Chapter IX: Foreword: G (4)

What man of sense will agree with the statement that the first,
second, and third days, in which the evening is named and the
morning, were without sun, moon and stars? What man is found such
an idiot as to suppose that God planted trees in Paradise like an
husbandman? I believe that every man must hold these things for
images under which a hidden sense is concealed.--Origen.

One of the critics of Communism and Christianism whose representations are in alignment with several others says:

While the Bishop speaks in the language of scholarship, he entirely
ignores all the findings of modern scholars on the literature of
the Bible.

The failure to show more clearly that my representations concerning the untenableness of the basic doctrines of Christian supernaturalism are in alignment with the conclusions of outstanding authorities in the newly developed sciences of historical and biblical criticisms is indeed a defect and an attempt will here be made to remove it by a short but faithful and, as I think, convincing summary of what such authorities in these sciences have to say on the subject.

My summary is summarized from a pamphlet by Charles T. Gorham, published by Watts and Company, 17 Johnson's Court, Fleet St., E. C. 4, London, England, which is itself an able summarization of the relevant facts which have been scientifically established as they are given in the greatest of all the Bible Dictionaries, the Encyclopedia Biblica.

It will be seen that all except one among my contentions concerning the baselessness of the supernaturalism of orthodox Christians are well sustained. This exception is the contention that Jesus is not an historical personage, but a fictitious one. However the great critics are unanimously with me even in this, for two crushing facts are admitted by them: (1) the Old Testament affords no scientifically established data from which a reliable history of the Jews can be written, and (2) the New Testament has no such data for a biography of Jesus.

The illuminating summary which is a large part of my answer to the criticism under review follows, and it is as far as possible in the language of Mr. Gorham:

Once upon a time there was a system of Christian Theology. It was a
wonderful though a highly artificial structure, composed of fine
old crusted dogmas which no one could prove, but very few dared to
dispute. There was the "magnified man" in the sky, the Infallible
Bible, dictated by the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, the Fall, the
Atonement, Predestination and Grace, Justification by Faith, a
Chosen People, a practically omnipotent Devil, myriads of Evil
Spirits, an eternity of bliss to be obtained for nothing, and
endless torment for those who did not avail themselves of the
offer.

Now the house of cards has tumbled to pieces, or rather it is
slowly dissolving, as Shakespeare says, "like the baseless fabric
of a vision". The Biblical chronology, history, ethics, all are
alike found to be defective and doubtful. Divine Revelation has
become discredited; a Human Record takes its place. What has
brought about this startling change? The answer is, Knowledge.
Thought, research, criticism, have shown that the traditional
theories of the Bible can no longer be maintained. The logic of
facts has confirmed the reasonings of the independent thinker, and
placed the dogmatist in a dilemma which grows ever more acute. The
result is not pleasant for the believer; but it is well that the
real state of things should be known, that the kernel of truth
should be separated from the overgrown husk of tradition.

During the last few years a work has been issued which sums up the conclusions of modern criticism better than any other book. It is called the Encyclopedia Biblica, and its four volumes tersely and ably set forth the new views, and support them by a mass of learning which deserves serious consideration. And the most significant thing about it is not merely that the entire doctrinal system of Christianity has undergone a radical change, but that this change has largely been brought about by Christian scholars themselves. A rapid glance at this store-house of the heresy of such scholars will give the reader some idea of the extent of the surrender which Christianity has made to the forces of Rationalism. It must be premised that space will permit of the conclusions only being given, without the detailed evidence by which they are supported.

Let us begin with our supposed first parents. Is the story of Adam and Eve a true story? There are, we are told, decisive reasons why we cannot regard it as historical, and probably the writer himself never supposed he was relating history.[K]

The Creation story originated in a stock of primitive myths common to the Semitic races, and passed through a long period of development before it was incorporated in the book of Genesis. If, then, it is the fact, as Christian scholars assert, that this story of the Creation originated in a pagan myth, and was shaped and altered by unknown hands for nearly a thousand years, it is nothing more nor less than superstition to hold that it is divinely true.

As for the Old Testament patriarchs, we now learn that their very existence is uncertain. The tradition concerning Abraham is, as it stands, inadmissible; he is not so much a historical personage as an ideal type of character, whose actual existence is as doubtful as that of other heroes. All the stories of the patriarchs are legendary.

The whole book of Genesis, in fact, is not history at all, as we understand history. Exodus is another composite legend which has long been mistaken for history.

The historical character of Moses has not been established, and it is doubtful whether the name is that of an individual or that of a clan. The story of his being exposed in an ark of bulrushes is a myth probably derived from the similar and much earlier myth of Sargon.[L]

Turning to the New Testament, we find that modern critical research only brings out more clearly than ever the extraordinary vagueness and uncertainty which enshroud every detail of the narrative. From the article on "Chronology" we learn that everything in the Gospels is too uncertain to be accepted as historical fact. There are numerous questions which it is "wholly impossible to decide". We do not know when Jesus was born, or when he died, or who was his father, or what was the duration of his ministry. As these are matters on which the Gospel writers purport to give information, the fact of their failure to do so settles the question of their competency as historians.

