class enemy a meal! And that is the season we all wait for. the time of year when strangers kiss each other in Trafalgar Square (as long as they have drunk themselves into a stupor first).

People will be wrapping up presents, cooking cakes and organising parties. Desperate efforts will be made to over-eat and drink in order to make up for the rest of the year. And then, after weeks of waiting, and with the hang-over still throbbing, it occurs to you that there are just 364 days left . . . till the end of 1986. In the meantime, we can look forward to the Spring and Summer. Having got back from a "package" holiday which seems designed to encourage us to want to get back to work again, we can tell ourselves that it wasn't half bad. and start to look forward to Christmas time again.

This pattern of constantly "looking forward" to a time which will be an improvement on the present moment has its counterpart in looking back on the "good old days", and is deeply ingrained in present- day society. At school, the whole day is made up of waiting for the next bell to ring, bringing 4 o'clock a bit closer. Each time 4 o'clock comes, it brings the end of term one day nearer. This applies as much to most teachers as it does to most school children. And the discipline of school is intended, of course, as a preparation for the regimentation of employment. The cliché is quite right: only outside of the work-place can you say that "your time is your own".

Take, for example, a couple of conversations I overheard recently. Firstly, a woman who had been chatting to a "check-out” assistant (that is. a person forced into the socially pointless task of being an appendage to a cash-register) left the shop with the friendly comment. "Hope your day goes quickly!" Is it not a profound condemnation of what capitalism has done to work that this is the best we can wish for one of our fellow workers?

Then, as we were surfacing slowly from the depths of the Angel tube station in Islington, the lift-attendant whose job is to escort passengers up and down all day, like day-trips to hell which the damned even have to buy tickets for, bewildered the passengers by actually saying something. (They thought he was only supposed to push buttons and throw away their tickets for them.) Looking at his watch, he sighed: "That's another day gone. Maybe one day money will fall from the sky". After a moment's embarrassed silence somebody rather stupidly told the attendant who had made this remark that he would do the same job even if he won the pools, as it was quite interesting by the look of it. Imagine what it would be like to have to stay in one of those lifts after each successive batch of people has rapidly exited, and you will see in what bad taste this joke was made.

The point, however, had once again been made: our daily conditions of work make the majority dread the start and yearn for the end of every day. and likewise of every year. Of course, if there were a genuine community of interests and work were organised democratically, its conditions being arranged by those doing it. then many of the tasks which are today regarded as menial and unpleasant could become a positive pleasure in themselves. Guiding people around stores where they could have access to food and so on (without the hated cash registers existing to ration that access) would become a pleasant task, as would the operation of good transport facilities, including lifts. At the moment, however, the majority are cut off from ownership of industry, agriculture, transport and communications, so that we have little or no say in how our working lives are organised. We are the tools of production rather than its masters, and the only consolation we can seek is to wait for the evening, the weekend, for Christmas . . .

The child who has the honesty to ask why it can't be Christmas all the year round deserves an honest answer. The answer is that if Christmas means a brief rest from the strain and stress, the tensions and pressures which are inflicted on the working class by the rest of the capitalist calendar, then it could indeed be Christmas all the year round.

In the words of the 1911 Socialist Party pamphlet on Socialism and Religion, religion is the "paralysing hand of the dead past upon the living present". Socialism, on the other hand, means the working-class majority taking history into our hands for the first time, and re-organising society on the basis of production to satisfy human needs directly and freely, rather than production to serve the needs of the market, for the profit of a minority. On this basis, and by democratic political action, we can create a real community of interests world-wide, which will show up such ideas as the "public" good expressed through the state to have been mere con-tricks to mask the vicious self-interest of a propertied few.

If we as workers are going to liberate ourselves from the system in which a privileged class own and control the means of human survival, the productive machinery (as well as the means of human destruction), we must first throw off the trammels of religious thought. Religion has always preached submission in one form or another, as it emerged historically at a primitive stage in humanity's mental evolution. Sometimes. sandwiched between Morecambe and Wise and The Poseidon Adventure on Christmas day, Thora Hird suddenly pops up out of nowhere and tells us to remember what it's all in aid of. At first, you get confused and think that she's standing in for Bob Geldof. But let's take up her suggestion, and glance at some of the offensive and authoritarian nonsense which it is all in aid of.

First, we must get out the sack-cloth and ashes, or whatever other perversion takes your fancy, in order to "be clothed with humility" (1 Peter, 5:5). Women in particular must, of course, bear in mind, that as far as the Bible and Christianity are concerned, they are intrinsically inferior beings. The Old Testament pulls no punches either: Exodus 22.18 states that "You shall not permit a sorceress to live". This one statement alone has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent women during the Middle Ages, to say nothing of the thousands tortured to death over questions of interpretation. (Don't forget, this is all part of "god's plan".) Above all. however, consider the key clause in the Christian "Declaration of Principles": 

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

(Romans 13: 1.2)

This is a clear blue-print and defence of every murderous dictatorship which has stalked the earth in past and present, and yet there are still those absurd enough to refer to themselves as "Christian socialists" as if this incompatibility between social democracy and the ultimate defence of dictatorship were a minor quibble.

Finally, it seems that the "divinely-inspired" authors of the Bible were not great fans of the pop-charity business. Jesus Christ is supposed to have had a far simpler approach than Geldof to mopping up the poverty and suffering which property has generated for those who do not possess it. His answer to the starving? "Go to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up. and when you open its mouth you will find a silver coin." (Matthew, 17:27). Very handy.

And what is it that we are actually supposed to be celebrating on the 25th? According to Matthew 1:20. a bloke called Joseph got married to a woman called Mary, and found that she had become pregnant, even though her marriage to him personally had not been consummated. He "resolved to divorce her quietly", which would be quite understandable under the circumstances. "But," the story continues, "as he considered this, behold, an angel of the lord appeared to him in a dream . . In other words, in a fit of jealous despair he allowed wishful thinking to convince him that whoever had got his wife pregnant so soon after their wedding was obviously no ordinary guy. in fact he was called "the Holy Spirit" and had a bit of a reputation in the local, so that was that.

It is fitting that the whole Christian religion is based on a dream. This time round, whilst waiting for the Queen's Speech (certainly the highlight of Christmas TV entertainment). why not think about giving up all of these dreams? In fact, we need to get rid of a social system which makes us want to dream the whole time. After all. if we need to dream so much about what things could be like, or were like, or will be like, what does that tell us about what things are like?

