CHRISTIANITY AND THE LABOUR PARTY

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22506, 14 September 1938, Page 7

CHRISTIANITY AND THE LABOUR PARTY

TO THE EDITOB OE THE PRESS. Sir, —The statement is made by many Labour speakers, “Vote for us, our programme is applied Christianity.” What then is the programme? Briefly, it aims at raising the standard of living of the people. More food, more clothes, more radios, more motor-cars, and so on, with “the sky the limit.’ There can be no offence in describing it as a materialistic programme. Is this materialistic 'aim consistent with Christ’s teachings? I think not. To my mind Christ’s teaching laid stress on the spiritual life of man. “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” His teaching is full of warnings about serving God and Mammon, the difficulties of the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the corruptibility of earthly riches. This claim of the Labour Party is a .very subtle one. If a person believes it he is automatically on the side of the angels, a position filling him with a glow of satisfaction. Actually, the claim arises from a confusion of ideas. The principle of democracy is that everyone has a right to happiness. Thus there appears no just reason why certain classes only should enjoy the good things of life, and so attempts are made to raise the material standards of the people. But this was not Christ’s doctrine. The present clash of interests between classes savours of jostling round the trough, not of Christianity. But Christ gave us no commands of build a Kingdom of Heaven about us. He said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” That seems to me to mean a personal struggle which cannot be placed on other shoulders by votes or any other means. This call to Christianity has further repercussions, for the sense of sin gained from religious belief becomes mixed with other phases of life. To oppose God or the Church is the most heinous of religious sins, to oppose or defy the Government is by analogy the most heinous of political crimes. If, then, you oppose the Christian call you are no longer a man to be argued with, but a fiend in human form. But fiends are of hell, and it follows that the faithful may as well gjye them a taste of it in this life.

The contemporary world shows us what results when religious passions

are applied to lay problems. The brutalities of both Nazis and Communists are examples. Throughout history the story is the same. And while to-day the stress is placed on making Christianity practical,, to-morrow, given certain circumstances, religious fervour might plunge us into barbarism. If Christ’s teachings were followed there would be a profound change in our social structure, but that that change would produce more lipstick, a fur coat, a radio, and two of everything, I beg leave to doubt. — Yours, etc., _ POLEMIC. September 12, 1938.