Communism and Christianism Part 21

1. We are convinced that it is as necessary to the welfare of the world to smite supernaturalism in religion as capitalism in politics, but while many are able and willing to attack the octopus of capitalism, this is true of only a few in the case of the dragon of supernaturalism.

Some hesitate because they feel with one of the critics of Communism and Christianism that revolutionary forces are coming to the surface in the churches.

"Where," he asks, "shall we cla.s.sify the stand of the Catholic Church against the open shop? What shall be said of the Interchurch report on the steel strike? What of the att.i.tude of the combined commission in Denver of Catholics, Protestants and Jews on the street car strike?"

We have no desire to belittle such efforts nor to discourage their promoters; but (though they may afford some local and temporary alleviation to the miseries of far the greater part of the world--miseries growing out of its division into two cla.s.ses, a small cla.s.s of owning masters and a large cla.s.s of working slaves) we center no hope in them, because the whole history of the supernaturalistic interpretations of religion, not excepting the Christian, show these efforts to be only reformatory and temporary bubbles which sooner or later are always p.r.i.c.ked by the masters of what little revolutionary air they contain, and so never issue in any general or permanent improvement of the sad lot of the overwhelming majority of the slaves.

How little the church serves the working slaves, and how much the owning masters, will appear from the following representations of Roger W.

Babson, the well-known financial expert and adviser:

The value of our investments depends not on the strength of our banks, but rather upon the strength of our churches. The underpaid preachers of the nation are the men upon whom we really are depending, rather than the well-paid lawyers, bankers and brokers.

The religion of the community is really the bulwark of our investments. And when we consider that only 15 per cent of the people hold securities of any kind and less than 3 per cent hold enough to pay an income tax, the importance of the churches becomes even more evident.

For our sakes, for our children's sakes, for the nation's sake, let us business men get behind the churches and their preachers. Never mind if they are not perfect. Never mind if their theology is out of date. This only means that were they efficient they would do very much more. The safety of all we have is due to the churches, even in their present inefficient and inactive state. By all that we hold dear, let us from this very day give more time, money and thought to the churches, for upon these the value of all we own ultimately depends.

What our critics say about the recent efforts of the American churches being in the right direction is interesting to Mrs. Brown and me, but we are much more impressed by the observation of a writer in a late issue of Soviet Russia. In speaking of the baneful influence of the Russian church through all the ages he says:

Out of the shadows of antiquity, from the morning of man's cupidity and avarice, two sinister figures have crawled with crooked talons through history, leaving a trail of blood and fear most horrible which has not halted yet. These are the monarch and the priest. The one is symbolical of despotic or oligarchic power, the other typifies the sordid ignorance and fearful superst.i.tion of the credulous ma.s.ses which maintains the power of the first. High in the streets of Moscow, where one may see the pallid, long-haired, degenerate-looking venders of holy lies and pious impositions shuffle along like spectres from a remoter age, there hangs a woven streamer of scarlet hue with huge white lettering, which defiantly proclaims that religion is the opium of the people.

Though many still cross themselves a score of times daily on pa.s.sing the church, yet nevertheless the people are rapidly a.s.similating the knowledge which elevates and enlightens, and learning to reject that which terrorizes and deforms the mind, and just so sure as the last filthy tyrant has been placed for ever beyond mischief, so will the last priest soon vanish from the land once contemptuously known as "Holy Russia".

The foregoing is from a revolutionary sympathizer with soviet Russia and the following is from a reactionary criticizer of it, but both are to the same effect, that orthodox Christianity is wholly against the interest of the proletariat and entirely for that of the bourgeoisie:

One of the most striking characteristics of Bolshevism is its p.r.o.nounced hatred of religion, and of Christianity most of all. To the Bolshevik, Christianity is not merely the theory of a mode of life different from his own; it is an enemy to be persecuted and wiped out of existence.

To understand this is not difficult. The tendency of the Christian religion to hold before the believer an ideal of a life beyond death is diametrically opposed to the ideal of Bolshevism, which tempts the ma.s.ses by promising the immediate realization of the earthly paradise. From that point of view Christianity is not only a false conception of life; it is an obstacle to the realization of the Communist ideal. It detaches souls from the objects of sense and diverts them from the struggle to get the good things of this life. According to the Bolshevist formula, religion is opium for the people: and serves as a tool of capitalist domination.

This influence of the churches, in the long run and on the whole has been and will continue to be the same throughout christendom everywhere and everywhen, not excepting these United States in the twentieth century.

Nor is it to any convincing purpose that the representatives of the owning cla.s.s contend that kings and priests have lost their supremacy to presidents and preachers, for it is imperialism in politics which enthralls and supernaturalism in religion which degrades. The world is greatly afflicted with both, none of it much, if any, more than our country.

It seems to us that we see two fundamentally important facts more clearly than our critics see them: (1) the first step in the way of salvation for the proletariat is cla.s.s consciousness, and (2) the Christian interpretation of supernaturalistic religion has been, and until it is discredited will continue to be the most efficient among the many preventives to this consciousness.

Let me show this to be the case by an experience which I had some years ago when Mr. Pierpont Morgan, Senior, was at the height of his glory, as the king of the great realm of big business, receiving homage on the one hand from the Rockefellers and Rothschilds, and on the other hand from the Blockheads and Henry Dubbs of all the world.