Clifford Slapper

The Idle Parsons Bless the Busy Soldiers. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I come not to send peace but a sword.—Matt. X. 34.

“Peace and goodwill towards all men” is thought, by some to be the watchword of the Christian Church. The Church which is the organisation, above all else, claiming to be the Party of peace and the promoter of better relations between man and man. Nineteen hundred years have passed since their creeds were established and yet almost the whole of “Christian” civilisation is embroiled in deadly war. Verily, it is said the Church is paid by the ruling class to do the work of the rich, for we find the parasitic parsons to-day praising and defending what is undoubtedly the most mercenary massacre which ever stained the pages of history. Every section of the Christian faith adds its blessing to this savagery.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Anglican Church, who gets £15,000 per year to preach the “Gospel of love,” said (“Standard,” August 25th):

“So far as I can see, our conscience as a Christian State and people, is as regards this war, wholly and unchallengeably clear. We might, I suppose, for a time have stayed outside the arena, but to have stayed outside at this time would, as I understand it, have been at the cost of England’s honour, at the cost of England's chivalry to weakened peoples, at the cost of England’s faithfulness to her plighted word. Could any of us for the sake of avoiding war have asked God’s blessing upon our reticence ? . . . It was not in quiet and peaceful times that Christian heroes like Henry Lawrence Havelock or Gordon bore an undying message which will live while England stands.”

The awful cant and hypocrisy about “England's honour” and “England’s chivalry” is well taken if we recall how the tiny Boer Republics were treated, the deeds of valour amongst the Indians and Egyptians and nearer home in the ” Emerald Isle.”

St. Paul’s Cathedral is the Mecca of modern Christians and the Canon of the Cathedral, therefore, was sought for his attitude. This is what Canon Alexander said (“Standard,” Aug. 25th, 1914):

“At this, one of the greatest crises of the world’s history, we could not pray for success, we could not look up in simple trust and confidence to God, unless our hands were clean, unless we were convinced that our cause is just. It is God’s leading that we are following now.

“War is the instrument through which God is working out His own purpose. It is Him we are called upon to serve and if we are faithful and loyal and true, He will bring us, in the language of the scripture, “through fire and water,” “out into a wealthy place.”

“Trust in God and keep your powder dry” was the famous charge of Oliver Cromwell to his Ironsides, and to-day Lord Kitchener has struck the same note in advising each member of the force he has sent out that “the first duty of a soldier is to fear God . . . God holds in his hands the issue. Fortunately the strikes and troubles that existed here are settled now. Classes are united. Rich and poor alike are shoulder to shoulder in a righteous cause and in this we see God working out our salvation.”

The Roman Catholic Church is, of course, in the same position as their Anglican confreres in crime. Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster, states his views thus (“Standard,” August 22nd, 1914):

“War cannot itself be a sin, since God Himself has actually commanded war on many occasions and even aided His own people to obtain the victory by miraculous means. It is quite certain that God cannot at any time have done or commanded anything sinful. Moreover, in the New Testament the profession of arms ia treated as a perfectly legitimate one ; special favour was shown to the officers of the Roman army (Luke VII, 2, 10). St. John the Baptist, far from advising soldiers to abandon their calling, urged them to be careful to observe military discipline (Luke III, 14), and our Lord not only foretold the coming of war in the future (Matt XII, 36); but declared that he came “not to bring peace but a sword,” and we are told in the Apocalypse (XII, 7) that there was war even in heaven.”

Such an authority for war has rarely been surpassed by the followers of the meek and lowly Nazarene.

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Salford also agrees as to the divine origin of the war for he says (same paper) :

“The war is the result of the sins and passions of men; it is the great scourge used by the Almighty to chastise the sins of the world.”

The Nonconformist Conscience has also been appealed to and the Pastor of Westminster Chapel, the Rev. G. Campbell-Morgan, blesses the wholesale butchery in these words (same paper):

“I preach peace at all seasons, but with regard to the course of Great Britain in the present great conflict, I have changed my views because I believe that my fellow-countrymen are pursuing the only honourable course open to them by upholding the cause of a small nation, upon which all the horrors of a ruthless invasion have been forced. … I am certain that Great Britain has been drawn into the present strife by the highest and noblest of emotions. . . We are thankful to God for the readiness of the sons of the nation to go forth upon their stern duty.”

Even the Quaker testifies for the “Fatherland and the Flag.” E. B. Sprigg, of the Society of Friends, asked by the “Standard” (19.8,14), says:

“The action of Great Britain on embarking on her present adventure in Europe is probably a righteous one.”

Westminster Abbey is the home of kings and from this shrine the voice of Canon Westlake speaks a good word for the war. His views appear in the “Standard” for August 18th:

“I cannot think there is any negation of Christian principles in a Christian people going to war … In the present instance we find Great Britain, Belgium, France and Russia resisting warlike aggression on the part of other nations, and their cause is therefore a righteous one. Great Britain could not have kept out of the conflict and retained her honour.” After quoting from the Bible he goes on to say: “This sanction of the sword by the Christian Religion is borne out by the fact that the old Bishops of the Church were warriors, and often rode into the fight with the armies. Then again, there is the blessing of flags and arms, which is a religious ceremonial, and the appointment of Chaplains of fighting regiments. This indicates that the Church gives its sanction to war.”

Cottonopolis must, of course, get its religious representative’s blessing and hence Bishop Weldon, Dean of Manchester, writes thus “Standard, August 27th, 1914):

“The soldiers of the King stand in need of prayer so that by their conduct, as by their courage, they may show themselves worthy of their Christian native land.”

The Dean of Ripon informs the “Standard” readers that “the Lord is on our side,” having undoubtedly received a private wire, uncensored.

Numerous others of the “Black Squad” could be quoted in the same strain for the Church is doing its work well.

It is, of course, quite incidental that many of the dignitaries of the Christian faith have shares in the armament firms who live on war and war scares. The Bishop of Kensington, for instance, is listed as a shareholder in the International armour plate ring known as the Harvey United Steel Co. The Bishop of Chester is a shareholder in Vickers, the International firm whose works at Fiume supplied Austria with torpedoes to be used against the marines the dear bishop blesses. The Bishop of Hexham is a shareholder in Armstrong Whitworths, which belonged to the world combine of armament manufacturers in company with Krupps. The Bishop of Newcastle is another shareholder in Vickers, whilst that bitter and outspoken enemy of Socialism, Dean Inge of St. Paul’s, is a shareholder both in Armstrong’s and Vickers. The Bishop of Newport is a shareholder in John Brown & Co., and the President of the Free Church Councils, Sir J. Compton Rickett, owns 3,200 shares in John Brown & Co., and 2,100 shares in Cammell Laird, the two famous firms in the death trade.

