Religion and money--Attitude of clergy--Emphatic condemnation
of riches by Christ--Notable texts and sayings--Want of
conviction--Importance attached to dogmatic religion--Necessity
for stronger denunciation.
“The religion we profess has for one of its most significant
and salient features the denunciation of wealth as a trust or a
pursuit: Christianity condemns riches as a snare, a danger, and
almost a sin, and even Pagan-nurtured sages and statesmen are
never weary of pointing out how this disastrous passion vitiates
all our estimates of life and its enjoyments, and fosters and
exasperates all our social sores. Yet in England and America,
perhaps the two most sincerely Christian nations in the world--one
the cradle, the other the offspring of Puritanism--the pursuit
nearest to a universal one, the passion likest to a national one
is money-getting; not the effort after competence or comfort, but
the pushing, jostling, trampling struggle for vast possessions or
redundant affluence.”
The above is a quotation from the _Enigmas of Life_, by W. R. Greg. He
wrote this in 1873, and the passage goes on to observe that there were
signs of a sounder perception which might herald a reaction against the
struggle for money. His forecast, however, was wrong, for even in the
last thirty years the scramble has become much wilder, the power of
wealth greater, the influence of the wealthy more extensive, and the
millionaire more common, while luxurious living has outstripped all
reasonable bounds.
The Christian condemnation of riches remains as emphatic as when it
was first uttered, but the Church continues to explain it away or
to disregard it, and the clergy as a whole neither preach it nor do
they attempt to practise the doctrine laid down by their Master. The
clergy of the Church of England, in fact, are among the readiest to
accept the hierarchy of modern society founded on the gradations and
valuations of wealth. Even in the village churches the very seats are
assigned in such a way as to acknowledge the worldly standard of means.
The front rows are reserved for the squires and their dependents,
the “gentry” behind them, the “poor” at the back; while the vicar
inconsistently declares from the pulpit that they are all equal in the
sight of God. The Church as a profession (every decade it becomes more
of a profession and less of a calling) is arranged on the ordinary
worldly system of increase of salary according to rank and promotion.
And, indeed, if it were suggested to them that an increase of their
spiritual practically implied and necessitated a decrease of their
material responsibilities, and that the performance of the former is
by their own testimony interfered with by the existence of the latter,
with a very few exceptions they would scoff at such a fanciful idea.
If confronted with the words of the Gospel on the subject of riches,
they shuffle and seek excuses by declaring that they are figurative,
and that they point to an ideal which unfortunately is unpractical
and not compatible with our modern social system, which in its highly
“civilised” development has got beyond extreme and uncompromising
maxims of that kind. But we cannot get beyond what is eternally true,
nor surely should we desist from some attempt to reach forward towards
it, however unattainable and distant the ideal may seem. Whatever
doubts Christians may have as to what Christ’s meaning was in some of
His preaching, there can be no two opinions as to His view on this
point. There is diametrical opposition between His injunctions and our
belief. The world says nothing makes life easier than to have money and
possessions; Christianity says nothing makes life more difficult. As
a body the clergy see nothing incongruous in taking up this stand on
the side of the rich; they overlook their consequent estrangement from
the poor, and they ignore the fact that they are gradually drifting
away from any close contact and sympathy with the life and soul of the
people. The elasticity of their religion has amounted in this case, as
in others, to its distortion.
Long before the Christian era philosophers propounded this same
doctrine, and many reformers have done so since. As a single instance
we need only repeat the words of Sir Thomas More:
“For where is the justice that noblemen, goldsmiths, and usurers
and those classes who either do nothing at all or in what they do
are of no great service to the commonwealth, should live a genteel
and splendid life in idleness or unproductive labour; whilst in the
meantime the servant, the waggoner, the mechanic, and the peasant
toiling almost longer and harder than the horse, in labour so
necessary that no commonwealth could endure a year without it, lead
a life so wretched that the condition of the horse seems more to be
envied?... Thus after careful reflection, it seems to me, as I hope
for mercy, that our modern republics are nothing but a conspiracy
of the rich pursuing their own selfish interests under the name
of a republic. They devise and invent all ways and means whereby
they may, in the first place, secure to themselves the possession
of what they have amassed by evil means; and in the second place,
secure to their own use and profit the work and labour of the poor
at the lowest possible price.”
Would he find words to express himself were he alive to-day?
But of them all no one has emphasised so clearly or insisted so
strongly on the vanity and danger of worldly goods as Christ did.
The rich man consults Him, and tells Him that all the chief
commandments he has observed from his youth. But Christ sees what is
amiss, and the man goes away grieving, “For he had great possessions.”
