IS COMMUNISM CHRISTIAN.

Evening Star, Issue 22457, 30 September 1936, Page 12

IS COMMUNISM CHRISTIAN.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —The answer to this silly question, I take, it, has been given, for Marx, the founder of Communism,* has answered “ No.” “ Social Scientist ” knows this is so, for he reads Marx. Marx . recommended Communists to exercise “ audacity, audacity, audacity,” “ Social Scientist ” certainly follows this injunction. _ If, however, his knowledge of Marx is equal to his understanding of Christianity, which he describes as a set of rules, then he does not know much Marxism.

Despite Marx’s contempt for Christianity, Mr C. S. M‘Arthur seems very keen that Christians should practise Christianity, while, I presume, Communists carry on “ more, or less veiled civil war ” until “ that war breaks out into open revolution ” and the “ violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie ’’ results. Marx believed the history of society was the history of class war, so that the spirit of co-operation of brotherhood, of identification of members of a society never played any significant part in the historical development of a society. Only a man blinded by hatred or in a state of hypnotism could accept or believe such a one-eyed view of history. Whenever it was that class hatred arose, Communists “ never cease for a single instant to instil into the working class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat.” I agree that the principle of _ Communism is exercised at present in our society. The good Communists pretend that this is not so. They tell us we live under a purely Capitalist system. As,Mr MacArthur implies, we do not. In "our system both individualism and collectivism have their place and uses. Communism would run society on one single principle, and in so doing diminish its power of adaptability to changing conditions. To Mr Herring I would say that Marx was an atheistic man of action, who regarded religion asi “ illusion ” and as “ opium for the people.”—l am, etc.. An ti-Communisi. September 29. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, Marx and the Communists in support of the theory that “ religion is dope, opium for the people.” Many believe to-day that this phrase originated with Marx or. with some godless Russian Bolshevist, and are surprised to learn that it was coined by a Victorian Church of England clergyman and social reformer, author of ‘ Alton Locke,’ 1 Westward Ho,’ etc. Also I would quote Blake on religion, “ that religion is politics and politics is brotherhood.” The true Christian must believe in a classless society as a Christian ideal. A person may not be able to believe in the supernatural and yet set the divine in the common man and the common things of life, while the Christian materialist sees only something sacred in possessions. _ It was the Christian Church in Germany who joined the Nazis, in order to fight for their possessions, and not m the Christian ideal of justice for huinanity as. a wfiole. It is the Christians who deny Christian teachings, or they would be in the van of progress along with those who are challenging anything and everything that stands m the way of sufficiency and security for all men, women, and children.—l am, etc., , Lir Service. September 29.