Rumour has it that these eminent Christian firms do not spend all their time “beating swords into ploughshares” but that report is, of course, untrue.

Space does not allow of any more names, but those given are sufficient to show the material interest of these “Ambassadors of Christ.”

Well does the Nonconformist “British Weekly” declare “United, we stand,” for the parsons and plutocrats hang together lest other things happen. When the war heat has passed away for a time, we can imagine a banquet in honour of the Church and the spokesman of Capitalism blessing it, with the words : “Well done ! thou good and faithful servant.”

Adolph Kohn

Holy Smoke (2011)

The Halo Halo! column from the September 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1933 the Nazis attempted to obliterate what they saw as anti-German thinking with a book burning campaign. Fortunately ideas are not so easily killed off and book burning as a form of censorship was abandoned. Or so we thought. Then earlier this year along came the wacky Florida pastor, Terry Jones, who decided that the thoughts of a non-existent god in the Koran were a threat to the thoughts of his own non-existent god – and rectified the situation by burning the Koran.

Now another Christian preacher in Wales, the Rev Geraint ap Iorwerth, has been at it too. In a novel twist though he’s not been burning the Koran, or even the works of Marx and Engels. He’s been cutting out and burning the bits of the bible that he doesn’t like.

It’s true there is some nasty stuff in the King James bible. Particularly those bits justifying mass murder and slavery, and advising on the treatment of women. The Rev ap Iorwerth’s boss, however, the Bishop of Bangor, who presumably believes that God knows what he is talking about, is not impressed with the good Reverend‘s actions. “It’s not given to us to pick and choose. Sometimes the most challenging parts are those we need to wrestle with most”.

Well, good luck with that Bishop. We don’t have room for many suggestions, but how about getting stuck into the following. God’s view on genocide for example. Despite telling us “Thou shalt not kill” his instructions on how to deal with the Amalakites was “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” (1 Samuel. 15. 3).

His instructions on how to deal with ‘prophets and dreamers’ of other gods. “Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.” (Deuteronomy 13. 8-9).

God’s advice on purchasing slaves. “Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever”. (Leviticus 25.44-46).

And what to do if a woman is not a virgin when she marries. “Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.” (Deuteronomy 22.21).

So much for a loving God. The Rev ap Iorwerth must have had one hell of a bonfire.

Nick White

Halo Halo (2024)

The Halo Halo! column from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard 

As Horace Walpole said, ‘This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.’ Rationalists find plenty within religion as a whole to occasion mirth, with some individual ones especially capable of producing belly laughs. But there are times when it’s very hard to echo Eric Idle’s exhortation at the end of Life of Brian to always look on the bright side of life.

Michael Palin said this about the 1979 television debate about the controversial film:

‘He (Bishop of Southwark) began, with notes carefully hidden in his crotch, tucked down well out of camera range, to give a short sermon, addressed not to John or myself but to the audience… He accused us of making a mockery of the work of Mother Teresa, of being undergraduate and mentally unstable. He made these remarks with all the smug and patronising paraphernalia of the gallery-player, who believes that the audience will see he is right, because he is a bishop and we’re not’.

American bible-bashers continue to press for their fantasies to be imposed upon children within public schools:

‘At a curriculum committee meeting school board Director Jordan Blomgren requested that “both sides” should be presented to students about evolution and climate change, stunning onlookers. ‘My question always comes down to the content,’ said Blomgren, who is also a teacher. ‘Like, you know [the] Earth’s been around for billions of years. Are you talking about both creation and evolution, like just having both… making sure that we’re showing both sides.’ A mother said “My kids are heavy into STEM, I don’t want them to be ill-prepared because Jordan wants to take up space complaining about fossils. I really don’t want my kids to be taught creationism. That’s for a Christian school, not a public school”’ (Buckscountybeacon.com 5 June).

They don’t give up, do they? Oklahoma’s top education official has ordered all public schools in the state to teach the Bible and the Ten Commandments to their students, a move that critics claim violates the US Constitution:

‘He called the Bible ‘one of the most foundational documents used for the Constitution and the birth” of the United States. It is a necessary “historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country, to have a complete understanding of Western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system”. Every classroom in Oklahoma from grades five to 12 must have a Bible, and all teachers must teach from the Bible in the classroom.’

‘Requiring a Bible in every classroom does not improve Oklahoma’s ranking of 49th in education,’ State Representative Mickey Dollens said in a statement. ‘The state superintendent should focus on educating students, not evangelizing them.’

‘The Oklahoma directive comes a week after the governor of Louisiana signed a law ordering all public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms.’

It’s August. Time to start buying those Chrisfest baubles now appearing in a store near you.

DC

Halo, Halo! (2024)

The Halo Halo Column from the May 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Social media shorthand SMH means ‘shakes my head’. When the German Hindenburg airship caught fire landing in New Jersey in 1937 the radio commentator cried out, ‘oh, the humanity!’ The current seventh-century rulers of Afghanistan cause both of those reactions. The Telegraph, 25 March, reports that a Mullah there has declared, ‘we will soon implement the punishment for adultery. We will flog women in public. We will stone them to death in public.’ Words fail.

*****

Fulcrum7.com in a book review says the author posits the ridiculous theory that Noah carried dinosaurs onto the Ark as juveniles or even as eggs. Because obviously think of the space a pair of eighty-foot dinosaurs would take up! The reviewer says, rubbish! Well of course. That’s like the old comedy routine where someone claims to have two lions, a giraffe and an elephant in a shoebox they’re carrying. The reviewer then says, ‘I believe the dinosaurs were among the “confused species”, which were the result of genetic engineering and one of the reasons for the Flood was to destroy those animals’. Words fail.

*****

In June 1812 Napoleon Bonaparte and his French army invaded Russia. In 1812 Mary Anning and, initially, her brother dug the skeleton of an unknown seventeen-foot-long creature from the cliffs of Lyme Regis. Now it’s known that it was the skeleton of an ichthyosaur from the Jurassic period. Mary Anning was aged twelve when she discovered this.

With hindsight, which of those two events was the most important? It’s not known if this is one of the animals that the Flood failed to destroy.

Mary Anning and her family were avid fossil harvesters selling their finds to tourists. Oxford professor William Buckland teamed up with Mary. Peal writes that Buckland was a committed Christian who had difficulty in reconciling Mary’s finds with Bible stories. To maintain his delusion Buckland said that the skeleton must have come there as a result of the Flood.