The supposed supernatural birth of Jesus has of late exercised the minds of theologians. It is not surprising that some of them should reject the notion, for it is one without a shred of evidence in its favor. Setting aside the well-known fact that many other religions assume a similar origin for their founders, we may note the New Testament accounts are in such hopeless conflict with each other that reconciliation is impossible.

The important subject of the "Resurrection" is treated by Professor P. W. Schmiedel, of Zurich, who tells us that the Gospel accounts "exhibit contradictions of the most glaring kind".

The article on the Gospels by Dr. E. A. Abbott and Professor Schmiedel is crammed with criticism of a kind most damaging to every form of the orthodox faith. The view hitherto current, that the four Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and appeared thirty or forty years after the death of Jesus, can, it is stated, no longer be maintained.

The alleged eclipse of the sun at the Crucifixion is impossible. One of the orthodox shifts respecting this phenomenon is that it was an eclipse of the moon!

Modern criticism decides that no confidence whatever can be placed in the reliability of the Gospels as historical narratives, or in the chronology of the events which they relate. It may even seem to justify a doubt whether any credible elements at all are to be found in them. Yet it is believed that some such credible elements do exist. Five passages prove by their character that Jesus was a real person, and that we have some trustworthy facts about him. These passages are: Matthew xii. 31, Mark x. 17, Mark iii. 21, Mark xiii. 32, and Mark xv. 34, and the corresponding passage in Matthew xxvii. 46, though these last two are not found in Luke. Four other passages have a high degree of probability--viz., Mark viii. 12, Mark vi. 5, Mark viii. 14-21, and Matthew xi. 5, with the corresponding passage in Luke vii. 22. These texts, however, disclose nothing of a supernatural character. They merely prove that in Jesus we have to do with a completely human being, and that the divine is to be sought in him only in the form in which it is capable of being found in all men.[M]

The four Gospels were compiled from earlier materials which have perished, and the dates when they first appeared in their present form are given as follows:--Mark, certainly after the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70; Matthew, about 119 A. D.; Luke, between 100 and 110; and John, between 132 and 140.

The question of the genuineness of the Pauline Epistles, is now far from being so clear as was once universally supposed. Advanced criticism, Professor Van Manen tells us in his elaborate article on "Paul", has learned to recognize that none of these Epistles are by him, not even the four generally regarded as unassailable. They are not letters to individuals, but books or pamphlets emanating from a particular school. We know little, in reality, of the facts of Paul's life, or of his death: all is uncertain. The unmistakable traces of late origin indicate that the Epistles probably did not appear till the second century.

The strange book of Revelation is not of purely Christian origin. Criticism has clearly shown that it can no longer be regarded as a literary unit, but it is an admixture of Jewish with Christian ideas and speculations. Ancient testimony, that of Papias in particular, assumed the Presbyter John, and not the Apostle, as its author or redactor.

The Epistles of Peter, James and Jude are none of them held to be the work of the Apostles. They probably first saw the light in the second century; the second Epistle of Peter may even belong to the latter half of that period.

All the above conclusions are summarized, as nearly as may be, in the words of the authors of the respective articles. Their significance is surely enormous. Right or wrong, eminent Christian scholars here proclaim results in complete antagonism to the ideas usually accepted as forming the true basis of the Christian faith. They amount, in fact, to a complete and unconditional surrender of the whole dogmatic framework which has hitherto been held as divinely revealed, and therefore divinely true.

Thomas Paine was a Deist. As such he believed that nature may be compared with a clock and God with its maker. As the clock maker, under normal conditions, has but little to do with his handiwork, so it has been with the Creator and his universe. The theists of every name (Christian, Jew, Mohammedan and Buddhist), not to speak of others, believe that the universe, with all which therein is, lives, moves and has its being as the result of the willings of their respective gods.

Though I have my god, indeed two gods, one god in the world of my physical existence--a trinity: matter, force and motion, and another god in the world of my moral existence--a trinity: fact, truth and life, yet if the rejection of both deism and theism is atheism, I am an atheist.

But assuming for the sake of argument that there is a conscious personal being who has had and is having something to do with making things what they are, I set my seal to this arraignment:

Of all the systems of religion that were ever invented, there is
none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more
repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this
thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to
convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart
torpid, or produces only atheists and fanatics. As an engine of
power, it serves the purpose of despotism and as a means of wealth,
the avarice of priests; but for the good of mankind it leads to
nothing here or hereafter.

--Thomas Paine.

William Rathbone Greg in his Creed of Christendom says that much of the Old Testament which Christian divines, in their ignorance of Jewish lore, have insisted on receiving and interpreting literally, the informed Rabbis never dreamed of regarding as anything but allegorical. The literalists they called fools.

