ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM.

Evening Star, Issue 22629, 22 April 1937, Page 18

ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM.

TO THE EDITOH. Sir, —“ Anti-Humbug ” _ wants a plain yes or no to his question, Whether Marxian Communism is anti-God and anti-Christian in theory and practice.” 1 answered him Jong ago by telling hitn Communism was a theory of political"economy, not a sectarian brand of theology. His question is just as logical as my asking a bachelor if he had left oft beating his wife or inquiring if the differential calculus was related to the binomial theorem and if either of them were Catholic or Protestant. Any way, X am not a prisoner in the dock to answer his demands when he evades all my questions. To not one of them has he attempted any reply, and he has wilfully misquoted me. To make my answer more definite I will say Communism is much nearer Christianity than capitalism, as it believes in the command “Tay not up for yourselves treasure on earth where moth and rust do corrupt and thieves break through and steal.” It was not to the Sadducees (atheists) Christ sard, “ Woe unto you Scribes anjl Pharisees, hypocrites; ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers, therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.” Were He on earth to-day he would say: “Ye cut the old ago pension to subsidise wealthy companies, a thing no Communist would do. Your correspondent quoted Luaacharsky as saying, “I spit on religion.” .Well, that is his private opinion. Because a Brahmin capitalist believes all girls should be married before reaching puberty that is not necessarily the opinion of other capitalists. Now that 1 have answered “ Anti-Humbug ’’ for the second time I also want a plain yes or no to a fresh’ question, as he has evaded all previous ones. Would he describe the conditions in Newfoundland under capitalism as described in last night’s Star as godly? When I read that they do not want flour in barrels but sacks so that thev can clothe the children, one m every four persons a pauper, relief paid in kind to the extent of 2s 6d a week, children woefully undernourished, impoverished physically, mentally, and morally, it sounds to me more like Dante’s Inferno. I suppose children in barrels would be too like Diogenes of old in his barrel with a candle in day light looking for an honest man. In these days of humbug he would need the X-rays.—l am, etc., April 21. Popoffski. 1 TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Mr Powell says: “When the Emperor Constantine, for political purposes, made Christianity the State religion of Homo he bound the church (composed of fallible men) to the interests of wealth and power with chains of gold.” This is merely a repetition of anti-Catholic propaganda so completely demonstrated as false by students of history that one could let it remain on the scrap heap of bigotry, but for the fact that Mr Powell argues that since Constantine’s day the church has been obedient to authority whatever its origin and however tyrannical _ it may be. The death by assassination of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas a’Beckett, is an instance of resistance to the church being made an instrument of kingly power in Henry 7 ll.’s time. In 1164 the Constitution of Clarendon contained a clause “ that bishops must be chosen by the King’s consent and do him homage.” Thomas a’Beckett’s death was due to his refusal to make the church a tool of the King, and that occurred over eight centuries after -Constantine’s time. Again, when King John demanded that the church should elect the King’s nominee, the Pope to whom the dispute between John and the church w'as referred, appointed as archbishop a man named Stephen Langton. This was the Archbishop Langton who produced the old charter of Henry 1. and drafted a new one, known’in history Magna Carta, on similar lines. Thus we still find in that; long struggle that the church, far from being the tool of tyrannical power, joined forces with resisters to such power, ’and drafted and secured for us Magna Carta, the foundation of our British democratic liberties. If space permitted one could show that since that date the British history of the church has been one of resistance to misuse of power. —I am, etc., CoVERLAND. April 20.

[This letter has been abridged. Space cannot be found for long historical disquisitions.—Ed. E.S.]