Then follows the great generalisation: “How hardly shall they that have
riches enter into the Kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of
God.” As to whether or not the “needle’s eye” was the name of a narrow
gate of the city through which heavily laden camels could not pass,
does not signify. The meaning is clear beyond question. In the Kingdom
of God upon earth, that is an ideally constituted human society, there
is no place for a man encumbered with riches; his presence would
assuredly disturb the even balance of the whole. Rousseau saw that it
was a condition of good government that no citizen should be rich
enough to buy another, and no citizen poor enough to be compelled to
sell himself.[32] If all the social organisation of humanity, the
arrangement of which rests apparently to a great extent in our control,
were so constituted as to allow each man a full competence, far from
its producing a deadening equality as some pretend, it would free
the human race to make the most of its varied natural capacities and
talents which are now mostly lost, and a competition of achievement and
service founded on altruism would take the place of a competition for
gain and profit based on egoism. The ideal may be unattainable for the
present because we have drifted so far from it, but that is no reason
for discarding it altogether and turning our faces in the exactly
opposite direction.
There are many other equally noteworthy sayings in the Gospels, staled
by custom and familiar to most of us in the same way as the Church
service becomes familiar to children without their understanding one
single syllable of what it all means.
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where the moth and
rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.” And again,
“The seeds that fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked
them, and they yielded no fruit. These are such as hear the Word, and
the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the lust of
other things entering in, choke the Word and it becometh unfruitful.”
And yet again the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. These are not
mere fantastic and rhetorical figures of speech, but are a few of the
many instances of the reiterated insistence on the supreme importance
of the dispersal of the riches heaped in the hands of the few. It is
needless to multiply texts to prove that it is one of the cardinal
doctrines of Christ’s teaching. He was profoundly impressed with the
impediment, the handicap, the burden of wealth, the undischargeable
responsibility which weighs men down and incapacitates them from
participating in a juster and more perfect arrangement of society. And
down through the ages many a great mind has strongly endorsed this
lasting truth which, let it be remembered, though the world is blind to
it, is as strictly utilitarian as it is moral.
There is nothing in the least complex about this teaching. It is almost
self-evident; far easier to teach and far simpler to preach than the
intricate speculative tangles of dogma which are cast like nets from
pulpits over the minds of congregations. But there is this difference,
that while the latter is only an intellectual effort on the part of the
preacher or on the part of some other divine who has prompted him, the
renunciation of worldly riches cannot be preached by any man who makes
no attempt to practise it.
The clergy are like the rest of us, they do not really believe in
it; they cannot therefore act as if they did; they are persuaded
in their inmost hearts that to be richer must mean to be happier,
and so they take refuge in what is for their congregations the less
comprehensible and for themselves, therefore, the less embarrassing
side of their religion. Accordingly, from our moral physicians we can
get no guidance, on the contrary, with a very few notable exceptions,
they encourage the fallacious belief in money-making, and slur over
this important part of Christ’s message. Why did He associate with the
poor and choose His disciples from among their ranks? Not because He
hoped to enrich them, but because their deficiency in worldly goods
made them fertile ground for the seed of His doctrine of self-sacrifice
and humility. If we reject His teaching, well and good, we can discard
this with the rest, but it is just those who do the most lip service to
dogmatic Christianity who calmly ignore this unqualified essential.
It would be unfair to insist that no Churchmen are aware of these
dangers. Occasionally a voice speaks out boldly.
“We are not in touch with the mass of the labouring people,” says
the Bishop of Birmingham. “Is not the reason of this because we are
the Church of the rich rather than of the poor--of capital rather
than of labour? By this I mean that in the strata of Society the
Church works from above rather than from below. The opinions and
the prejudices that are associated with its administration as a
whole are the opinions and prejudices of the higher and higher
middle classes rather than of the wage earners.... Capital and
labour are names now for great class interests and organisations
representing men in many, and the Church finds itself in fact and
on the whole moving in the grooves which are precisely those from
which Christ warned us off: it finds itself expressing the point
of view which is precisely not that which Christ chose for His
Church.... Our whole system of Church charity expresses a bounty
administered out of benevolent feeling, by a wealth which makes no
apology for enjoying itself to a poverty which it makes no pretence
to share.”[33]
Or the Bishop of Manchester to the Church Congress in 1908:
“I suggest that our religious revival may lead us to a new
appreciation of the spirit of brotherhood--one of the great
ideals of the democratic movement. Secondly, I suggest that our
religious revival may take the form of a mission to the wealthy
and prosperous. It is the curse of riches that they blur and even
conceal altogether the heavenly vision. They tend to make pleasure
the business of life. A man’s wealth is measured by the time and
money that he can spend on amusement. So the outlook, not only of
the rich, but of all classes, becomes narrowed and confused.”