Origen and Augustine, the two greatest men which Christianity has produced, would agree with Greg in this. We have already quoted the motto of this section from Origen, and we will now quote this from Augustine:

It very often happens that there is some question as to the earth
or the sky, or the other elements of this world, respecting which
one who is not a Christian has knowledge derived from most certain
reasoning or observation, and it is very disgraceful and
mischievous and of all things to be carefully avoided, that a
Christian, speaking of such matters as being according to the
Christian Scriptures, should be heard by an unbeliever talking such
nonsense that the unbeliever, perceiving him to be as wide from the
mark as east from west, can hardly restrain himself from laughing.

FOOTNOTES:

[K] But if Adam and Eve are not historical personages there is no doctrine of supernaturalistic Christianism resting on the solid ground of facts and the whole of its immense dogmatic structure is floating in the air of theories and myths.--Author.

[L] It is questionable whether such persons as Samson, Jonah and Daniel ever lived, but it is certain that their adventures are as mythical as anything in Aesop's Fables.--Author.

[M] But these nine texts which for some years were often triumphantly pointed to as the pillars upon which securely rested the historicalness of Jesus as a man are now lying in the dust where the learned and brilliant Professor William Benjamin Smith of Tulane University put them by his great contribution to the Christological problem in a book, entitled Ecce Deus in which he, as I think, proves conclusively that the Jesus of the New Testament never was a real man but always an imaginary god, the Christian recasting of the Jewish God, a new Jehovah.--Author.

IV. WOULD SOCIALISM CHANGE HUMAN NATURE?

Fear not the tyrants shall rule for ever,
Or the priests of the bloody Faith:
They stand on the brink of that mighty river
Whose waves they have tainted with death,
It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams and rages and swells,
And their swords and their scepters I floating see
Like wrecks in the surge of eternity.

--Shelley.

My revolt against the existing capitalist system of economics and the capitalized political and religious systems which support it is complete, and the end which I have in view in this booklet is that of primitive Christianism, as it is taught by Mary in the Magnificat, the putting down of the owning masters of the world and the exaltation of the working slaves, only that I do not recommend, as she did, that the masters should be banished to starve but rather that they should be allowed to become producers and to live then as such, not as robbers, as they now live.

This is bolshevism. It is not anarchy, but a new dictatorship instead of the old, that of the proletariat in place of the bourgeoisie. But this dictatorship (though necessary during the period of transition from the capitalist system, by which commodities are made only for the profit of a few to an industrial system by which they will be made only for use of the many) is not the goal of socialism. Its goal is a classless world--a world in which all who are able to work shall directly or at least indirectly contribute their due proportion, according to their abilities and opportunities, towards feeding, clothing, housing and educating it.

Perhaps the truest thing in the Bible relates to the utterly corrupt condition of civilization, nor was it ever truer than now, and it always must be equally true while the world is divided into master and slave classes under the dictatorship of the masters:

The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From the sole of
the foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it, but
wounds and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been
closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

Capitalism and Socialism differ fundamentally in that the former always has sought and always will seek to exercise a permanent dictatorship, whereas that of the latter is to constitute the temporary bridge over which the world is to pass from the economic system under which commodities are competitively made for the profit of the few, to the economic system under which they will be co-operatively made for the use of the many.

It is contended with much show of reason that the dictatorship of the proletariat will not lead to the goal, because human nature being what it is the slaves will automatically develop into another class of masters.

But those who raise this contention proceed upon the assumption that human nature is a constant quantity so that it cannot be essentially changed and that it has made the economic systems, what they have been.

This is not the case. Human nature, like animal nature, is constantly changing and neither the one nor the other voluntarily changes itself, but both are forced to change by the development of new and external conditions and by the necessity of conformity to them.

Professor Joseph McCabe, not a socialist, observes that these developments and conformities were so many revolutions and that the man who says, the secret of progress is evolution, not revolution, may be talking very good social philosophy but he is not talking science, as he thinks. In every modern geological work you read of periodical revolutions in the story of the earth, and these are the great ages of progress--and, I ought to add, of colossal annihilation of the less fit.

Darwin discovered that animal nature changed (for example snake nature changed into bird nature) because of changed physical environments and the necessity of life to adaptation to them.

Marx discovered that human nature changed from what it was during the period of chatteldom to what it was during serfdom and from that to what it is under capitalism by reason of the difference in the economic systems of these periods by which the world fed, clothed and housed itself and that these differences are in turn accounted for by the differences in the machines by which the necessities of life are produced.

Thus Darwin explained the history of animal life without the hypothesis of a divine creator, and Marx explained the history of mankind without the hypothesis either of a divine ruler or human leaders. These Darwinian and Marxian explanations constitute what is known as the materialistic explanation of history.

