Communism and Christianism. Brown William Montgomery

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      If grace at dinner means anything, it is addressed to a god who is the symbol of the many workers who did the innumerable things necessary to the producing and serving of it, without whom there would be nothing of all the good things on the table.

      In the representation about my pleasure in the services of the church and their value to me, and in many representations scattered throughout this letter, I have in mind the question of an unanswered letter of yours, bearing date, February 25th, 1919, the one in which you ask, in effect, by what right a man can remain in an institution after he has, as I have, abandoned its chief doctrines and aims as they are authoritatively interpreted.

      The right of revolution is the one by which I justify my course, and surely no consistent Protestant Christian or American citizen will doubt the solidity of this ground; for Protestantism and Americanism had their origin in revolutions.

      Our national declaration of independence contains this famous justification of political revolutions, and it is equally applicable to religious ones, for religion and politics are but the ideal and practical halves of the same social reality:

      We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed: that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right – and it is their duty – to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their security.

      Jesus was nothing if he was not a revolutionist. Anyhow, his alleged mother is authoritatively represented as believing him to have been foreordained as one, for this song is put into her mouth:

      He hath showed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

      He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek.

      He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.

      This Christian socialism, like Bolshevik socialism, turns the idle rich empty away; but, whereas the Christian gives them no chance to get anything to eat, the Bolshevik allows them to have as much as the poor, if they will work as hard.

      Assuming for the sake of argument, that there may have been an historical Jesus who taught some of the doctrines, in accordance with the representations of the gospel, which are attributed to him, I am nevertheless justified in claiming that he was quite as heretical touching the faith of orthodox Judaism as I am touching that of orthodox Christianism.

      As to the Jewish faith he said, in effect, of himself what I say of myself: I have all of the potentialities of my own life within myself. I and my god are one. He dwells in me and I in him, and we are on the earth, not in the sky.

      As to the Jewish church and state, Jesus taught that they had become utterly antiquated and that it was the mission of himself and disciples to establish a new heaven, that is to remodel the church; and a new earth, that is, to remodel the state; both remodelings being with reference to the service of humanity by enlightening its darkness and alleviating its misery here and now, rather than teaching it to look for light and happiness elsewhere and elsewhen.5

      As for the faith and church of orthodox Christianism there is no reason for believing that he would be any more loyal to either than am I. His loyalty was to the truth and to the proletarian, and they (this faith and church) are disloyal to both, being ever on the side of tradition against science, and on the side of the owner against the worker.

      Jesus remained in the Jewish church, in spite of his many and great heresies, until he was put out by death.

      My contention is that in view of this example, whether it be, as you think, of an historical or, as I think, of a dramatic character, there is no reason why I should voluntarily go out of the Christian church.

      Religion in general and Christianity in particular are nothing unless they are embodiments of morality, and morality does not consist in professions of belief in a god and his revelations as they are recorded in a bible and condensed in a creed, but in a desire and effort to acquire a knowledge of the laws of nature in order that, by conformity to them, life may be made longer and happier.

      When this desire exists and this effort is made with reference to one's own self, they constitute morality; when with reference to one's own family and associates, they constitute religion, and when with reference to all others of contemporary and future generations, they constitute Christianity.

      But in making such distinctions the fact should not be lost sight of that at bottom there is no difference between morality, religion and Christianity. They are synonyms for the same virtues, the desire and effort to know and live the truth as it is revealed in the doings of nature. There are no other revelations of the truth, nor is there any other morality, religion or Christianity.

      Socialism is for me the one comprehensive term which is a synonym at once of morality, religion and Christianity. Marxian and Bolshevikian socialism are two halves of one thing, the theoretical half and the practical half. Marxism is socialism in theory. Bolshevism is (perhaps imperfectly as yet) socialism in practice.

      As long as gods dominate the sky and capitalists prevail upon the earth, the world will be safe for commercial imperialism, having a small heaven for the few rich masters and a large hell for the many poor slaves.

      Come over and help us make the world safe for industrial democracy by banishing the personal, conscious gods from the sky and the lying, robbing capitalists from the earth.

      But in coming there is no need for leaving your church any more than there is for leaving your state. During the short time which is for me, before the night cometh in which no man can work, I shall remain in both as long as the powers that be allow it, and do what little I can to revolutionize them – revolutionize the church into a school for the teaching of truth instead of lies, and revolutionize the state into a hive for the making of commodities for the use of all instead of for the profit of a few. In doing this I shall be following in the very footsteps of the human Jesus.

      After it was discovered that the ground, by planting and cultivating, would produce the necessities of life, when a tribe found that it had too little of it for its growing population, it would go to war with the weaker among adjacent tribes for the purpose of securing its territory; but from this on the vanquished were not eaten, and it was morally wrong to eat them. They were kept alive and put to work at raising harvests for their conquerors, hence arose the institution of slavery, and hence its moral rightness even in this country of the free, down to the beginning of the generation to which I belong.

      However, human slavery has never ended, nor will it ever end while the competitive system for the production of the necessities of life for profit rather than use continues. Human slavery is, so to speak, the basic ingredient of this system.

      Speaking broadly, there have been СКАЧАТЬ