Christianity and Communism

A Christian’s Handbook on Communism, which has been approved by the National Council of Churches’ Division of World Mission ($1 per paperback copy from the Interchurch Center) proposes that every local church of the large NCC constituency set up a Committee on Social Education and Action through which each member will be stimulated to fulfill his social responsibilities.

The potential for good or ill of such a development is unlimited. For more than a generation Protestant liberalism has misguided Christian action along “social gospel” frontiers, mainly on the left bank of American politico-economical life. Evangelicals on the other hand have largely neglected the tasks of social justice in order to concentrate on personal evangelism. In time liberalism lost not simply the Gospel, but from its social message lost also the emphasis on fixed principles and truths. Proud of its supposed relevance and carefully spurning “frozen patterns,” neoorthodoxy is now channeling the social energy of the churches into one tentative position after another. And evangelicals have shown increasing eagerness to rectify their neglect of the social order. For lack of constructive guidance, some, unfortunately, simply endorse secular or sentimental proposals. Others intuitively shy away from leftist errors but remain baffled or demoralized by incessant left-wing attacks on the right-wing. Most evangelicals nonetheless identify themselves proudly on the right. They are uneasy, however, over those radicals who breed internal suspicion, who emphasize negations instead of elaborating constructive alternatives, and who enter politics or economics simply in terms of a secular perspective rather than that of the biblical revelation.

It is heartening, then, that A Christian’s Handbook on Communism aims to provide a constructive overview as well as a negative critique. More than once Christian workers have complained that requests for packets of literature on Communism had brought from a large denomination’s headquarters little but diatribes against the right-wingers. With one-third of the world in the grip of Communism, and two-thirds strategically influenced by socialists, church leaders and workers will be eager to learn what the National Council regards as imperative study. Many have heard Khrushchev’s warning to the West: “Your children will live under Communism.” If Communism more than any other of the forces of anti-Christ threatens to sweep the whole world into its orbit, what shall the Christian churches say and do?

The National Council handbook must be assessed both for its evaluation of Communist theory and action and for its exposition of Christian theology and action.

The Presentation of Communism

The Handbook’s picture of Communist dogma and deeds is a realistic one. Controlled elections, totalitarian policy decisions, state ownership of industry, the imbalance between industrial development and military concentration, collectivization of agriculture, the propagandistic use of education are all portrayed. Oppression by secret police, disregard for individual rights, shortages of housing and food, restrictions on workers, striking salary differentials despite claims of equalization of income, scarcity of consumer goods, breakdown of family loyalties, repression of voluntary organizations are depicted as well. A noncritical paragraph appears on socialized medicine (“popular with the people”). The Handbook ascribes Communism’s appeal to the Chinese people in part to “positive programs” such as “health care” which, we are told, “appealed to the ethical sense of all, including Christians” (p. 40). Listed among the positive benefits of Communism is the fact that “hospital care and medical services are more widely available to the mass of the people” (p. 43). The pamphlet seems therefore to give veiled support to the widening of government health services.

The power and appeal of Communism are rightly linked to its philosophy, passion, and program in a world where most people daily face poverty, hunger, unemployment, disease, discrimination, and oppression. Communism is a revolutionary movement that “feeds on discontent and poses as the champion of every oppressed group” (p. 5).

The exposition of Communist theory is factual, instructive and illuminating. Marx’s critique of capitalism was based on limited observation and was therefore fallible; indeed, Marxism “oversimplifies, misunderstands, and distorts the nature of value, profits … society, government, man” and so on (p. 12).

Weaknesses in Evaluation

The Handbook’s overall evaluation of Communism is weak in three respects, however. First, the pamphlet fails to note the widespread tendency and danger even among evangelicals to honor Communism as a religion. Second, its judgment on socialism is ambiguous. Third, the Handbook minimizes Communism’s strong appeal to intellectuals on the basis of its seeming logical consistency.

Communism is now often catalogued as a religion because it demands ultimate loyalty, and offers a comprehensive framework for meeting life’s problems. The NCC Handbook emphasizes that Communism denies God and the supernatural, locates the source of evil in the economic system and not in man (as does the Handbook) and finds salvation in human resources rather than in God (p. 22). The discussion pictures Communism as “a new secular religion” which has fought the old established religions in Russia for half a century (p. 37). It notes also the religious revivalist flavor of much Chinese Communist activity (p. 41). At the same time, it is aware that Communist theory traces the origin of religion to the emergence of the social classes as a device for enslaving the masses, and explains the survival of religious feelings and denominations in “classless” Russia as due to ignorance and to uneradicated remnants of capitalism (p. 37). The 1936 constitution guaranteed freedom of worship and of antireligious propaganda (on the other hand, all religious propaganda is severely restricted). That only convinced atheists can be good Communists is an official tenet of the Young Communists League. While Christians are reportedly “seldom persecuted directly for their faith,” they are bypassed for responsible government posts because the totalitarian state “can brook no competitive allegiance.”