Marx represented that capitalism would end the class struggle and issue in a classless world because its profiteering system of production and distribution could not be succeeded by another, since it divides mankind into masters who are ever growing less numerous and slaves who are ever growing more numerous, without the possibility of those who are half capitalists and half workers rising out of their nondescript condition into a new master class, as did the bourgeoisie under feudalism. For these reasons he contended the proletarian slaves would become the grave diggers for the bourgeois masters and so end capitalism with the burial of its representatives.

But with the complete and sustained triumph of the proletarian class the bourgeois class will rapidly pass away, as is now the case with it in Russia, and a classless world will be born to live on a co-operative instead of a competitive basis, in a heaven instead of a hell.

V. WHAT WILL BE THE FORM OF THE WORKERS' STATE.

Hail Soviet Russia, the first Communist Republic, the land of, by
and for the common people. We greet you, workers and peasants of
Russia, who by your untold sacrifices, by your determination and
devotion, are transforming the Russia of black reaction, of the
domination of a few, into a land of glorious promise for all.
Comrades in America, watch the bright dawn in the East; you have
but your chains to lose, and a world to gain!--The Workers'
Council.

In general outline the form of the workers' state will be that of the Russian Soviet Republic, and what it is will appear from the following semi-official description, the briefest and clearest of any which I have seen. Its authorship is unknown to me but I know it to be the work of a committee of which Zinoviev, one of the directing and inspiring minds of the proletarian movement in Russia, was a member, and it may be that he is the author. Anyhow it is a recently published, authoritative classic containing the information for which a large part of the world has been waiting:

We have before us the example of the Russian Soviet Republic, whose
structure, in view of the conflicting reports printed in other
countries, it may be useful to describe briefly here.

The unit of government is the local Soviet, or Council, of
Workers', Red Army, and Peasants' Deputies.

The city Workers' Soviet is made up as follows: Each factory elects
one delegate for a certain number of workers, and each local union
also elects delegates. These delegates are elected according to
political parties--or, if the workers wish it, as individual
candidates.

The Red Army delegates are chosen by military units.

For the peasants, each village has its local Soviet, which sends
delegates to the Township Soviet, which in turn elects to the
County Soviet, and this to the Provincial Soviet.

Nobody who employs labor for profit can vote.

Every six months the City and Provincial Soviets elect delegates to
the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which is the supreme governing
body of the country. This Congress decides upon the policies which
are to govern the country for six months, and then elects a Central
Executive Committee of two hundred, which is to carry out these
policies. The Congress also elects the Cabinet--The Council of
People's Commissars, who are heads of Government Departments--or
People's Commissariats.

The People's Commissars can be recalled at any time by the Central
Executive Committee. The members of all Soviets can be recalled
very easily, and at any time, by their constituents.

These Soviets are not only Legislative bodies, but also Executive
organs. Unlike your Congress, they do not make the laws and leave
them to the President to carry out, but the members carry out the
laws themselves; and there is no Supreme Court to say whether or
not these laws are "constitutional."

Between the All-Russian Congresses of Soviets the Central Executive
Committee is the supreme power in Russia. It meets at least every
two months, and in the meanwhile, the Council of People's
Commissars directs the country, while the members of the Central
Executive Committee go to work in the various government
departments.

In Russia the workers are organized in Industrial Unions all the
workers in each industry belonging to one Union. For example, in a
factory making metal products, even the carpenters and painters are
members of the Metal Workers' Union. Each factory is a local
Union, and the Shop Committee elected by the workers is its
Executive Committee.

The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the federated Unions
is elected by the annual Trade Union Convention. A Scale Committee
elected by the Convention fixes the wages of all categories of
workers.

With very few exceptions, all important factories in Russia have
been nationalized, and are now the property of all the workers in
common. The business of the Unions is therefore no longer to fight
the capitalists, but to run industry.

Hand in hand with the Unions works the Department of Labor of the
Soviet Government, whose chief is the People's Commissar of Labor,
elected by the Soviet Congress with the approval of the Unions.

In charge of the economic life of the country is the elected
Supreme Council of People's Economy, divided into departments, such
as, Metal Department, Chemical Department, etc., each one headed by
experts and workers, appointed, with the approval of the Union by
the Supreme Council of People's Economy.

In each factory production is carried on by a committee consisting
of three members: a representative of the Shop Committee of the
Unions, a representative of the Central Executive of the Unions,
and a representative of the Supreme Council of People's Economy.

The Unions are thus a branch of the government--and this government
is the most highly centralized government that exists.

It is also the most democratic government in history. For all the
organs of government are in constant touch with the working masses,
and constantly sensitive to their will. Moreover, the local Soviets
all over Russia have complete autonomy to manage their own local
affairs, provided they carry out the national policies laid down by
the Soviet Congress. Also, the Soviet Government represents only
the workers, and cannot help but act in the workers' interests.