At that time I made a confirmation visitation for my sick episcopal brother, the Bishop of New York, to what was popularly known as Pierpont Morgan's church (St. George's, one of the downtown churches for working people.) He was the senior warden of this great parish having nearly 5,000 communicants. He went with the collecting procession out through the great congregation and back to the chancel where each collector ceremoniously emptied the contents of his basket into the great gold alms basin held by the Rector.

While the famous financier was collecting contributions from obscure toilers, how could any, brought up as I was and as nearly all of the great congregation were, see that capitalism has divided humanity into two conflicting cla.s.ses which "have nothing in common, the working cla.s.s and the employing cla.s.s, between which a struggle must go on until the workers organize, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production and abolish the wage system!"

By the light of what I had been taught all along and of what I was then seeing with my own eyes from the bishop's chair such a representation would have seemed preposterous and what was true of me was equally so of all present, rector, wardens, vestrymen, members and visitors.

There were not many I. W. W.'s. in those days, but if one had been there and upon leaving the church had made a representation to this effect to a fellow-worker who was a member of St. George's would not the reply have been something as follows:

See what Pierpont Morgan and I have in common: the same G.o.d; the same religion; the same church; the same services for worship; the same collection basket in which he puts a $100.00 bill and I a ten cent piece; the same Lord's Supper where we eat and drink together; and, besides all this, there is the same h.e.l.l where he will go unless he gives me a fair day's wage and where I will go unless I do a fair day's work, and the same heaven where both will go to equally glorious mansions, if we are alike 100 percenters in church and state, and if he pays me liberally for my work and I slave hard enough for his money.

a.s.suming the truth of the Christian interpretation of religion this conclusion is correct. But this Christian religion is not true.

Christianism offers nothing to either the owners or workers in the sky for its G.o.d and heaven, devil and h.e.l.l are lies. And neither religious Christianism nor political Republicanism or Democracy, not to speak of the other isms of religion and politics, offers the workers aught on earth.

Capitalism is the G.o.d of this world, of no part of it more than of these United States, and capitalism is to the laborer a robbing, lying, murderous devil, not a good divinity.

2. The recall of the prize offer is also occasioned and justified, we think, by a demand, which was as unexpected as it is gratifying, for our little propagandist in foreign countries, and we have been persuaded that it should be met by securing to him the gift of tongues. We propose to do this by devoting the money which was set aside for the prizes to the encouragement of making and publishing translations.

FOOTNOTES:

[N] The capitalist countries of the world const.i.tute the United States of Crazy Lands.

VII. AFTERWORD.

"So many G.o.ds, so many Creeds, So many ways that wind and wind, When all this sad world really needs Is just the art of being kind."

--Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x.

I.

My t.i.tle, given in Latin on the picture page, is bestowed upon me by some in jest and by others in reproach, and I am accepting it from both as compliments, because they prove that I have at least succeeded in making clear the general outlines of my religious and political position.

The use of this t.i.tle is due to the desire that those who pick up the booklet should not buy it, much less undertake to read it, under a mistaken impression as to its doctrinal trends. In English the Latin t.i.tle is, "Bishop of the Countries belonging to the Bolsheviki and the Infidels."

Certain friends greatly fear that some things said in this booklet may fall foul of the criminal-syndicalism laws. I have carefully read those of Ohio and believe that the booklet contains nothing which is not safely within them.

Anyhow, I have spoken the truth about supernaturalistic religion and capitalistic politics as I understand it, and I believe that I have adequately supported all my representations on bases of relevant facts which cannot be gainsaid or, at any rate, upon sound arguments which have such facts for their foundations.

However, I am trying to hold myself open to conviction; and, this being the case, if "the powers that be" in state or church feel that they must proceed against me, I beg that, in justice to all the persons and interests concerned, they will come with their resources of persuasion, not coercion.

My appeal to the religious and political rulers to do this shall be in the burning words of a celebrated defender of the capitalistic system of economics, John Stuart Mill, words which const.i.tute the most remarkable pa.s.sage in his powerful essay on Liberty:

No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear.

Speaking generally, it is not, in const.i.tutional countries, to be apprehended, that the government, whether completely responsible to the people or not, will often attempt to control the expression of opinion, except when in doing so it makes itself the organ of the general intolerance of the public.

Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice.

But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more t.i.tle to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it.

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted on only a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

This pa.s.sage should be inscribed in letters of gold on the doors of every church and court house in the world. It was written in condemnation of the persecution by majorities of minorities in states, but it applies equally to all intolerance of dissentient opinions.

It is utterly impossible in a printed discussion of the length of this booklet to weed out every word capable of misconstruction; and equally so to furnish a definition or limitation to every doubtful word or phrase. Nevertheless I call attention to a few:

The word "revolution" as used here should not be taken as implying armed insurrection or violence, unless expressly so described. These are not necessary features of revolution. There have been both political and industrial revolutions entirely unattended by violence or bloodshed; for example, the political revolution of 1787 when the old Articles of Confederation were abolished and the federal Const.i.tution imposed upon the United States; also the political and industrial revolution of 1919 in Hungary when for a time a soviet system was established, with Bela Kun as premier.

The bloodshed which often attends revolutions comes almost invariably from the lawless counter-revolutionary efforts of the deposed ruling cla.s.s to maintain themselves in power or regain power by terrorism and murder.