Mary also discovered a plesiosaur and a pterodactyl. She is quoted as saying that, ‘great men of learning had taken advantage of her.’ ‘They ‘sucked her brains’ of her knowledge, and stole the glory of her discoveries for themselves’ (Meet the Georgians, Robert Peal, 2021,).

*****

The protagonist sees a group of flagellants in St James’s Park. He converses about it with his chauffeur who says; ‘I find it ridiculous. If God exists and He’s decided He’s had enough of us, He isn’t going to change his mind because a rabble of no-hopers dress up in yellow and go wailing through the park.’

‘Do you believe He exists?

‘Perhaps His experiment went spectacularly wrong. Perhaps He’s just baffled. Seeing the mess, not knowing how to put it right. Perhaps not wanting to put it right. Perhaps He only had enough power for one intervention. So He made it. Whoever he is, whatever He is, I hope He burns in His own Hell’ (The Children of Men, P.D. James, 1992).

DC

Letter: Jesus lived? (2002)

Letter to the Editors from the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Jesus lived?

Dear Editors,

Dear, oh dear! This journalistic rhetoric will not do. In the December Socialist Standard you say “Jesus, for whose historical existence there is no evidence”.

In the first place the Jews, who should know better than anyone, have never denied his existence. One of them, the historian Josephus (c.37 – c. 100), refers in his books to Jesus and James his brother as historical persons.

Secondly, we have the evidence of the New Testament, starting with Paul’s letters, written to established churches and dated from 50 onwards and followed by the Gospels beginning with Mark. This was written about 65-70 AD and based on earlier written and oral sources. The details of Jewish daily life given in the Gospels with regard to history, geography and religious practice agree with information supplied by contemporary non-Christian sources.

Thirdly, three Roman writers refer to Christians. They are Tacitus, describing in 64 AD the persecution of Christians by Nero, Suetonius writing in 52 and 64, and Pliny writing in c. 112. Did the first generation of Christians invent Jesus? If so, why?

Bryan Fair, 

Dorchester, Dorset

Reply: 

Saying that there is no historical evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ is not the same as saying that no person called Jesus existed. For all we know – for all anybody knows – there may well have been at least one itinerant Jewish preacher in Galilee some two thousand years ago who called himself Jesus even though, in our reviewer’s opinion, there is no concrete evidence for this. In the end, of course, it is not a matter of great importance whether or not there was an “historical Jesus” since if there was he would not have been the “Son of God”. And he wouldn’t have walked on water, turned water into wine or raised the dead either.

Those who doubt the historical existence of Jesus – and this view was pioneered not by atheists but by Protestant theologians (who else would be interested in biblical studies and have the requisite knowledge of Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic?) – would not find your evidence very convincing.

1. It is generally agreed the references in Josephus were inserted by later Christian scribes copying his work. Later Jews regarded the Christians’ Jesus as being the illegimate son of a Roman soldier.

2. Paul certainly existed and his writings are the earliest that mention the Christians’ Jesus. Which is why it is odd to say the least that they give very little detail about his life, presenting him rather as a shadowy spiritual being who sacrificed himself to save his followers.

3. Christians certainly existed but references to them by Roman historians is no more evidence that their “saviour” Jesus existed than similar references to the followers of Mithras or Dionysus is evidence that their respective “saviours” existed either.

4. Some early Christians did not regard their Jesus as having existed as a living human. See the recently published (1999) The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy for more details.

Editors

A polite reply to a Jehovah’s Witness (2023)

From the December 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Mrs J. W.

Thank you for your leaflet and discussion about your view that the answers to today’s social problems can be found by reading the Bible.

I am a member of the World Socialist Movement. I respect those Christian groups such as yourselves who, like us socialists, refuse to participate in war, and the courage of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, together with that of the Hutterites and Amish, during wartime is well known to me.

You are correct in saying that the money is there for governments to choose what to spend it on. But they don’t really have a choice. All governments are bound to put profits, and the defence of profit-making (ie, military expenditure), before people and their needs. They cannot help but do so, since the nation-state is the executive arm of the minority who own and control the world’s resources with a view to the accumulation of capital – the capitalist class. They cannot act in any other way. While the planet’s resources are monopolised by a minority of the population, the demands of profit-making will always come before the needs of people. This is why military expenditure is a priority for governments. The capitalists of each country are obliged to maintain the threat of war in the face of the cut-throat commercial competition which is capitalism. Even though the profit-system is suicidal to the capitalists themselves, and to all of us (modern warfare, including nuclear weaponry, pollution, despoliation of the Earth, etc), while the Earth remains the property of a minority ruling class this will always be the case.

What you know as the Bible consists in fact of only a tiny number of Christian texts which were chosen out of hundreds (which were destroyed) by the established clergy of the Byzantine Empire. These men would hardly be considered Christians by you, yet you take their choice among the Christian canon as your book known as the Bible today and which you call the ‘Word of God’. While burning the books of the Christians which were unacceptable to the official Orthodox Church at the time of the Council of Nicaea, these same officials who established the Bible as it is known today also burnt the Christians whose scriptures were at odds with the state-church alliance of Byzantium. So what you call the Bible is but an altered and much tampered-with fragment of a much larger body of Christian scripture, most of which has disappeared.

But that is neither here nor there for me, since I accept nothing on authority, and if some morsels of wisdom are to be gleaned from the Bible, the same is true of other books too. It is my experience, and surely yours too, that people can see in the Bible whatever they choose to see and expound accordingly. It is in the realm of the natural world and of human society and history in which we must search for the truth, not in that of ancient mythology, nor of ancient mythology rehashed to suit today’s people and their own confused imaginings.

Very many people are opposed to the state of affairs (capitalism, by whatever name they call it) prevailing today. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t give a sou to charities, yet they do. We see them reaching into their pocket frequently. Thousands of people around the world work actively in charitable organisations, and also in ecological, political organisations, anti-war associations, Red Cross and so on. Others train arduously to be nurses and doctors, earning very little money for doing so and travelling to out-of-the-way places hoping to ease the suffering of others.