The motto of this section is the conclusion of a good article in the first number of one among the best of the periodicals devoted to the promotion of Marxism, The Workers' Council, published by the International Educational Company, New York City. This article is so short and lends itself so naturally as a supplement to the foregoing explanation of the new economic system which has been established and is being developed in Russia that I quote the rest as the conclusion of this section about Sovietism.

Communist Russia, the Russia of the common people, marks a new
epoch in the world's history. It marks a basic change in the
structure of human society. Up to this time society lived under the
rule of the few, under the rule of the class which possessed the
wealth of the country. The methods were different at different
periods in the world's history, but the results were the same:
riches and power for the few, a bare existence and endless toil for
the many. The slaves, the serfs, or the wage workers of today, who
compose the masses of the people, have ever been the hewers of wood
and the carriers of water, the beasts of burden on whose backs
sported and fattened kings and nobles, landlords and capitalists.
They who possessed wealth had the power. And they passed laws to
protect that power, to make the possession of wealth a social
institution. Private property was enthroned and every striving of
mankind was subjected to the rule of property. Thence grew the
exploitation of man by man for private profit, and all abuses
resulting therefrom; fear of loss of property, care of possession,
dread of the future, fear of loss of employment, envy and greed.
Human society was ruled by property grabbers; masters, kings,
capitalists, providing toil, disease, war for the masses of
mankind. That is the rule of capitalism, and cannot be otherwise.

But under communism, profit is abolished, and with it the exploitation of man by man; private property is no longer a factor in the life of man; property becomes universal, all natural and created wealth belong to society, to every member of the community, as secure a birth right as air and sunlight. Everybody's measured work provides a common fund of things to satisfy material needs, today, tomorrow and in years to come. There can be no fear of losing one's job, of seeing one's children starve, of the poor-house in old age. As sure as the sun will rise on the morrow, man is secure of his bread, his shelter and clothing. Man is freed from animal cares, free to develop his human qualities, his intelligence, his brain and heart.

Russia points the way. Russia is now one huge corporation, every man, woman and child an equal shareholder. The state is administered as a business; the benefit of the stockholders being the object of the corporation. The individual contributes his labor, whatever it may be: manual, mental, artistic. This labor is applied to available materials: the soil of the farm, the natural resources, the mines, and mills and factories. The finished product is distributed through the agencies of the corporation, in the shape of food and clothes and shelter, of education and amusement, of protection to life and limb, of literature and art, of inventions and improvements: to every man, woman and child of the nation.

To be sure this ideal of a human brotherhood is not yet realized in Russia. No sane person would expect so tremendous a change to be consummated in three years, in the face of universal aggression, intrigues and blockades. It may take ten years, perhaps a generation. What of it! Russia is past the most difficult period of transition from the capitalist state to a communist state, while other capitalist countries must still face the period of revolution. Therefore let Russia lead the way. Let the American workers realize that Russia's fight is their fight, that Soviet Russia's success is the success of the laboring people the world over!

Have you ever been to Crazy Land,[N]
Down on the Looney Pike?
There are the queerest people there--
You never saw the like!
The ones that do the useful work
Are poor as poor can be,
And those who do no useful work
All live in luxury.
They raise so much in Crazy Land
Of food and clothes and such,
That those who work don't have enough
Because they raise too much.
They're wrong side to in Crazy Land,
They're upside down with care--
They walk around upon their heads,
With feet up in the air.

--T.

VI. WITHDRAWAL OF PRIZE OFFER.

Never have anything to do with those who pretend to have dealings
with the supernatural. If you allow supernaturalism to get a
foothold in your country the result will be a dreadful
calamity.--Confucius.

Mrs. Brown and I hereby withdraw, for the present at least, our prize offer, and for two reasons:

1. We are convinced that it is as necessary to the welfare of the world to smite supernaturalism in religion as capitalism in politics, but while many are able and willing to attack the octopus of capitalism, this is true of only a few in the case of the dragon of supernaturalism. Some hesitate because they feel with one of the critics of Communism and Christianism that revolutionary forces are coming to the surface in the churches.

"Where," he asks, "shall we classify the stand of the Catholic Church against the open shop? What shall be said of the Interchurch report on the steel strike? What of the attitude of the combined commission in Denver of Catholics, Protestants and Jews on the street car strike?"

We have no desire to belittle such efforts nor to discourage their promoters; but (though they may afford some local and temporary alleviation to the miseries of far the greater part of the world--miseries growing out of its division into two classes, a small class of owning masters and a large class of working slaves) we center no hope in them, because the whole history of the supernaturalistic interpretations of religion, not excepting the Christian, show these efforts to be only reformatory and temporary bubbles which sooner or later are always pricked by the masters of what little revolutionary air they contain, and so never issue in any general or permanent improvement of the sad lot of the overwhelming majority of the slaves.