Since Communism believes that religion inevitably will disappear, it prefers to channel religion into the service of the state rather than to increase fanaticism by persecution (p. 51). But churchmen are frequently prosecuted, and always under the ruse of crimes against the state. Whatever its tactics, “Communist policy is to destroy the church, root and branch, using every power the state can exercise” (pp. 47 f.). Spies in churches report and apprehend nonconformist church leaders for eventual elimination (p. 54). Church ties to other lands are prohibited unless such associations serve government policy (p. 55). Communism “has not changed its attitude of opposition to religion” (p. 49) said Khrushchev in 1955. The Church must serve the state (p. 56). All church lands have been seized, all church schools closed; Communist activities are scheduled to coincide with church activities, which, incidentally, must be confined to church buildings. All welfare services are nationalized.

The Handbook adds “no truly committed Communist would favor or accept any kind of religion …” (p. 50). “The Communist has no God and, therefore, no conscience … and no divine law as basic universal code of morality and human decency” (p. 67). In view of these facts, it seems to us a confusing turn—which evangelicals and liberals, Protestants and Catholics alike encourage—to dignify Communism as a religion. It undoubtedly has pseudo-religious features. But to depict Communism as anything but irreligion is folly. Otherwise one creates respect for “the religion of Communism,” through the current emphasis on the universal desirability of “religion in life” of whatever sort. Taken only in the abstract, certain Communist objectives are commendable enough, and a materialist who finds the essence of religion merely in devotion to “moral values” may be easily misled into such a surface appraisal of Communism. But if one considers at all the means by which even such objectives are promoted, and the ultimate sanctions by which they are justified, then one must surely recognize how artificial it is to dignify as religion a “moral values” movement which aims to destroy the Ten Commandments and in fact repudiates their relevance for a just social order. Let us be done with the sentimental misjudgment of Communism as a religion; let us judge it for what it is; sheer irreligion or, at best, pseudo-religion.

Spongy on Socialism

The Handbook, moreover, portrays socialism as a live alternative to Communism rather than a modified or preliminary form of Communism. Liberal churchmen are defended for left-wing associations on the ground that Communists have at times infiltrated their movements (p. 19). Such rationalization does not explain, however, why those Communists were not repudiated; nor could it be expected to acknowledge the fact that some liberal churchmen themselves were actually Marxists. Attached to the observation that the West’s historic policy of government nonintervention in economic policy has been considerably modified is the strange comment that the West’s economy nonetheless is “in no way comparable” to the Soviet economy (p. 29). Communists, we are told, “fear socialism far more than people on ‘the right’ because they believe that middle-of-the-road people have more chance of … defeating the Communist program than conservatives …” (pp. 18 f.). This ludicrous commendation of socialism is really confuted by documents reflected elsewhere in the Handbook: 1. The Soviet Party’s 1961 Draft Program reports that “The dictatorship of the proletariat, born of the Socialist revolution, has played an epoch-making role by insuring the victory of socialism in the U.S.S.R.… The Socialist state has entered a new phase. The state has begun to grow over into a nationwide organization of the working people of Socialist society.… Having brought about a complete and final victory of socialism—first phase of communism”—etc. (p. 21). 2. Khrushchev’s 1961 draft of his second five-year-plan reads: “The Socialist world is expanding; the capitalist world is shrinking. Socialism will inevitably succeed capitalism everywhere …” (p. 26). 3. Lenin had previously regarded socialism as a preparation for Communism (p. 30).

Christians, says the Handbook, “need to understand how the profit motive, free competition, and government regulation work ideally.… They should know both the benefits and the dangers of widespread social planning” (pp. 76 f.). The appraisal favors what is called “present-day democratic enterprise’s modifications of capitalism,” and commends consumer’s cooperatives as “a democratic method of community development” (p. 78).