And of course other instances could be quoted, but the main body of the
Church shows no disposition to follow. They are bound to the governing
classes, and the governing classes have the money and therefore the
power such as it is.
The Free Churches on the whole are bolder, for they deal with a
simpler class. But neither do they tirelessly condemn money-hunting,
because, being poor themselves, they are far too dependent on the large
subscriptions of the richer members of their congregations. But not
even by building chapels can a rich man justify himself, though he may
be blessed as a benefactor by his co-religionists.
The Roman Catholics too, who anyhow in their churches do not give any
special privileges to rank, have their tongues tied by the lavish
donations of rich and noble patrons which they are only too glad to
receive. To emphasise the Christian condemnation of the rich man would
therefore not be politic or in accordance with what they conceive to be
their best interests.
It is not as if Christians of all sects and denominations could not
discover texts and arguments enough in their Bibles to support them
were they to alter this course and advance courageously along the
straight way. The best words ever uttered on the evil and folly of
riches are to be found in its pages in the Old Testament as well as the
New. A collection of these sayings would form the strongest indictment
of wealth that could be framed.
There is the great Proverb, “A good name is rather to be sought than
great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.” Or the
passage from Job, “Though he heap up silver as the dust and prepare
raiment as the day, he may prepare it, but the just shall put it on
and the innocent shall divide the silver,” and “Will he esteem thy
riches? No, not gold nor all the forces of strength.” Or the Psalmist’s
warning, “If riches increase, set not your heart upon them.” Or the
words of Ecclesiastes, “There is a sore evil which I have seen under
the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.”
But we must resist the temptation of making a collection of quotations
here. The declarations of this truth are well known, even though they
may not be accepted or appreciated. The truth about money may still be
looked upon as impracticable Utopianism; one day it may be discovered
to be sound economics. The practice of restraint and renunciation is
not only theoretically sound, but both subjectively and objectively
expedient.
There is, we must confess, a recurring note in modern thought, the
constant use of which is amounting almost to a popular mannerism. It
is a method of reasoning which inclines men to spurn deep convictions
or strong single-minded purpose as clumsy, uncouth, and unphilosophic,
and to welcome in their place involved generalisations and a spirit of
abstract compromise and theoretical balancing. Whether this tends to a
more profound acquisition of knowledge and a more exact and scientific
adjustment of mental conceptions, is not for us to say, but that it
casts a weakening spell over personal initiative and greatly impedes
decisive action is clear beyond doubt.
As for the Church, it is failing in its mission, because it refuses to
insist equally on the two aspects of the message it has undertaken to
deliver to mankind.
If religion is received in a purely dogmatic sense, it can appeal only
to our emotions and to the spiritual cravings of the more mystical
side of men’s natures. This is only confusing and quite unsatisfying
to our more rationalistic inclinations, which prefer a simple and
direct ethical teaching. Christianity combines the two elements--the
mystical and the rational--and fuses them together. Unfortunately
there is a proneness to detach the former as all-important and
sufficient in itself and to neglect the latter. The former has been
built up gradually in successive centuries of varying and imaginative
speculation, and however much it may appeal to the religious-minded,
it is valueless when broken off from the latter. The ethical precepts
for duty and conduct are, on the other hand, immutable, and in their
pristine simplicity carry all their original force of authority and
lose nothing from being divorced from dogmatic teaching. It requires no
heights of spiritual exaltation to accept Christ’s explicit precepts
as to sacrifice, humility, altruism, and the renunciation of worldly
possessions, but men are encouraged by the Church to seek consolation
in a fog of doctrinal obscurantism. Christ no doubt foresaw that we
should take refuge in the incomprehensible in our failure to accept
what to the humblest intelligence was perfectly comprehensible when he
said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into
the Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is
in Heaven.”
His immediate successors were not handicapped by considerations for or
subservience to those in authority who held the worldly power, and they
spoke with no uncertain voice.
What is wanted in the Church to-day is something of the uncompromising
spirit of those bygone days. Not condonation, or at the most
half-hearted criticism, but wholesale denunciation in words of splendid
vehemence such as the passage in the Epistle of St. James:
“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall
come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are
moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rest of them
shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were
fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold,
the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which
is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which
have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have
nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned
and killed the just, and he doth not resist you.”