How little the church serves the working slaves, and how much the owning masters, will appear from the following representations of Roger W. Babson, the well-known financial expert and adviser:

The value of our investments depends not on the strength of our
banks, but rather upon the strength of our churches. The underpaid
preachers of the nation are the men upon whom we really are
depending, rather than the well-paid lawyers, bankers and brokers.
The religion of the community is really the bulwark of our
investments. And when we consider that only 15 per cent of the
people hold securities of any kind and less than 3 per cent hold
enough to pay an income tax, the importance of the churches becomes
even more evident.

For our sakes, for our children's sakes, for the nation's sake, let
us business men get behind the churches and their preachers. Never
mind if they are not perfect. Never mind if their theology is out
of date. This only means that were they efficient they would do
very much more. The safety of all we have is due to the churches,
even in their present inefficient and inactive state. By all that
we hold dear, let us from this very day give more time, money and
thought to the churches, for upon these the value of all we own
ultimately depends.

What our critics say about the recent efforts of the American churches being in the right direction is interesting to Mrs. Brown and me, but we are much more impressed by the observation of a writer in a late issue of Soviet Russia. In speaking of the baneful influence of the Russian church through all the ages he says:

Out of the shadows of antiquity, from the morning of man's cupidity
and avarice, two sinister figures have crawled with crooked talons
through history, leaving a trail of blood and fear most horrible
which has not halted yet. These are the monarch and the priest. The
one is symbolical of despotic or oligarchic power, the other
typifies the sordid ignorance and fearful superstition of the
credulous masses which maintains the power of the first. High in
the streets of Moscow, where one may see the pallid, long-haired,
degenerate-looking venders of holy lies and pious impositions
shuffle along like spectres from a remoter age, there hangs a woven
streamer of scarlet hue with huge white lettering, which defiantly
proclaims that religion is the opium of the people.

Though many still cross themselves a score of times daily on
passing the church, yet nevertheless the people are rapidly
assimilating the knowledge which elevates and enlightens, and
learning to reject that which terrorizes and deforms the mind, and
just so sure as the last filthy tyrant has been placed for ever
beyond mischief, so will the last priest soon vanish from the land
once contemptuously known as "Holy Russia".

The foregoing is from a revolutionary sympathizer with soviet Russia and the following is from a reactionary criticizer of it, but both are to the same effect, that orthodox Christianity is wholly against the interest of the proletariat and entirely for that of the bourgeoisie:

One of the most striking characteristics of Bolshevism is its
pronounced hatred of religion, and of Christianity most of all. To
the Bolshevik, Christianity is not merely the theory of a mode of
life different from his own; it is an enemy to be persecuted and
wiped out of existence.

To understand this is not difficult. The tendency of the Christian
religion to hold before the believer an ideal of a life beyond
death is diametrically opposed to the ideal of Bolshevism, which
tempts the masses by promising the immediate realization of the
earthly paradise. From that point of view Christianity is not only
a false conception of life; it is an obstacle to the realization of
the Communist ideal. It detaches souls from the objects of sense
and diverts them from the struggle to get the good things of this
life. According to the Bolshevist formula, religion is opium for
the people: and serves as a tool of capitalist domination.

This influence of the churches, in the long run and on the whole has been and will continue to be the same throughout christendom everywhere and everywhen, not excepting these United States in the twentieth century.

Nor is it to any convincing purpose that the representatives of the owning class contend that kings and priests have lost their supremacy to presidents and preachers, for it is imperialism in politics which enthralls and supernaturalism in religion which degrades. The world is greatly afflicted with both, none of it much, if any, more than our country.

It seems to us that we see two fundamentally important facts more clearly than our critics see them: (1) the first step in the way of salvation for the proletariat is class consciousness, and (2) the Christian interpretation of supernaturalistic religion has been, and until it is discredited will continue to be the most efficient among the many preventives to this consciousness.

Let me show this to be the case by an experience which I had some years ago when Mr. Pierpont Morgan, Senior, was at the height of his glory, as the king of the great realm of big business, receiving homage on the one hand from the Rockefellers and Rothschilds, and on the other hand from the Blockheads and Henry Dubbs of all the world.

At that time I made a confirmation visitation for my sick episcopal brother, the Bishop of New York, to what was popularly known as Pierpont Morgan's church (St. George's, one of the downtown churches for working people.) He was the senior warden of this great parish having nearly 5,000 communicants. He went with the collecting procession out through the great congregation and back to the chancel where each collector ceremoniously emptied the contents of his basket into the great gold alms basin held by the Rector.

While the famous financier was collecting contributions from obscure toilers, how could any, brought up as I was and as nearly all of the great congregation were, see that capitalism has divided humanity into two conflicting classes which "have nothing in common, the working class and the employing class, between which a struggle must go on until the workers organize, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production and abolish the wage system!"

By the light of what I had been taught all along and of what I was then seeing with my own eyes from the bishop's chair such a representation would have seemed preposterous and what was true of me was equally so of all present, rector, wardens, vestrymen, members and visitors.

