Christian Politics
By ROBIN DENNISTON
tiARON VON HUGEL was once shown round a i,
had by its enlightened owner who thought
Rad Christianised it. He was shown the ma g- mfieent welfare services, swimming pool, playing ,„gruunds and so on, and all the time he grew "`°re and more impatient. Finally he turned to the owner and said, You haven't begun to under- arl what Christianity is: Christianity . i arl what Christianity is: Christianity . i is not refreshment bars and swimming pools--it is a soul in the presence of God.' This instructive anecdote comes from The Christian in Politics, hY Walter James (0.U.P., 21s.), a timely, tenta- tive' non-polemical book studded with throw- ' b,,Wal, sentences of value--'when doing good ecomes competitive the virtue has gone out of the the greatest disservice Christians can do to e cause of humanity is to seek to give 'their 3,v0 nation's self-interest a moral covering.' Mr. a'.unes concludes (and there will be few to dis- ,..ree with him) that the idea of a specifically i,_ristian platform in politics these days is both it 13°ssible and undesirable. Continental attempts li ,that direction, if not disastrous, have done :ither Christianity nor the nations in which they in,%e alaPlied any more good than the vaguer and it 'ire diffused Christian influences which, deny 1)011,6. ugh one may, permeate British politics and c., lc. administration today. But to argue that is-o-oristians vvill not do anyone a service by try- higtt to install the kingdom of heaven in West- ne.tster in time for the next general election is of 1 to.maintain that Christians should keep out of Politics, any more than they should keep out re4n/'., Other ways in which life is being cur.- Nat! Lived. But they are more likely to approxi- xtei `,. t° the Lord's injunctions about loving o048.inbours, etc., if they bring to the perpetual
Promising, dodging, shifting and adaptations
to semi-intractable people and problems which constitute working life for most non-industrial workers a degree of self-knowledge (the Christian word is repentance) and humility. These are what Christians learn in the course of their upbringing —though obviously not them alone, and many of them not more than their non-Christian col- leagues. But if they introduce the Gospel with a hang and without mediation they are likely to be less effectual instruments of God in their achievements and in their understanding of the divine injunction. Mr. James quotes Shaftesbury as a good example of the more enthusiastic type of Christian activist. 'He could not work beside other men in a party, and the general business of politics he found distasteful.' He used politics only to attempt to attain the particular object his conscience set before him--and this, of course, is not the way for a politician to behave if he wants to stay in political life. Nor is it, one may add, for a businessman, industrialist, civil servant or administrator. What is true of the Christian in politics is true a fortiori of the Christian in any other branch of life.
Most would today agree with Mr. James's con- tention that sweating it out is more Christian than a great deal of pious exhortation. But some would not, and the climate of Christian social opinion in the Twenties and Thirties which found its mouthpiece and hero in William Temple could hardly notice the problem at all—anything less than a Christian onslaught on modern society would be regarded as defeatism. The Report of the Conference on Christian Politics, Economics and Citizenship (held at Birmingham in 1924) concluded that The State is ordained by God for the purpose of binding men together in a justly ordered social life and its authority ought to be loyally accepted by Christians: the State should be challenged only in the name of God, and Christians must not take that name in vain.' The assurance that Christian social action could be effective and necessary echoes through the report. The place of these conferences nowadays is partly taken by the Board of Social Responsibility, a Church Assembly body which has been undergoing some symbolic agonies these last years, but, despite the similar terminology, the reports seem so frail by comparison as to be hardly worth putting out. Times have changed, confidence has been sapped, religion is now on the defensive; but perhaps some wisdom has been painfully acquired in the process. Certainty the idea of challenging the State in the name of God is today almost inconceivable. Whether the Christian Socialists even in their heyday were not misled about their own obligation and capacity to take political action is certainly arguable, though personally I think that they were right in their courage to tackle social evils in the ways open to them, as well as ahead of their fellow-Christians and public opinion in general in their compassion for the human refuse thrown up in the industrial revolution.
On the other hand, Christians brought up in Temple's shadow are worried by what they feel is the defeatist quietism of a younger Christian generation. They would not feel that Baron von Hbgel was wholly right in his protest to the Christian managing director; they would doubt the value of Luther's dairymaid, who should serve God and her neighbour in her dairymaiding rather than as an evangeliser. Or rather, they would accept Luther in theory, for what he says is common ground to all Christians who accept the doctrine of creation, but they would not be satisfied with the manner in which the present generation of dairymaids were behaving. We may shun Christian demonstrations and doubt our right or strength to carry the Gospel into every- day life as a furniture-mover might carry a grand piano upstairs. But this does not let us off the exasperating and desperate process of be- coming an instrument of God. What this may mean to those in politics or elsewhere is not easy to formulate in a way that avoids absurdity or cant. Love is a bad word, but for the moment it is the only one we have.
'Honestly. General, you'll like being a stud-horse!'
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