Race, Culture and Nation

CHRISTIANITY AND REALISM

I think that, under normal conditions, the sentiments expressed in the above lines of Charles Dickens would always strike a sympathetic chord in the hearts of the majority of people. Although there will be many hundreds of thousands of homes which will not know even the usual joys of Christmas this year - it is impossible for the tens of thousands of the men on active service to be re-united with their families - there is no reason why those of us at home should not take a brief respite from our labours and calmly review the struggle we are engaged in. There is no reason why we should not see the whole nation united in a determined resolve to really win this struggle for ourselves. Future Christmases will then become the festive season which Dickens spoke about-in fact, the philosophy of Christ will prevail at all times.

CHRISTIANITY AND REALISM.
Some people imagine that Christianity has very little to do with realism; that it has to do only with abstract ideals. Of course, when we think about Christmas we think about Christ. Did He not say: "Faith without works is dead"? A careful study of the New Testament reveals Christ as a great realist. It is very hard to be a realist at times. We prefer to think of things as we would like them to be, instead of facing them as they are.

For example, it appears quite futile to me to be discussing whether we should be at war or not. We are at war, and all the wishful thinking which some people indulge in is no real contribution to the problem of emerging from the war with our political and other institutions still intact. Some people in this country get into a frenzy of emotionalism because of the tremendous hammering that Britain is getting from the air.

Those who are facing the position with the greatest realism are those who are being hammered. We must expect these things; we can expect worse things. "The wages of sin is death"; we have sinned - not in the moral sense - we have failed to accept our responsibilities in the past. That failure has resulted in the present world cataclysm.

The financiers and their satellites expect others to face their responsibilities while they look after themselves. I can't say that I have much time for that type of person.
We have Mr. Noel Coward out here at the moment putting over ideas, which sound suspiciously like Federal Union - - he talks a lot about his American friends and "Dick Casey."
Mr. Coward may be sincere, but can he help us to face our responsibilities in this country? He admits that he didn't face his own while in Britain - i.e., "I took very little interest in politics until lately." It is because of people like Mr. Coward that Britain is in her present plight. I would suggest to Mr. Coward that, if he really is a part of British society in the organic sense, his place is in Britain, endeavouring, with his fellow citizens, to force British policy in the right direction - a policy of victory for the British people, and not a victory for private financial institutions.

ORGANISED CHURCHIANITY
It will be appropriate in these reflections on Christmas if we briefly examine the fundamental ideas of the great teacher whose birth gave rise to the festive Christmas season. Apart from being a realist, he was also an individualist; he believed in the sanctity of the individual -i.e.: "The Kingdom of God is within ye." He attacked the insidious doctrine of "leadership" as we see it flourishing on all sides to day. His most important teaching was that institutions existed only for the purpose of serving the individual. I am quite convinced that the Man who opposed usury and whipped the money-changers out of the temple would be horrified to see today certain aspects of what I can only term "organised churchianity."

Usury is not only condoned; most churches are in debt to the modern money-changers and collect tribute from the people on behalf of the usurers. Christ's views on "organised religion" challenge those who have, on the whole, opposed his philosophy - i.e., the Jews.

For this reason the following extracts from the "Jewish Encyclopedia" are most interesting:-
"It is difficult to decide the question whether Jesus contemplated a permanent organisation to carry out His ideas. The whole tendency of His work was against the very idea of organisation . . . and His evident belief in an almost immediate reconstruction of the whole social and religious order would tend to prevent any formal arrangements for a new religious organisation...
The opposition between His followers and the 'world' or settled and organised conditions of society would also seem to imply that those who were to work in His spirit could not make another world of their own with the same tendency to conventionality and spiritual red tape. On the whole it may be said that He did not make general plans, but dealt with each spiritual problem as it arose...
He was content to let the influence of His own character work upon the persons immediately surrounding Him, and that they should transmit His influence silently and without organisation, working by way of leaven, as His parable puts it."

The underlying implications of the above extracts are worthy of close study by all Christians.

THE GROWTH OF POLITICAL CHRISTIANITY
I have referred in these columns in the past to the contribution of the Anglo-Saxon race to civilisation. Apart from the fundamental genius of this race - contributed to by the invasion of the Norsemen with their spirit of adventure and inquiry, and the Norman invasion with an introduction of the fine aristocratic outlook - the real philosophy of Christianity was readily accepted and has progressively become the policy of the nation.

I am indebted to Norman F. Webb, an English writer, for the following extracts from his "European Background":
"The truth is essentially not a matter of dogma, but of demonstration. As with individuals, so with nations. The national culture which produces the greatest degree of individual freedom, mental and material, is the Christian community…"
"Christianity had come to Britain in the 7th century, (it is now thought Christianity came to Britain much earlier than the 7th century...ed) and there its establishment and growth was the establishment and growth of the nation . . .. When, therefore, Britain emerged from the condition of contending Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, it was a peculiarly homogeneous Christian nation .

"... It was that their political structure was more directly influenced by the Christian ideal of individual freedom and responsibility. It was due to this fact, seconded by the accident of racial mixture, and climate, and geographical position, that the Anglo-Saxon Englishmen developed a feeling for independent and voluntary co-operation; for resourcefulness without guile, and competition without malice-in other words, the sporting instinct - that showed conspicuously in later medieval Europe, and by contrast, with added brightness against the blackness of the bigotry of the Counter-Reformation. This it was that constituted the working Christian model - quite outside and beyond all disputes of Churches, or sects, or dogma - of the post-Renaissance world."

POLITICAL CHRISTIANITY
Political Christianity - the representative system of government - slowly developed in England. It has slowly spread in many parts of the world. The British Commonwealth of Nations owes its development and existence to political Christianity.

Unfortunately, economic Christianity has not yet become a reality. Apart from the military struggle, which has left thousands of families homeless in Britain, the economic struggle has deprived thousands of families in this country of the means to enter into the spirit of Christmas. In last Saturday's Melbourne "Herald" appeared an appeal by the Trades Hall Council and the Central Unemployed Council for work for the jobless. These "jobless" and their dependents will not know the joys of Christmas. Many more instances would be given. Poverty and misery exist on all sides

But, let us be of good hope. There is reason to believe that the first streaks of light are visible in the dawn of economic Christianity. Each and every one of us might stop and think for a few minutes during the coming Christmas season; let us make a firm resolve that we will see this struggle through; that we will shoulder our responsibilities as realists. If we give ourselves to this greatest work with clarity of purpose, we will at last see that those families "whose members have been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of life, are then re-united, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual goodwill . . .." Dickens's sentiments will be transformed into a reality.

New Times 20 December 1940