There were not many I. W. W.'s. in those days, but if one had been there and upon leaving the church had made a representation to this effect to a fellow-worker who was a member of St. George's would not the reply have been something as follows:

See what Pierpont Morgan and I have in common: the same God; the same religion; the same church; the same services for worship; the same collection basket in which he puts a $100.00 bill and I a ten cent piece; the same Lord's Supper where we eat and drink together; and, besides all this, there is the same hell where he will go unless he gives me a fair day's wage and where I will go unless I do a fair day's work, and the same heaven where both will go to equally glorious mansions, if we are alike 100 percenters in church and state, and if he pays me liberally for my work and I slave hard enough for his money.

Assuming the truth of the Christian interpretation of religion this conclusion is correct. But this Christian religion is not true. Christianism offers nothing to either the owners or workers in the sky for its god and heaven, devil and hell are lies. And neither religious Christianism nor political Republicanism or Democracy, not to speak of the other isms of religion and politics, offers the workers aught on earth.

Capitalism is the god of this world, of no part of it more than of these United States, and capitalism is to the laborer a robbing, lying, murderous devil, not a good divinity.

2. The recall of the prize offer is also occasioned and justified, we think, by a demand, which was as unexpected as it is gratifying, for our little propagandist in foreign countries, and we have been persuaded that it should be met by securing to him the gift of tongues. We propose to do this by devoting the money which was set aside for the prizes to the encouragement of making and publishing translations.

FOOTNOTES:

[N] The capitalist countries of the world constitute the United States of Crazy Lands.

VII. AFTERWORD.

"So many Gods, so many Creeds,
So many ways that wind and wind,
When all this sad world really needs
Is just the art of being kind."

--Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

I.

My title, given in Latin on the picture page, is bestowed upon me by some in jest and by others in reproach, and I am accepting it from both as compliments, because they prove that I have at least succeeded in making clear the general outlines of my religious and political position.

The use of this title is due to the desire that those who pick up the booklet should not buy it, much less undertake to read it, under a mistaken impression as to its doctrinal trends. In English the Latin title is, "Bishop of the Countries belonging to the Bolsheviki and the Infidels."

Certain friends greatly fear that some things said in this booklet may fall foul of the criminal-syndicalism laws. I have carefully read those of Ohio and believe that the booklet contains nothing which is not safely within them.

Anyhow, I have spoken the truth about supernaturalistic religion and capitalistic politics as I understand it, and I believe that I have adequately supported all my representations on bases of relevant facts which cannot be gainsaid or, at any rate, upon sound arguments which have such facts for their foundations.

However, I am trying to hold myself open to conviction; and, this being the case, if "the powers that be" in state or church feel that they must proceed against me, I beg that, in justice to all the persons and interests concerned, they will come with their resources of persuasion, not coercion.

My appeal to the religious and political rulers to do this shall be in the burning words of a celebrated defender of the capitalistic system of economics, John Stuart Mill, words which constitute the most remarkable passage in his powerful essay on Liberty:

No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting
a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the
people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines
or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear.

Speaking generally, it is not, in constitutional countries, to be
apprehended, that the government, whether completely responsible to
the people or not, will often attempt to control the expression of
opinion, except when in doing so it makes itself the organ of the
general intolerance of the public.

Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one
with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion
unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice.

But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion,
either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is
illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the
worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in
accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it.

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person
were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in
silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be
justified in silencing mankind.

Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the
owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a
private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury
was inflicted on only a few persons or on many. But the peculiar
evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is
robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing
generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than
those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of
the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose,
what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and
livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

This passage should be inscribed in letters of gold on the doors of every church and court house in the world. It was written in condemnation of the persecution by majorities of minorities in states, but it applies equally to all intolerance of dissentient opinions.

It is utterly impossible in a printed discussion of the length of this booklet to weed out every word capable of misconstruction; and equally so to furnish a definition or limitation to every doubtful word or phrase. Nevertheless I call attention to a few:

The word "revolution" as used here should not be taken as implying armed insurrection or violence, unless expressly so described. These are not necessary features of revolution. There have been both political and industrial revolutions entirely unattended by violence or bloodshed; for example, the political revolution of 1787 when the old Articles of Confederation were abolished and the federal Constitution imposed upon the United States; also the political and industrial revolution of 1919 in Hungary when for a time a soviet system was established, with Bela Kun as premier.

The bloodshed which often attends revolutions comes almost invariably from the lawless counter-revolutionary efforts of the deposed ruling class to maintain themselves in power or regain power by terrorism and murder.

When I eulogize the Bolsheviki and their system in Russia, I am not to be taken as advocating for the United States the employment of the bloody tactics for gaining power, which the capitalist press of America persists in describing--and as I believe, falsely. I deal in this booklet not with tactics but with facts. I concern myself here not with the ways by which the Bolsheviki of Russia gained power, but with what they did with the power after gaining it.

