The Washington socialist. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1914-1915, 1914-12-31
NO WELCOME FOR
JESUS ON CHRISTMAS
Christianity in Ill Repute in 1914
Church Failed to Stop War,
Says Bouok White.
lFrom the N. Y. CnllN

years ago, was the opinion expressed
by the Rev. Bouck White, speaking Mt
Ford hall, under the auspices OF the
Boston Baptist Social union last night.
A great crowd, which could not
possibly be accommodated In the hall,
came out to hear White. whose sub
ject was, "lf Christ Were to Come
on Christmas Day" The audience
applauded his declaration that "never
was Christianity in so poor repute as
on this Christmas Day, The war In
Europe means the breakdown of
Christendom. The crisis has come,
and II Jesus came to earth he would
behold the very apex of dissolution
which has come to our modern civil
lization. The war has come because
the Christianity of the churches was
not Christianity and was powerless to
prevent the printing OF the guns
Christianity never proved its impo-
tence so dramatically as In the war
which Is devastating Europe"
"If Christ We're to come on Christ
mas Day." said White, "he would not
be recognized"
Boston Tea Party Frowned Upon.
He asserted that no pedestas can
be found high enough on which to
place the Colonial fathers, and yet he
said "the Boston tea party was an
|. w. w. event, a case of direct action
and was so characterized by the re
spectables. The Tories and other re
spectables could not find vituperation
enough to describe the affair or tc
characterize the rabble who stirred uI
this revolution.
1--WE think of the money power as
modern invention, but the money
power is as old as human selfishness
, 1t seems to be the law that mar
: likes to ride on the back Of another
J man. The rider in every age ha.
tried every device to keep his place
and the ridden to shake him off I
! has been the warp and wool of his
: tory. Moses was a labor organizer
He put the brick makers of the lane
of Goshen into a union.
HE called them the Industrial
Workers of Israel The Exodus wa.
a labor walkout. 1t is the first his
nf III
] class of people getting together t.
: advance their economic interests TIL,
troubles of Moses were like those O
: all labor organizers.
( What was Jesus? Here again his
} torical scholarship is our guide
/ Jesus was a workingman in a car
< penter shop in Nazareth, where hi
earned his living and apparently o
} those who were dependent upon him
His life was contemporaneous will
the Roman Empire under Augustus
Caesar. The Roman Empire was a
heart an industrial despotism.
"The Roman Empire" he con
tinued, was a coalition of the master
J class in all countries for the oppres
sion of the working class. That sys
| tenn was extending to Palestine
/ Jesus was subjected to that pressure
He felt its iron collar being riveted
! day by day round his neck Indus
trial despotism is fire that must be
put out or it will put you out. You
can't talk philosophy to wolves You
have got to stop them or they will
stop you.
Respectable" Anti-Christs.
Roman soldiers were knocking at
the door Of Jesus and threatening
him and all his fellow workers with
slavery. He brushed the chips of the
carpenter shop from him and started
forth on the most successful career
of popular awakening that was ever
known in history. The common peo-
pie heard him gladly, not so the re-
spectables, the millionaires in Jeru-
salem, who were in cahoots with the
invaders
"The privileged people caught him
one Thursday night" he continued,
'and railraided him promptly to death
before the common people could get
word of it and rescue him What
was the charge. He stirreth up the
people, Hasn't that a familiar sound?
Jesus made no attempt to deny it,"
White went on to say that if Jesus
were to come next Friday and were
to get into an alteration with the
| police, that he would be asked If he
were ever arrested before, and that
upon his own statement every church
of responsibility would life up its
voice and say "away with him"