All this hardly fits with the picture painted by you of ‘self-loving’ people with no natural affection, etc. In fact, everyone points to others when questioned about the world’s ills, saying ‘I would be happy to help others and do this, and establish a world of justice and goodness, but others would obstruct it’. In other words, they all point to other people (never themselves) as the reason why ‘things will never change for the better.’ As everyone tends to do this, we end up with millions apparently willing and eager to bring about a better world, but each pointing to the rest who, they all say, would ‘obstruct’ it! The picture is not one of ‘evil’ or selfishness, but of blindness toward our collective strength and power – a sense of alienation from one another which seems to leave no option but that of apathy and a timid ‘waiting for the awful end to come’ etc, … Which serves capitalism very well indeed.

And religion (all religion) assists in this cultivation of apathy and helplessness. Not so much tiny groups like yourselves, who have very little influence, but the whole perverse doctrine of an omnipotent Supreme Being who governs the universe and who urges us (by means of religious books etc) to ‘resist our evil human nature’.

Christianity especially, with its doctrine of Original Sin (today rehashed by secular conservatives as ‘human nature’ – the myth of innate evil) tells us we are helpless in the face of the social evils we have ourselves brought about. It tells us to forget about changing society (above all to forget about expropriating our masters) and set our sights on a future paradise which ‘God’ has prepared for us after death (no wonder this suited so well the Byzantine hierarchy which established the Christian Bible as a ‘holy book’! It has suited all ruling classes ever since!).

In short, religion sustains class rule, and the evils arising from it (famine, warfare, poverty and so on) by divorcing humanity itself from the possibility of real solutions. It condemns humans to prayerful, penitent, charitable acceptance of the existing order of things, and to social and political inactivity and dependence on leaders, whether clerical or secular. Because, religion says, real change is not in the power of man, but of God – that mythical Supreme Being who has ordained things as they are and in the face of which we can but kneel, pray, and try to ease suffering while we await ’His coming’. It is not our job, says religion, to root out the cause of suffering, or to take the Earth into the hands of the majority of its human inhabitants. It is not our job, says religion, because we are, basically, evil, hateful and good-for-nothing; seduced by the serpent and redeemable only through God’s will.

What an ally religion is to the capitalist class!

What an enemy and obstruction to human emancipation and self-realisation!

I have no wish to be meek. We cannot afford to be meek. Our task must be, as members of the majority working class, to expropriate the minority who own the world’s wealth and resources in the rampant interest of profit. We must organise as a class and dispossess this minority, so that, with the Earth’s resources in the hands, democratically, of us all, a society of real co-operation, a society of free access, without nation-states, without frontiers, without wars, poverty and famine, can at last be established.

Meekness is the watchword of those who would have us meek. Of those whom superstition serves, as a useful tool, for keeping us on penitential knees.

Far from happiness being provided by religion, religion occurs where real happiness is absent. Paradise in the sky is and always has been a poor substitute for real heaven on Earth. Religion is ‘… the sigh of the oppressed creature. The opium of the people.’

Sincerely yours,

A. W.

Against religion (2010)

From the November 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the first things the pope did as soon as he got off the plane was to launch into a bitter attack on “aggressive secularists” and “extremist atheists”. Here’s our reply.

The only reasonable position to adopt towards any religion is one of atheism: unbelief. There is a presumption in favour of not believing fantastic claims. It is up to the believer to present proof for the existence of God or life after death. After all, few are agnostic about Father Christmas, fairies or unicorns; we know they don’t exist. The same scepticism should also apply to the extraordinary beliefs of religion. With religious believers, however, there is a willingness to believe despite the lack of evidence. And it is this gullibility which socialists find to be dangerous and objectionable.

Of course religious believers do claim to have evidence, and they cite their holy texts as proof of the infallible word of God. But these writings contain so many contradictions and absurdities that no reasonable person can take them seriously. Traditional interpretations of the Bible, for instance, are highly selective and leave out the inconsistencies. In the Old Testament there are two different creation stories (Genesis 1-2, 4;2, 4-24) and two different versions of the Flood (Genesis 6,5-9,17). Needless to say, geological evidence does not confirm the Biblical accounts of the Earth’s age or the Earth being flooded to a depth of five miles all over its surface.

Nor do the prophecies fare any better. No unicorns or dragons have been found, as foretold (Isaiah 13,22;34,7). God promised the Jewish people that they will never lose their land (Psalms 89,3-4), that no uncircumcised man will ever enter Jerusalem (Isaiah 52,1) and that Jerusalem will always be a quiet place, undamaged by war (Isaiah 33,20).

In the New Testament Jesus is often reported as saying that the world is about to end, and that the end will come in the lifetime of his listeners (Matthew 4,17;10,23,-16,28;24,34). This is why he advocated giving away personal possessions, and forms the basis of the myth that Jesus was an early socialist. There is nothing socialist about making yourself deliberately poor in any case. Jesus is usually portrayed as peace-loving, but he also said: “Think not that I come to send peace on earth: I come not to send peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10,34). Carl Lofmark, from whom many of these examples are taken, comments in his book What is the Bible?:

“This passage has been useful to army chaplains and church leaders who have had to persuade people that they should go to war in spite of all that Jesus said about peace and forgiveness.”

But if the Bible and other religious texts are not literally true, as many theologians now accept, are they true symbolically? As with the above examples, do they have a “deeper” meaning? The trouble with this line of argument is that it is even more selective in choosing what to believe. It means turning a blind eye to the contradictions and obscenities and choosing to believe something you know is not true.

Once you have rejected the special authority of the Bible (or whatever text) as the infallible word of God, how do you know that you have interpreted the symbolism in the way the writers intended? Fundamentalists have a point when they say that this changes religion into a form of art appreciation.

Then there is morality. Many who would not describe themselves as religious will, nevertheless, have their children given religious indoctrination at school on the grounds that it will give them a moral education. In this country the law requires that Religious Education be “broadly Christian” in content. But would you want your child to be stoned to death for being disobedient, as God commands (Deuteronomy 21,18-21)? This is the morality they keep quiet about. If a husband finds that his bride is not a virgin on her wedding day, then she shall be stoned to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22,21). God instructed Moses:

“Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourself” (Numbers 31,17-18).

Not only does God give this approval of the murder and rape of children, but slavery also (Exodus 21,1-11). Jesus says that to be a true believer you must hate your mother and father and “yea, and his own life also” (Luke 14,26). For the unbeliever, “thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of they daughters” (Deuteronomy 28,53). Jesus says that anyone who does not believe him will burn forever in hell (Mark 16,16). It has frequently been said that it is a very sick morality which can punish by sending people to hell. Even Hitler and Stalin only had their victims tortured and killed and then their suffering ended, but God wants the suffering to continue – literally –- for an eternity.