As I was trained in theology, I am certain that my religious position has been so clearly outlined that no mistake as to where I stand will be made by the rulers in my church; but, having had no training in the law, I am less certain that my political position will be as unmistakably understood by the rulers in my state. Therefore, to avoid misinterpretation of certain words and phrases in this booklet, I here expressly disclaim any intention of violating the criminal-syndicalism statute of Ohio, following as closely as may be its phraseology in these my denials of criminal intention:

Nothing herein is to be understood as advocating or teaching the
duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence or
unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing
industrial or political reform. This booklet is not issued for the
purpose of advocating, advising, or teaching the doctrine that
industrial or political reform should be brought about by crime,
sabotage, violence or unlawful methods of terrorism; nor of
justifying the commission or the attempt to commit crime, sabotage,
violence or unlawful methods of terrorism with intent to exemplify,
spread or advocate the propriety of the doctrines of criminal
syndicalism; nor of organizing any society, group or assemblage of
persons formed to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal
syndicalism. If any such meaning shall be read into any passage of
this booklet by any reader, it will be a wrong meaning, not what I
intended to convey.

A revolution by which a new industrial democracy--the freedom to make things for the use of workers--will supplant the old capitalist democracy--the freedom to make things for the profit of owners--is an inevitable event in the history of every country within the twentieth century.

II.

My object in this booklet is not the promotion of class hatred and strife. Far from it. It is to persuade to the banishment of gods from skies and capitalists from earth.

Theism and capitalism are the great blights upon mankind, the fatal ones to which it owes, more than to all others together, the greatest and most unnecessary of its suffering, those arising from ignorance, war, poverty and slavery.

This recommendation as to banishments and this representation in support of it stand out on nearly every page of the booklet, and in order to make sure of special prominence for them on its last pages, I quote the following from an article by G. O. Warren (a major in the British army, I think) an occasional contributor of brilliant articles to rationalist publications on sociological lines:

If there be a God who rules men and things by His arbitrary will,
it is an impertinence to attempt to abolish poverty, because it is
according to His will. But if there be no such God, then we know
that poverty is caused by men and may be removed by men. If there
be a God who answers prayers, the remedy for social injustice is to
pray. But if there be no such God, the remedy is to think and act.

If men go to heaven when they die, and if heaven is a place in
which everybody will be made perfectly happy, then there is no need
to struggle against poverty in this world, because a few years of
trouble, or even degradation, in this world are of no consequence
when compared with an eternity of happiness that must be ours by
simply following the directions of the clergy. But if there be no
such heaven, then it becomes a matter of first importance that we
make our condition as happy as possible in this world, which is the
only one of which we are certain.

I maintain that there is no God who rules men and things by His
arbitrary will and who answers prayers, and that there is no heaven
of everlasting bliss to which we are to be wafted after death. And
I maintain this not only because I think that these religious
beliefs are erroneous, but because I know that they are most potent
to make men docile and submissive to the most degrading conditions
imposed on them. I feel sure that the doctrine that obedience to
rulers and contentment in poverty are according to the will of God,
and the doctrine that the poor and the oppressed will be
compensated in heaven are the chief causes of slums, prisons,
lunatic asylums and poor-houses.

All political tyranny is backed up and made possible by belief in
an arbitrary God, and all poverty is endured because of the belief
that after death everlasting happiness and wealth await us. Two
conditions are necessary to human happiness: personal freedom and
general wealth. But we never can be free as long as we believe that
it is the will of an infinite heavenly ruler that we should submit
to a finite earthly ruler, whether he gets upon the throne by
hereditary succession or by the votes of a majority; and wealth
will never be justly, and therefore, generally, distributed as long
as most of the people believe that because they are poor in this
world they will be rich in the world to come.

The apostle Paul says that political rulers are ordained by God and
must be obeyed, from the King to the constable, from the President
to the policeman. He says that if you are refractory, "the
minister of God" will use his sword, and will not use it "in vain."
He says that the sword-bearer is God's minister.

Christ himself recites a parable about a rich man who went to hell
because he was rich and a poor man who went to heaven because he
was poor. Rich Christians are told by the clergy that the surest
way for them to get to heaven is by being rich; but they use this
parable to console the poor with the idea that the surest way for
them to get to heaven is by being poor. And this idea is confirmed
by the saying of Christ: 'Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.'

I claim that it is impossible to prove that any being exists who
can do, or ever does, anything outside of the regular processes of
Nature, and therefore that the word "God," which has always meant
such a being, should be dropped. I would have no objection to the
current use of the word "God" if that use were harmless, but it is
very far from that. It is a word that every despot conjures with to
keep the people in ignorance and subjection. It is a word that
crafty politicians use in carrying out their schemes of bribery and
plunder.