WORLD DECISION

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1935, Page 10

WORLD DECISION

THE COMING TEST

CREED PLUS CONDUCT

.WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN ?

(By "Westerner.")

East and West meet when Dr. Kagawa, Japanese Christian, corrects Carl Marx* and it makes one think. Nearly 2000 years ago, in Palestine, the Christianity that has recently entered Japan was establishing itself under the eye of a certain economic and political system. It was essentially an appeal to individuals. The individual was asked to cleanse himself, and all the rest would follow. If he valued the material things of life more than he valued his duty to his ■neighbour, then he would amass goods in competition with his neighbour. If, on the other hand, he put human service on a level above material things, he would gradually learn not to miss them, which is another way of saying that he would escape from the tyranny of material things. It would then be simple to choose between God and Mammon. This involved no crusade against the material, but merely fixing a relative place for it. Men chosen for discipleship were invited to leave this ■world's goods and follow the Master; but if a fisherman forsook his nets to become a fisher of men, that did not involve a prohibition of fishing. The individual, according to his circumstances, would strive to harmonise his spiritual and his physical existences. It was easier ■ for some natures than for others. It was somewhat hard for the rich young man who was asked to give all to the poor, and who thereupon went away sorrowful, because he had great possessions. A MODIFIED MATERIALIST. . That individual felt that his sphere was very largely in the material. It was sp-much in the material that he .could not divest himself of his wealth; but it would have been open to him for the rest of his life to distribute to the poor some of his profits, while maintaining his capital. And, notwithstanding the historic blank on the jppint, it is quite possible that.the rich young man did that very thing, and .became one of the earliest exponents of the Mjddle of the Road. If a clear view of the subject be taken, any tendency to dispise the rich young man will surely be firmly lived down. Is he not the very model of the average man of today, the man of nearly two thousand years later? The average man today may not be as rich in coin of the realm as was this young man of Palestine. But he of Palestine did not possess tobacco, motor-cars, cinemas, wireless, which the man of today buys the use of with relatively little effort. Today, as compared with two thousand years ago, a self-chosen poverty cuts one off from a whole heap of riches not known to old Palestine. Now, we who, without being counted rich, yet enjoy these riches (thanks to modern invention, organisation, capitalisation) must surely have a fellow feeling with the rich young man. He wanted to keep his treasures. So do we. We—most of us cannot say in a Cromwellian spirit: "Take away those baubles!" We are kin with the Palestinian in being rather fond of what we like, and perhaps we can best work out our salvation by a reasonable effort to share rather than by a complete liquidation of our capital. ' SELFISHNESS AND SIMPLE LIFE. But while the average man of today is .a direct lineal descendant of :the rich young man—and of his conflicting virtues of heart . and head—there are among us certain simple lifers who might not find it so hard to divest themselves of surplus riches. If somebody with the eloquence and opportunity of Father Cpughlin were to start a simple life-wave, it might become a very big thing indeed. But would it be Christianity? Anyone who puts his ear to the ground and hears the march of the simple lifers hears the falling ruins of employment-giving industries. As luxuries are dispensed with, millions of capital and hundreds of thousands of employees become unwanted in luxury industries; as garment becomes inexpensive or unnecessary, textile factories close; no longer do huge dividends and pay-rolls float in fragrant air upon the aroma of tobaccos. These considerations may not be conclusive, yet they confront the simple lifers. Where wages enter, there is a soul behind material things, ■unless the material things are themselves accursed. In the comparatively simple commercial fabric of Palestine two thousand years ago, it was not so, or was not so to the same degree. Semi-nude prophets in the wilderness did not rock the Stock Exchange. Yet one imagines that the cloth merchants did not look with favour on the garment of John the Baptist, nor did the sellers of grain applaud his diet of locusts and wild honey. And if an ultra-simple life was not the cure of human troubles in Palestine, is it to be assumed that any kind of simple life is a universal specific for modern ill?? There remains now, as then, a relative place for material things that are not classed necessary. Salvation' surely does not consist of scrapping industries and arts. IS MARX BIGHT OR WRONG? Which, then, is the stronger—Christianity or ■ materialism? Is Western civilisation based on a Christian concept in which the material has a proportionate place, or is it based on a materialism which is defying (without denying) Christianity? Here Dr. Kagawa, bringing back from the East the Christian message which the East received from the West, corrects Marx: Karl Marx had said that culture and civilisation were a superstructure on the production of material things. He had, however, ignored the fact that political economy was based largely on human consciousness. The issue here is between the theory that culture and civilisation have grown up machinely out of a material machinery, and must be corrected by mechanical means; and the theory that human consciousness is stronger than the machine. The first theory assumes the total failure of Christianity; the second asserts that the Christian idea has never surrendered to materialism, and remains dominant, through human consciousness, as a means 'of subordinating the material to a life of service. If the destiny of poison gas ar^nies is to destroy mankind, or *. if society is to slay itself through quarrels over material ownership, then Christianity has lost the battle. In this, as in any other crisis, the burden of bearing the Christian banner is on the Christians. Are they equal to it? Are they to share while owning, or own without sharing? If the latter, are they Christians? Writes E. Stanley Jones in "Christ's Alternative to Communism":— Events are leading up to a world decision. This generation, or, at the most, the next, will have to decide between materialistic, atheistic Communism, and the Kingdom of God on ; earth. And this in both East and West.