While the Bible’s social motivation and passion for social justice are acknowledged (p. 7), the pamphlet claims too broadly that “Christ and the church have historically denounced the same evils that communism decries” (p. 8). [Communism is not one of the evils communism deplores, nor does Christianity decry Christianity, private property (and other items that Communism does) as evil.] Communism’s opportunity, it is suggested, has been created by Christian neglect. The reader receives the impression that Communist goals are worthy and to be approved; and that Christianity criticizes only Communism’s method of violence and revolution, its violated promises and failure fully to implement those goals (p. 8). Christians who believe God shows concern for man’s economic affairs are “challenged by the truth in the insights” of Marx (p. 10). Indirect government controls in America, we are told, tend to stabilize the economy and thus provide more leisure for all (p. 13). In industry, the trade union movement has “made the lot of the worker better with ever higher wages and better living conditions as democratic enterprise has advanced”; “government regulations … prevent the full development of monopolies he [Marx] predicted,” and government planning seeks to curb unemployment (p. 14). Through such “democratic enterprise” many of the evils Marx associated with capitalism have been moderated.

In view of their compromised attitude toward socialistic tendencies in modern life, is it not remarkable that the Handbook writers voice concern over the “alarming degree that many people who are not Communists believe and practice the same things that Communists do” (p. 83)? More often than not references to the free enterprise system are critical of injustices (pp. 5 f., 83). Private property is mentioned only in conjunction with some reference to Marx’s view (“Since private property, which is the root of exploitation and all injustice, will have disappeared.… In this new type of society, there will be true communism …,” p. 15), or simply to reject the Communist tenet that the origin of evil is in personal ownership of private property (p. 22). Nowhere does the manual assert the biblical vindication and championing of property rights, let alone the truth that property rights are personal rights.

The impression is sometimes conveyed, therefore, that the sole reason for rejecting Communism is totalitarianism and revolutionary methods; that within limits Christians may cooperate with Communism “as long as it continues to work toward really Christian objectives” (p. 84)! Furthermore, while Communism’s denial of God and of human dignity is deplored, its economic program is not effectively challenged by Christian economic principles (p. 74).

In matters of war and peace, it is noted that Communists often camouflage their dedication to world conquest under the banner of peace (p. 45). Communism preaches world brotherhood even while resorting to imperialism and colonialism. Where it promised a classless society, new classes are in fact emerging (p. 44). Nowhere is Communist class-warfare actually condemned; the one reference made to war in the context of Christian conviction implies that under all circumstances it is contrary to Christian conscience (p. 80).

The Role of Reason

A third weakness of the Handbook to some might appear rather unimportant, namely, its tendency to underestimate Communism’s appeal to the intellectuals by offering a comprehensive rational integration of life. One ought to remember that recent liberal and neoorthodox apologetics downgrade the role of reason in Christian commitment; they defer, instead, to existential, nonrational aspects of religious experience. Such theological default creates a spiritual vacuum which the Communist philosophy is then free and waiting to fill. It is true, of course, that unlike the religion of the Logos and of rational revelation, the Communist rationale is not thoroughly comprehensive, consistent, and coherent. But the Handbook touches neither of these points in declaring that “Communists have been held together by overpowering personalities and a passion for their cause rather than by a unified, logical set of principles expressed in a consistent way” (p. 23). In fact, elsewhere the NCC Handbook notes Khrushchev’s 1961 reference to the emergence of a “new intelligentsia,” intellectuals who furnish “a basis for indestructible socio-political and idealogical unity” (p. 33). About the situation in China, we read: “Without doubt ideology is the basic cement which holds together the ruling group and which, to a large degree, explains its unity and dynamism. But the Chinese Communists … also are attempting to indoctrinate the whole population in the new ideology” (p. 41). It is even acknowledged elsewhere in passing that the Communists “have put their ideas together into a coherent plan of thought and action” (p. 83).

The Christian World-Life View

If anything, the Communist rationale should call us to a counterexhibition of Christianity, a world-life view rooted in the realities of supernatural disclosure. A proper question might well be whether the Handbook, which so carefully and comprehensively presents the Communist philosophy of history, of economics, and of life, also exhibits the Christian view with similar thoroughness and competence? Actually, less than one third of the Handbook deals with chapters on “The Christian Way” and “The Christian’s Responsibility.” How adequately is the Christian alternative presented?

The Bible is represented as the Christian’s “basic source book.” Its content, however, is depicted as human insight and inference from man’s encounter with God rather than as revealed truth and inspired teaching (p. 61). While the unique Saviourhood and Lordship of Jesus Christ are asserted, statements about his deity are sometimes ambiguously worded. We are told that “the meaning of the Christian faith is rooted in the incarnation of Christ, the cross, and the resurrection” (p. 62). But nowhere is the Resurrection (in contrast to economic determinism) relevantly depicted as the decisive hinge of history, although one finds the broad emphasis that “when God is replaced by idolatry of things, the impersonal rule of economic and social forces gains control of the whole of life” (p. 72).

