Evening star., 1948-08-22
God, Man and Communism

God, Man and Communism
In line with other organized religions
notably the Roman Catholic-the Arch
bishops and Bishops of the Anglican and
Associated Churches have now formally
declared their vigorous opposition to COM
munism as force that is frankly and self
avowedly hostile to and incompatible with
Christianity.
This view-which is embodied in an
encyclical to be read to congregations
throughout the world in October-is based
on committee report drawn up at the
Lambeth Conference in London. The con-
ference-participated in by the highest
authorities of the Church of England and
the Protestant Episcopal Church of the
United States-has just ended five weeks
of solemn and profoundly scholarly delib-
erationS on great number of mixed re-
ligious and temporal matters, the most
important of them being the Communist
issue in relation to the human spirit.
Among other things, the committee
report on this subject declares without
qualification that THE most highly organ
lied, consistent, powerful and destructive
form of secularism is beyond doubt dia-
lectical materialism and the type of COM
munism in which it is embodied. This Is
perhaps the one live alternative to the
Christian Interpretation of man. Between
the two there can be no compromise, and
it seems to be increasingly probable that
it is between these two that the world must
choose" There is no middle ground.
Though some may try to temporize by
rejecting the Kremlins atheism while &C
cepting its economic and political theory,
humanity simply cannot serve Mammon
and God or Marx and Christ at one and
the same time
Stated in the plaineSt tterms-oversimpli-
fed but essentially accurate-the funda-
mental substance of materialism, which
has been organized into dogmatic politi-
cal religion by the Communists, is this:
That it holds, as the Lambeth encyclical
says, that man is a creature of this world
only" In other words, he begins and ends
here; he comes out of nothing and goes
back to nothing; he has no higher func-
ton, purpose or destiny than a gnat or a
COW; he Is merely bit of soulless and
destructible flesh living for certain num-
Der of years, satisfying his senses as much
as he can, and then dying to pass back
into endless and complete negation.
In short, according to the absolute
materialist, there is no God, nor are there
any children of God and man is altogether
meaningless when measured on the scale
of eternity, which is itself meaningless. We
have no after-life; we are simply stuff that
pulsates for while before it returns to
the timeless and spiritless dust. In the last
analysis. everything is matter and acci-
dent; there is no just and judging omnip-
otent intelligence over all; there are
merely earthbound earthlings, without
much significance either to themselves or
others beyond the fleeting role they play
during the brief span of years allotted to
them by something called Chance.
Where does man go from philosophy of
this sort? In hard logic, If he has no worth,
no dignity, no nobility, no spirit, no soul,
no kinship with the angels, no purpose but
to please his flesh, no conscience, no ulti-
mate accountability, no guilt, no virtue,
no vice, and no God, then he is as one with
the beasts in the field. And it is but step
4AOiAl C1AAS W al uC IIldI IL Ilc Cdu RGI away
with it, he can follow the law OF the
jungle, and step on other peoples necks,
and be me-first in all his thought and
action, and feel perfectly free, and per-
fectly intelligent, in enjoying the pleasures
OF power by setting up cruel and amoral
tyrannies like the dictatorship of the
fourteen dialectical materialists now ruling
with an iron hand in Russia-the members
of the Politburo who, significantly enough,
are currently intensifying their efforts to
make atheism universal in the Soviet
Union by stamping out the last remaining
remnants OF Godfearing religion.
There thus can be no doubt, as the
Lambeth Conference has asserted, that
Marxist philosophy and the philosophy of
Christianity are repugnant to each other.
| The gulf between them constitutes the
most difficult and most significant prob
lem of our time, with no easy solution any,
where in sight. The thing is at the root
of all mans troubled effort to build a
decent peace.