Faith is the last refuge of a believer. Religious faith, however, would only make sense if what was believed in were plausible. Neither the existence of a God nor life after death are plausible, though faith in them undoubtedly offers solace to many. It can make the unbearable seem bearable. But why should an all-loving God allow so much suffering, so much pain in this world – including the so-called “Acts of God” – earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and the rest? If God really did exist, we have no reason for supposing that he cares for us.

For some in recent years religion has combined with New Age beliefs, largely at the expense of the traditional religions whose emphasis on personal guilt, sexual repression and the inferiority of women have become unacceptable. This pick and mix approach can combine elements from the New Testament, Buddhism, psychoanalysis, paganism, astrology and various other bits of the occult. So why, the, the persistence of religious belief?

The socialist analysis of religion derives from our basic materialism (not in the acquisitive sense, but how we view the production of wealth in society and the sort of ideas it gives rise to). Historical materialism traces how religions have evolved, from their beginnings in ancestor worship and private property in primitive societies, to established social institutions. Marx hit a number of nails on the head when he described the social psychology of religion:

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed, the feeling of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless circumstances. It is the opium of the people . . . The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about their condition is a demand to give up a condition that requires illusion. The criticism of religion in therefore the germ of the criticism of the valley of tears whose halo is religion.”

For the materialist, in other words, society is not really under human control and humans really are at the mercy of blind, impersonal forces – in ancient times the forces of nature, in the modern world the economic forces of capitalism. Under capitalism people feel, rightly, that they are governed by forces they can’t control but attribute this, wrongly, to forces operating from outside the world of experience. Churches of all types are then at hand for the sustaining of fear and superstition. For the socialist alternative to our lives being controlled by impersonal forces we must bring about a society in which humans consciously control the forces of production.

It is on this basis that we can say, rather than being abolished, religion can be expected to (as Engels put it in another context) “wither away”. And it can be seen that the socialist case against religion differs from the usual humanist position: there are rationalist superstitions as well as religious. For humanists, criticism of religion is a process towards the eventual “triumph of reason”. But they ignore the material circumstances which give rise to superstition:

“Consequently, in his worship of the ‘Idea’ the bourgeois freethinker is, like the Christian, attributing miraculous powers to the figments of men’s brains” (Socialism and Religion, Socialist Party pamphlet, 1911).

Capitalism has many opiates to offer the unwary. Reject the pedlars, reject the product, but above all, reject a society which can create such an unhealthy psychological dependency. On the new basis of material security and social co-operation individuals can gain a sense of meaning in their lives, and hope for a future free from the dead hand of religious belief and tradition.

 Lew Higgins

Letters: Religion and Socialism (1957)

Letters to the Editors from the October 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Views put in letters in the correspondence column do not necessarily represent the Party's attitude).

Religion and Socialism.

If the existence of religion is not enough proof for God's existence, does Mr. Jarvis hope to find any more powerful evidence than this? If so, I would like to hear it. Mr. Jarvis's own proposition, that religion could not exist without a belief in God proves this right up to the hilt. For the logic of this proposition could only mean that a belief in God determines the existence of God and religion, for without this belief neither God nor religion would exist. Now when Mr. Jarvis asked his religious opponent for further proof of God's existence, than his own boomerang proposition, I claimed he was talking in riddles. And now he asks me: “What's wrong with this?" I answer: “The logic of your own proposition." It is true that the belief in Socialism does not prove that Socialism exists, but who said it did? Socialist Parties could exist knowing full well that a Socialist society did not exist, but a God-religion could not exist while knowing full well that God did not exist. Therefore, from this it would be true to say that the Socialist believes in a society that does not exist, while the religious man, on the contrary (if belonging to the Christian or Islam religion), must believe in a God who does exist. Socialists believe that man must go through a purgatory of historical periods before he can finally reach his salvation, while the religious man believes that men could be saved in any historical period, if they carry out the will of God.

R. Smith.

Dundee

It is a sheer waste of time to discuss religion, as there are so many facets to the subject. One man says that Jesus was a poor man and condemned the rich, but the churches seem to have made a good business out of it, especially in our own time, when it is investing its assets in stocks and shares on the Stock Exchange.

I would like to know what is the value of his religious experience to us. As far as I can ascertain it consists of a confusion of ideas, much of which is illusion and wish fulfilment. Millions of people have such delusions, he says, and that may well be the case.

Surely our task is not to concentrate on dispelling illusions, but in spreading a knowledge of Socialism, for light dispels darkness, and both ignorance and illusions will fade away when enlightenment is achieved. How many people now believe that the world was created four thousand years ago, or that it is flat, and down below there is hell and up in the sky, somewhere, there is a heaven. Very few now, so why worry about illusions. Spread Socialism.

I. Flower,

Battersea.

In his letter answering John Wyatt and R. Smith on “Socialism versus Religion," H. Jarvis makes a number "of telling points, but his reference to ". . . the pacifism of the New Testament" needs some elaboration.

True, Socialists are not pacifists; that is they do not “turn the other cheek" when the employer attempts a wage reduction, neither do they tell workers to "resist not evil." But Socialists are opposed to war and violence —all wars! But what of the alleged “pacifism" of the New Testament?

Much is made by Christian pacifists of the alleged sayings of Jesus concerning the love of enemies and the blessing of peacemakers, but little or nothing is said about those sayings attributed to Jesus which are the complete opposite of these sayings, such as:

"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.” (Luke XIX, 27.)

* * *

“ Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. (Matt, x, 34.)

* * *

“ Suppose ye that 1 come to give peace on earth? 1 tell you, Nay; but rather division.** (Luke XII, 51.)

* * *

“And he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy." (Luke XXII, 36.)

* * *

And was there not war in heaven, when "Michael and his angels fought against the dragon." (Revelation, XII, 7). And have not the Christians been fighting each other, and supporting their masters' wars ever since?

So much for Christian pacifism!

Yours fraternally,

“PEN."

The Editor.

Dear Sir,—Being a subscriber to Socialist Standard, I must comment on articles in the June 1957 issue on pages 86-7.

I am a Catholic and have long been a believer in Socialism. I will remain both, despite Comrade Jarvis and others of his ilk who will confuse religious with economic and political problems.

Established Socialism would, I believe, constitute that Kingdom. He spoke of and showed us how to achieve. The lessons of His crucifixion and "popping back to life again" need not be gone into here.