The Church is assigned a strategic role, although the nature of the Church is not defined. It simply “bursts out quite unpredictably into new energy” (p. 64). What the Reformation was in Luther’s day the ecumenical movement is in ours; all forms—hierarchical, established, and free—are accorded equal blessing.

The exposition of Christian doctrine is sketched in strokes so broad as to be almost brittle (“Christianity relates man to God,” p. 66; “The Christian teaching is that every human being has infinite worth,” p. 67; “Christianity teaches that all men should love one another and serve one another,” p. 68; “Jesus taught that sin has its roots fixed deep in every human heart,” p. 69; “Jesus Christ demonstrated complete dedication of life to one supreme task,” p. 70). These fragments of Christian theology are expounded far less precisely in the Handbook than is the Communist theory. Even if they were as thoroughly delineated, one could hardly derive the Christian alternative to Communism from so incomplete an overview. Any seminary student who could not write anything more incisive and relevant than the Handbook exposition of the Christian way ought to be declined ministerial ordination.

Christian Social Imperatives

The Handbook’s major interest and climax are a call to “every believer to bear a social witness” (p. 72). In the Bible we have “the main foundation stones for Christian action in society.… God made all men of one blood and … man is his brother’s keeper.…” The Church therefore has “a clear directive for action in community and national life” (p. 73). But the Church is not organized “to exert economic power”; it cannot and should not decree changes in economic and political systems; it “dare not identify the Christian faith with any particular program” (p. 74). What direction then should social responsibility take? The Church 1. holds up Christ’s ideal standard and Christian conscience as the best measure of all social systems; 2. educates its members on social problems and encourages individual and group action along social, economic, and political lines; 3. provides a center of love and strength for such action (p. 75).

So far, in the main, the Handbook is on firm ground, and if the social action committees of most Protestant groups had operated within these limits the “social gospel” would have been shorn of much of its mischief. We are told, however, that “the church must be the conscience of the state” (p. 76). This notion reflects either an objectionable Romanist view of church-state relations or (more probably in this case) the liberal Protestant view that Church and world merge in a unitary culture. As a byproduct of its life and witness, a virile Church will stir and shape the conscience of the world. But when the Church makes the imposition of its mind and will upon the nation a prime objective (which it then readily promotes through political pronouncements and actions), the Church invariably becomes embraced by secular society.

What the Handbook does not stress is that 1. in the Bible the Church is given divinely revealed truths and principles to which it is in conscience bound; 2. Christ’s ideal standard is precisely the fulfillment of the scriptural requirements; 3. Christian conscience is fallible and requires correction by the Scriptures. Indeed, as the NCC pamphlet proceeds, it abandons scriptural precedent for an alternative approach to the Church’s role in social action.

“There is a middle ground,” we are told, “between generalities” [divinely revealed principles?] and “specific political programs”; “love one another” can be translated into the Church’s insistence that the economic system provides “opportunity for all men to work,” without at the same time endorsing “particular legislative bills on unemployment insurance or control of the business cycle as being specifically Christian” (p. 75).

Two important distinctions should be made at this point. It is one thing to delineate a scriptural principle to which the Church is bound as the revealed will of God, and which the individual believer in good conscience is to apply in deciding between the particular options in the social order. It is quite another to doubt whether the Church possesses revealed truths or principles, to treat “middle axioms” rather as if they are the will of God, and to have ecclesiastical leaders project these substitutes into particular programs of social action.

If the pamphlet’s plea for “opportunity for all men to work” were considered implicit in the biblical emphasis on work as a divine requirement, then the Christian Church might be expected to disallow rather than support the whole system of compulsory unionism (which requires membership in a labor union as the condition of a job). The large denominations, however, have given carte blanche approval to unions’ “right to organize.” The influence of the National Council of Churches’ Department of the Church and Economic Life, interestingly enough, stacks up against right-to-work and for compulsory unionism.

The degree to which study groups stay alert, to that degree they will be wary of championing “middle ground” as if it were the will of God. When urged to “express what love means in concrete terms,” church members need to realize that in calling for a Committee on Social Education and Action the NCC Handbook has already decided in advance, for example, that the will of God “embraces support of the United Nations” (p. 82).

It would be wrong to say that this Handbook is “soft on Communism,” or is “flipped against the right-wingers.” It does indeed look favorably toward socialism. Its chief weakness, however, is its meager delineation of Christianity. While the Handbook concludes: “At length a point is reached beyond which there is no way but a renunciation: either faith in communism or faith in Christ must go” (p. 84), the case against Communism is argued with greater power than the case for Christianity. At a time when ecclesiastical leaders so frequently condemn the radical right-wingers for this very failure, it is more than ironic—it is sheer tragedy—that their own propaganda must fall under the same condemnation.

