THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL OF DEMOCRACY

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22883, 2 December 1939, Page 16

THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL OF DEMOCRACY

The Defence of Democracy. By John Middleton Murry. Jonathan Cape. Through Whitcombe amt Tombs Ltd. 315 pp. (16/-.) Mr Murry is well aware, as are many less sensitive writers, that modern world-conditions are a challenge to democracy. Modern democracy is much too haphazard and ill-conceived, Mr Murry believes. He would have a democracy that is the result of a conscious ideal and a definite willing on the part of a nation. Such an ideal requires the Christian religion as its foundation, and a Christian nation alone can make-it real. ,In Mr Murry’s view, democracy is “the form of government which . . . asserts the worth and validity «f the individual man, and the true end of society is to secure to him the maximum of responsible freedom.” Moreover, “a democracy, therefore, considered historically as a development of Christian civilisation ... is a Christian political society.” In order to make democracy effective, it is necessary that the Church should bring about a revolution. Mr Murry suggests ways and means by which the parish churches of England might become centres of a deepseated revolution to further Christian democracy. Much use is made of the thought of Karl Marx throughout this book. The sugges-

tiqn that Mr Murry makes, that Marx, if he had been acquainted with the present world situation, would have been an advocate of this Christian neo-democracy, is not very convincing. Mr Murry, however, has not allowed himself to be blinded to stubborn facts when viewing them in relation to Marxian theories. He says very rightly: “The contemporary English Marxist is very remote from the English working man. His real enthusiasm is for an abstract proletariat; he condescends a little towards reality when it takes the shape of the Russian working man, but thereby he comes no nearer to it.” This book is well worthy of consideration by all interested in the social and political problems of our time.