To say He is admired as a “great man" is so much bull-dust. In the eyes of the world He was a weakling as a man. As St. Paul puts it: “The weakness of man is the strength of God." He condemned the "great man" idea as much as you. Such "great man" egotism as Comrade Jarvis showed in trying to make an enemy of a friendly Mr. Barr, was absent from His character. He was a friend to all and loved all, even His murderers. A lesson to be learned and an example to be followed by Socialists, Catholics, and all who hope for a better way of life.

The greatest, in my opinion, of the Holy Fathers, who, incidentally, was a father and never denied it, speaks of the ideal of owning all things in common and explains why it cannot be as yet. Namely, St. Augustine in “City of God.”

Finally, please convey comradely greetings’ to Comrade Jarvis, who, despite his total ignorance of Christianity and its message, is no doubt a good and honest worker for the common cause of humanity, albeit in vain.

Yours sincerely,

C. W. Reilly.

Harbord, 

N.S.W., Australia.

Dear Sir,—I don't know where your correspondent, Henry Myers, gets his information from, but the plain records of the Gospels state that Christ was hounded to death by the chief priests and scribes of that time. (Mark, 14-1). They paid Judas, a disciple of Christ, to betray him, and he was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Being occupied by the Romans, the scribes and chief priests had to hand Christ over to the occupying power. But the Roman Governors, Herod and Pilate, both saw that they were dealing with an innocent man and attempted to free him. The people, however, whipped into a frenzy by the church authorities, declared that Christ was not the long expected Messiah, and clamoured for his death. Can any story be plainer?

As for Mr. Myers’ contention that Christ’s last words: “Why hast Thou forsaken me?” are blasphemous, is just plain silly—besides being in bad taste, as these were the words of a dying man.

By the way, if Mr. Myers will consult a dictionary (as well as the New Testament), he will find that the word “ambiguous” means having two meanings—not necessarily untruthful.

Yours truly,

Geoffrey Sharpe,

S.E.3.

P.S.—May I add a word in favour of your correspondent, Mr. John Wyatt, who stated that the New Testament could be found to support a better economic system than our present one?

Other Letters.

Letters are in hand from C. Luff, Canada; R. L. Rhodes, Trowbridge; and D. Anderson, Glasgow.

Editorial Committee

World View: Religion, racism and class (2002)

From the August 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

The absurd claim of racism is that people’s behavioural, physical and cultural traits conform to a certain fixed and immutable pattern; and this determines the superiority or otherwise of a group in relation to others. This is an outlook that has been used to justify some of the most unspeakable and horrendous crimes against humanity, sometimes leading to killings of genocidal proportions.

In Eduardo Galegno’s Open Vein of Latin America, he recounts that before foreign conquerors set foot on the soil of the land the Indians totalled no less than 70 million. But a century-and-a-half later, they had been reduced to 3.5 million; and in 1685 only 4,000 Indian families remained of the more than two million that had once lived between Lima and Paita. Yet Archbishop Linan by Cisneros exposed how some of the church elders had perfected lies into a fine art. He said: “The truth is that they are hiding out, to avoid paying tribute, abusing the liberty which they enjoy and which they never had under the Incas.”

Racism however is flawed on a number of counts, not just for its barbarism and irrationality. Its fundamental arguments are basically weak. Where are those people who conform to racial purity, let’s say in terms of colour? You will meet a lot of dark-skinned people in Africa, but you will no doubt also come across light-skinned types in southern Africa and eastern Nigeria. How can one also argue that the Yanamani Indians or the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert are less intelligent than people in Norway or Japan. The two groups live in different material conditions, and these varied environments impose on them tasks and solutions that respond to their peculiar circumstances. In spite of the gaping loopholes in racists’ theories racism has been used together with religion to justify the enslavement of other people.

Islam, Christianity and Hinduism 

The Arabs and their Muslim counterparts, according to Dais Brion, were the first people to develop a specialised long-distance slave trade from sub-Saharan Africa. They were also the first people to view blacks as suited by nature for the lowest and the most degrading form of bondage. Rotter’s pioneering work and the research of Benard Lewis reveals that for medieval Arabs the blackness of Africans suggested sin, damnation and the devil. Arab scholars most of the time also invoked the biblical curse of Canaan to explain why the sons of Ham had been blackened and degraded to the status of natural slaves as punishment for the sins of their ancestors.

By the 10th century some Muslim writers asserted that Ham begot all blacks and people with crinkly hair and that “Noah put a curse on Ham according to which the hair of his descendants would not extend over their ears, and they would be enslaved wherever they were encountered”. Benard Lewis also quotes a 13th century Islamic historian from Iran who concluded that the Zanj (blacks) differed from animals only because their two hands are lifted above the ground and that many have observed that the ape is more teachable and more intelligent than the Zanj.

In the 17th century Father Gregorio Garcia detected “Semitic blood” in the Indians, because like the Jews, “they are lazy, they do not believe in the miracles of Jesus Christ, and they are ungrateful to the Spaniards for all the good they have done to them”. When Bartolome de Las Casas upset the Spanish court with his fiery denunciations of the conquistadors’ cruelty in 1557, a member of the Royal Council had replied that Indians were too low in the human scale to be capable of receiving the faith. Another justification for holding other people as slaves was found in Leviticus 25:44 which said, “Both they bonds-men and they bonds-maid, which thou shalt have, shall be the heathen that are round you; of them shall ye buy bonds-men and bonds-maids.” But the most popular text on the matter is found in Genesis 9:25 which says, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren.” Some slave-owners went beyond the bible arguing that it might be wrong to enslave Christians, but that the Negro was not a human being and therefore could not become a Christian. One pious lady said, when asked if her Negro maid was to be baptised, “you might as well baptise my black bitch.” While Bishop Berkeley put the same idea into philosophical language when he said, “Negroes were creaturs of another species who had no right to be included or admitted to other sacraments.”

Similarly, racist sentiments are expressed in the Rig Veda, the Hindu scriptures of ancient India. Indra, the God of the Aryans, is described as “blowing away with supernatural might from earth and from the heavens the blackskins, which Indra hates”. The account further reports how Indra “slew the flat-nosed barbarians, the dark people called Anasahs. Finally, after Indra conquers the land of the Anasahs for his worshippers, he commands that the Anasahs are to be flayed of (their) black skin.”