Space, Man And Destiny

PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING—When Col. Glenn was safely back on earth the first words uttered in the astronaut’s home were a prayer of thanksgiving. The Glenn family’s pastor, Rev. Frank Erwin, of the Little Falls Presbyterian Church, thanked God for the “divine guidance” of all those who worked on Project Mercury.—CORDELIA RUFFIN,The Washington Daily News.

FAITH AND FLIGHT—We’re a Christian family and it thrilled us to hear John give testimony of his Christian faith.—JOHN H. GLENN, SR., New Concord. Ohio, father of the astronaut.

A GRATEFUL HEART—I am so very, very thankful to God for the safety and success of his mission.—MRS. JOHN H. GLENN, SR., New Concord, Ohio, mother of the astronaut.

STATE ASSEMBLY PRAYS—The State Assembly took time out to listen to a radio account over its public address system of Colonel Glenn’s descent. Then it stood for a silent prayer of thanksgiving and passed a resolution congratulating the astronaut.—RUSSELL PORTER.The New York Times.

IN A LONDON PUB—News of Glenn’s return suddenly buzzed around the bar, breaking an awed hush, and a chorus of “Thank God for that!” and “he’s made it at last!” split the air.—AP, London.

CAPE CANAVERAL RESPONSE—Fifty thousand spectators stood along the beach watching the climbing Atlas carrying Lieut. Col. John H. Glenn, Jr. into orbit. Some cheered, some clapped. An elderly woman said solemnly: “He’s in the hands of the Lord now.” Most remained silent.—GAY TALESE,The New York Times.

SPANNING THE SKIES—This is the new ocean.… The United States must sail on it and be in a position second to none.—President JOHN F. KENNEDY.

AIRY HOPES—This is yet another significant step in man’s conquest of space and time, and a striking demonstration of technological and scientific progress which, the whole world hopes, will be used for peaceful purposes and for the benefit of all mankind.—U THANT, Acting Secretary General, United Nations.

CERTAINTIES AND DOUBTS—There is no doubt that the way to the galaxies is finally going to be open to the men of earth. What is in doubt is whether we are going to be able to make outer space the common ground of peaceful men—or a battleground for the cold war.—ROSCOE DRUMMOND,New York Herald Tribune.

PROGRESS OR DOOM?—Every one of the handful of men who has taken this astounding voyage through space … has come back from space with the same observation: the world is a beautiful sight.… It is good to be reminded of it by men whose accomplishments are the fruit of a science that has within it the potentials both of overwhelming destruction and universal progress. The choice is not for the brave men who fly their tiny craft into the unknown to make. It is the responsibility of those on earth, who live upon a planet with room and resources enough for all the races and nations of men.—Editorial, New York Herald Tribune.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS—Many persons, however, have been asking: “What is the purpose of these flights and what practical return is there …?” That question will be given many an answer on the scientific side, but it will be a long time before the present generation of Americans gets the full benefit.… One satellite, however, is soon to make it possible for television waves to be relayed around the earth.—DAVID LAWRENCE,New York Herald Tribune.

DAWN OF A NEW AGE—There is something in the very air of this space age that is not unlike the climate of another great age of discovery which took place in the fifteenth century. Then, as now, man was in a period of depression and anxiety. Samuel Eliot Morison has described that doubting decade that closed the fifteenth century: “At the end of 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future. Christian civilization appeared to be shrinking in area and dividing into hostile units.…” Then came … the discovery of the new world. That news changed the spirit of Europe. In Morison’s words: “New ideas flared up throughout Italy, France, Germany and the northern nations; faith in God revives and the human spirit is renewed.” So must these ventures into our space environment revive and renew the human spirit.—Washington Post.

WE HAVE SEEN—We do not care what others have done. This for us is the first time anyone has orbited the earth, because this is the first time we have seen him do it!—PEDRO FERRIZ, Mexican TV commentator.

ELIJAH’S ASCENT AND DESCENT—And it came to pass, when Jehovah would take up Elijah by a whirlwind into heaven, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.… And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, which parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.—2 Kings 2:1, 11, ASV. And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain.… And behold, there appeared unto them … Elijah talking with him.—Matt. 17:1, 3, ASV.

JESUS’ ASCENSION AND RETURN—And when he [Jesus] had said these things, as they were looking, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they were looking stedfastly into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; who also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? this Jesus, who was received up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven.—Acts 1:9–11, ASV.

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