STRIKING CONFESSION OF FAITH

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2842, 5 August 1916, Page 6

STRIKING CONFESSION OF FAITH

BERNARD SHAW AS CHRISTIAN

APOLOGIST

RELIGION AND POLITICS

The war has evoked eorao striking con-. fessions of Religious faith. It Las compelled many people* to reconsider their attitude to tlio great spiritual realities. Soma of those confessions have come from unexpected quarters. The latest, and certainly ono of the most arresting, of these efforts at spiritual recon 6truetion is contained iii tho preface which Mr. Bernard Shaw has written to his play, "Androcles." In the course of a decidedly interesting review of this preface, the "Times Ljterary Supplement" states:—

"The question, then, for us now is, j, 'Khali we adopt the Christian will and take the Christian direction,, not only in our homes, but in our Parlia-, menta and our workshops ? Shall we at last make up our minds to have a Clivistain. aim 'in all things and so take Christ seriously at last?' That is tho question which Mr Shaw puts to us in this preface; and 110 one who wishes to put the question to himself can he affronted at Ilis manner of putting it." "It is Christianity That „He Has Como To." The reviewer goes on to state that Mr. Shaw has como to his unexpected adherence to Christianity "unwillingly and by Btrange ways; but it is Christianity that he has conic to, and it stnrtlcs him like a, Jiew discovery. If ( we say that ho is an •unpractical dreamer •or a dangerous revolutionary, wo must say the 6ame also of Christ.

"But tho people who arb really dangerous ami • unpractical aro tlioso who lead a man in a ivrong direction because they tell him that ho has no sense of direction at all and must ahva.3r3.bo the prey of blind forces outside him. Mr. Shaw does at least believe in tho human will, and this belief has .led him to helievo in' Christianity as tho only conscious ajnl clear statement of what man tolls when ho does will at all. It is will and direction that matter above all things to man, 'that make the life or death of all human society. Wo believe that we can have an anti-Christian will ami an anti-Chris-tian direction. This is our great mistake. Whatever is anti-Christian is in its nature absence of will, absence of direction."

' "It leads to wars like the present, which some men think they want, but only because they do not know What they want. The very German fanaticism in this war is but a perversion of the desire for salvation entangled with egotism and not fully conscious of itself. If that desire, which drives. the Germans like 6heep to the slaughter, became conscious of. itself and freed from egotism/ it would lead ithem not to war, but to peace." A Force Like Electricity. "Mr. Shaw seems to be a little ashamed of his own admiration of Christ—he spends too much of the proface in telling us what ho does not believe about Christ, in explaining that mankind for tho most part have believed nonsenso about Him—but, with all his peculiar emotional prudery, -ho cannot hide his emotion. Christ -is to. him a. real person who meant what He said. He is 'a fact, a force like electricity, only needing the invention of suitable political machinery to be .applied to the affairs of mankind with revolutionary effect.'

"Tho originality and tile value of tho preface lie in this—that Mr. Shaw does not, like many Christians, despair of the application of Christianity to politics. He says that Christianity can have no reality, that' it cannot be believed in, until it is applied to'politics j that tho Chrstian problem is to apply it to politics, since without such applcation men cannot oven begin to be Christians. 'I'he man who says tha£ it cannot 1 be applied to politics does not beliove in it; it is to him merely an ideal; lie may wish that it. was true, but he does. not think that it is. •••(.. • , "Mr; Shaw, on the other hand, thinks that it is true. He believes that : the principles laid down by Christ aro right biologically, that. Christ. did, in fact, make a scientific discovery about nature of man and of the universe, and that mankind have hitherto failed to make any practioal use of this discovery becauso they have not believed that it was truo. They have thought that Christ told them what they ought to be, afld that,' 110 doubt, He was right, but that they 'could, not, as aS society, attempt to obey His commands. But, according to Mr. Shaw, He told them that if they behaved in a certain manner certain results would follow. They have not behaved in that manner, and the results have therefore not followed; but that is scarcely'a reason why we should sny that Christianity is a failure. Try it in Politics, "Men must believe iu Christianity enough to try it in politics; until they do that tliey have not made lrial of it at all. Politics are a moral activity becauso they are an. activity of man; and man is either a moral agent altogether or not at all. He cannot believe that, politically and economically, lie is tho prey of blind .forces, but "that lie becomes a responsible moral being 'as soon as he leaves Parliament or his office and goes home to his wife and children; that he is a moral agent wlien he gives sixpence to, a blind beggar in the street but not ivhen he pays wages or when ho votes. That is Mr. Shaw's contention, and it is obviously true. "If our society as it is makes it impossible for us to bo" Christians in most of out relations with each other, then, we must either try to change our, society by political means or pretend 110 longer to beliove in Christianity. For either the teaching of Christ is in accordance with the nature of the universe, in which caso it will work in all things; or it is not, in whioli caso it is mistaken,, and we had better dethrone Him for Nietzsche. "But, as Mr. Shaw contends, experience of other doctrines ..in practice might now induce us to give the doctrine of Christ a trial :—

" 'It may be that, though nineteen centuries have passed since' Jesus was born, and though His Church has not yet-been founded nor His political sys-. teni tried, the bankruptcy of all other systems when audited by'our vital statistics, which give us a final test for al! political systems, is driving us hard into accepting Him, cot as a scapegoat, but as ono who was much less ox, a fool in practical matters than we have hitherto all thought Him.' " |

"A Christian in Spite of Himself." Tho "Nation," reviewing Mr. Shaw's preface, also suggests that ne is a Christian in spite, ot himself. "Mr. Shaw's presentment falls short of poetic beauty; lie has 'come to Jesus' for ideas rather than for a Person, and for i hat reason some of tho best traits escapo him."

All the Beauty Left Out.

. Some of the reviewers complain of Mr. Shaw's irreveronco iu handling his august theme. Mr. Desmond MacCarthy, in the "Now Statesman," says: "Although Mr. Shaw's wholo contention is that Jesus of Nazareth was one of tho greatest of men, he docs not make the reader feel the nobility and beauty of. His spirit. He seems afraid of doing--that for fear of not mulcing Him a real person. . . . I protest that when Mr. Shaw makes tho picture come out of tho framo the figure is not'in the least like Christ; it is indeed tho most preposterous travesty, 2 ' with all the beauty and nearly everything that mankind, has loved and is in tho Gospels, left out." Christ has a programme aiul a secret, and the last makes tho first possible.- Mr. Shaw approves tho programme, but has missed the secret, and our politics are not Christian, because politicians liko Mr. Shaw havo no personal uso for tho secret.