The first distinctive feature to be noted in religion and racism is their appeal to a two-category system which presupposes a basic division of mankind into an “in” group and an “out” group. In addition, this fundamental division is supported, initiated and sanctioned by God himself. God has a special concern for the “in” group, and it receives his sustaining aid and grace. By contrast he is indifferent or hostile to the “out” group. In the final analysis God does not value all men equally, consequently he treats them differently. And this difference is not accidental but central to his will and purpose. The two-category system is correlated with an imbalance of suffering in which the “out” group suffers more than the rest of the people. In the account of the Rig Veda, for example, we know that God has less affection for the Anasahs because they suffer more than the Aryans. It is also evident from holy books like the bible and the Rig Veda that God’s favour or disfavour is correlated with the racial or ethnic identity of the group in question. God’s wrath and hostility are sometimes even directed at the physical features of a particular ethnic or racial community.

In the bible Yahveh often sides with the Israelites in the murderous campaigns to grab land from the Jebusites, Canaanites, Philistines, Amalekites in the same way that he was used to justify colonialism. Similarly in African traditional religion the God of a particular ethnic group assists it to overcome its enemies and brings prosperity to the “in” group. It stands to reason that whilst there is no rock-solid evidence to support the claim that God created man, there is enough justification in the materialist assertion that God is an invention of man. This is grimly illustrated by the fact that while Saddam Hussein was calling on God to help the Iraqis in the Gulf War, George Bush was doing the same thing. No God caused the death of the young men who were slaughtered; but the misguided beliefs and the greed of the ruling class.

Production and production relations 

Consequently the “out” and “in” scheme of analysis has nothing to do with God. It is a manifestation of the concrete and material world of humans reflected in their consciousness in the process of the production and distribution of wealth. Ultimately, production and production relations determine the ideas individuals have about themselves as a group, and about society at large in matters of morality, religion, metaphysics, etc. And it is only when we have identified and understood the material assets and constraints of a society, how it produces goods to meet its material needs, how the goods are distributed, and what type of social organisation sprouts from the organisation of production that we would have come a long way to understanding the culture and religious views of that society.

If the production relations are such that makes it possible for a minority to appropriate the end-product of the labour of the majority the views of the minority become the dominant ones in society, whilst the opinion of the majority are suppressed. The ownership of the means of production is thus important in understanding people’s perception of social phenomena – religion, philosophy, art etc. Bearing this in mind, we shall find that religious perceptions in any class-divided society are not neutral, but a tool in the hands of the dominant class in its struggle to maintain its control over economic surplus. Religious and all manner of spurious ideological theories are contrived by the ruling class or its representatives in the intellectual community and church organisations to keep the downtrodden perpetually entrapped in the vicious circle of exploitation.

As children in a predominantly Catholic community, we used to be told that God was surrounded by a host of angels with archangels. God was the boss and each angel and archangel had a specific assignment to perform in heaven. This was a world-view that sought to give blessing to the master-servant relationship that existed in the feudal era and class society in general.

Some quotations in the bible are also anti-worker if applied in today’s circumstances. Take for instance the saying, “But I say unto you, that ye resist no evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy cheek, turn to him the other also.” I suppose that when the Accountant General’s Office slashed as much as a 100,000 cedis from my salary in March, I should have responded: “Please my Lordship why are you so generous with me? Take 400,000 cedis more.” This would have been submissiveness stretched to its idiotic limits, and an invitation to exploitation and despotism. It could mean an acceptance of wage slavery, a system that is inimical to working people’s interests.

The New Testament also advises us to despise and deprecate worldly things in lieu of heavenly rewards. What would this mean for those who have already made material gains here on Earth? If people like Bill Gates are also God-fearing they would have a double reward; one on Earth and the other in heaven, whilst the God-fearing poor will have only one. As for the poor who are not God-fearing the extent of their loss and damnation is inestimable. The end result of these teachings if employed in a class society makes the working people docile and facilitates their exploitation by the owning class.

Convenient smokescreen

But this is not all. It also calls forth the other forms of alienation which are not strictly economic, but are organically linked to it. It is important to note that racism and religion tend to elevate the culture and other virtues of the dominant class; and denigrate that of the oppressed. But the class character of this domination especially becomes difficult to unmask if the oppressor class has a different racial background from the oppressed, as was the case during the heady days of apartheid and colonialism. Skin pigmentation and other physical characteristics subsume the class dimension of the problem, and exploitation is seen through the binoculars of race. One therefore develops a superiority or inferiority complex, depending on one’s physical traits; and the fundamental issue which is class exploitation is lost. Given these circumstances racism becomes a convenient smokescreen with which the ruling class masks its exploitation of labour. Eventually the attention of the working class is diverted from the real causes of its predicament; and a section of it becomes a pliant tool of the ruling class in its attempt to entrench the capitalist system.

The effect on that section of the working class which does not share similar physical characteristics with the owning class is to deny itself as different from the dominant class. It identifies and shares the convictions, doctrines and other attitudes of the dominant class which oppresses it. Guilt and an inferiority complex promoted by the dominant class and imbibed by the oppressed become the result of this process. Consequently the attempt to escape this inferiority by denying and condemning oneself becomes a lifelong struggle.

Let’s consider this for one moment. It is important to note that for many Christians, the traditional African religious individuals is superstitious and worships idols and several gods; there is only one God, though he has a son begotten by the Holy Spirit. This god is white, his angels are white; and when the saved finally go to heaven, they will wear white robes of purity. But the devil is black; his angels are black; sin itself is black and when the sinful finally go to hell, they will be burnt to black coal. It is surprising that the African converts sing in pleading terror: “Wash me Redeemer, and I shall be whiter than snow?” And is it any wonder that some Africans buy skin-bleaching creams to lighten their dark skins? Is it also surprising that so-called educated and enlightened women often buy red, blonde or brunette wigs to hide their black hair or spend hours on end in hair saloons trying to make their hair curly and long?

Christianity even denies the African the right to their name. A name is a simple symbol of identity. But the African convert would normally be required to discard his African name and give himself such good Christian names as Smith, Verwoerd, Robert, James, Julius, Ironmonger, Winterbotham, Elizabeth, Summer, Winter and sometimes Autumn. This business of getting new names has its roots in slave property relations, where the person of the slave was the property of the owner to be disposed of and used as the master deemed fit. So slaves were branded with the master’s name.

The same story is true in art, dance, music, drama etc, but the ultimate objective in class society is one – to control the productive forces and appropriate economic surplus irrespective of the exploiter’s race or tribe. Economic control however is much more difficult to attain without political control. Political control is therefore established through proxy governments. Even then the vampire system finds that economic and political control are incomplete without cultural and hence ideological control. So the system employs religion and bogus theories like racism to ensure the mental castration of the worker be he European, Asian or African.

Adongo Aidan Avugma