Jesus the Socialist
by
Rev. James Dennis Hird, M.A.
(1850-1920)
(London: The Clarion Press,
44 Worship Street, E.C., 1908)

Clarion Pamphlet No. 46 [pdf version; Review]

Ed. Note: The historical term "Christian Socialist" is nowadays little known. Historically, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it used to be widely known. For background, see explanations, e.g., "Christian Socialism" (Answers.com) "Christian Socialism" (Spartacus) "Religious Socialism" (Wikipedia) "Christian Socialism" (Wikipedia) "History of Socialism," 1789-present "Liberation Theology" and writings, e.g., William Alfred Hinds (1833-1910), American Communitities (Oneida, N.Y.: The American Socialist, 1878) Prof. Peter d'A. Jones, The Christian Socialist Revival: 1877-1914 (Princton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1968) Christian Socialism Articles, Machinists Monthly Journal, Vol. XVIII, Issue 8, August 1906 Upton Sinclair, The Industrial Republic: A Study of American Socialism (1907) Prof. Edward Alsworth Ross, Sin and Society: An Analysis of Latter-Day Iniquity (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1907) (Cited in Prof. Michael Parenti, Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), on "religious leaders" who "evade social issues such as poverty, oppression and militarism [the beam], and [instead focus solely] on personal pieties, sectarian intolerance, and a prudish moralism [the mote]. . . . Sin and virture are defined as private matters unrelated to economic issues. Thus a worker who filches something from the business firm is guilty of theft, but the firm owners who grow rich off the underpaid labor of workers [James 5:1-5] are not considered thieves. Government policy that tolerates 'pornography' in art and literature is sinful, while government policy that pursues wars of aggression and favors the rich over the poor is not. Virture is [solely] a matter of loving and obeying God, rather than [the Bible Society Management Laws] advancing the collective human condition," at pp 44 and 179. [See context.] Rev. J. O. Bentall, Ph.D., "Why I Am a Christian Socialist," XXXVII The Arena (1907) Rev. E. E. Carr, "The Christian Socialist Fellowship: A Brief Account of Its Origin and Progress," 4 The Christian Socialist (#16) p 5 (15 August 1907) ("From the beginning of the Socialist movement in America, religious men have been identified with it. The five current American books teaching Socialism were written by men who are or have been active in the ministry [nonetheless] a persistent effort has been made by some to force upon the Socialist movement of America the brand of atheism") Rev. Jackson Stitt Wilson (1868-1942), How I Became A Socialist (Berkeley, CA, 1911) Rev. Conrad Noel, Socialism in Church History (Milwaukee: The Young Churchman, 1911) "What Socialism Is," The Painter and Decorator, Vol. 27, Issue 1 (January 1913), pp 721-724 Upton B. Sinclair, The Profits Of Religion (New York: Vanguard Press, 1918) Mark Holloway, Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in America 1680-1880 (London: Turnstile Press, 1951) Prof. José María Díez-Alegría, Ph.D., LL.D., Christian Attitude to Social Problems (1967) Prof. José María Díez-Alegría, Ph.D., LL.D., Christianity and Revolution (1968) Prof. José María Díez-Alegría, Ph.D., LL.D., I Believe in Hope (1971) Rev. Dr. Frederick Herzog, Liberation Theology (1971) John C. Cort [1913-2006], Christian Socialism: An Informal History (New York: Orbis Books, 1988) (Chapter 8, "England," § 1, "John Ludlow and Other Early Socialists in England," p 139, cites "the Evangelical Protestant Alexandre Vinet, the man who first used the word socialisme." Chapter 7, "France," § 6, "The Saint Simonians," p 101, says it was "November 12, 1831, that Alexandre Vinet, a contributor to the Protestant magazine Le Semeur, wrote an article in which the word "socialisme" appeared for the first time in France. He used it to designate the opposite of 'individualism.'") Prof. José María Díez-Alegría, Ph.D., LL.D., Christianity and Private Property (1988) Penny Lernoux, Cry of the People: The Struggle for Human Rights in Latin America and the Catholic Church in Conflict with US Policy (Penguin Books, 1980) Prof. Ulrich Duchrow, Alternatives to Global Capitalism: Drawn from Biblical History Designed for Political Action (Utrecht: International Books, 1995) Prof. José María Díez-Alegría, Ph.D., LL.D., I Still Believe in Hope (2001) Franz J. Hinkelammert, Ph.D., and Prof. Ulrich. Duchrow, Property for People, Not for Profit: Alternatives to the Global Tyranny of Capital (London: Zed Books & Catholic Institute for International Relations, 2004) John Nichols, "How Socialists Built America" (The Nation, 13 April 2011) ("Again and again at critical junctures in our national journey, socialist thinkers and organizers, as well as candidates and officials, have prodded government in a progressive direction. . . . the people who once imagined Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the War on Poverty.") Frances Goldin, Debby Smith and Nichael Steven Smith, Co-Editors, Imagine: Living in A Socialist USA (New York: Harper Perennial, January 2014) (Review; Video), especially Chapter 5, "Law in A Socialist USA," pp 53-57, citing that prior to the capitalism doctrine (heresy), "Trade and commerce were confined to [minimal level]. Charging of interest [usury] was forbidden, thereby inhibiting commerce and banking . . . in medieval Europe . . . early capitalists . . . established [laws] to lend and borrow money with interest. . . . 55[Initially] they [merchants, bankers] were social outcasts whose profit-taking was thought to be dishonorable [sinful] a form of usury that put their souls in jeopardy. . . . But this disreputable lot . . . overthrew [Bible laws]," pp 54-55.) and contrasts, e.g., Prof. Thomas Wharton Collens, "Preaching" (March 1868) "Christian Communism" (Wikipedia) Theology Prof. José P. Miranda, Marx y la Biblia: Critica a la Filosofia de la Opresion (Salmanca: Ediciones Sígueme, 1971), transl. by John Eagleson, Marx and the Bible: A Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1974) (Background, Excerpts of pp. xiv-xv in Spanish) Christian Socialism was also taught in Sunday Schools. Historical examples are cited by Kenneth Teitelbaum, Ph.D.,   "'Critical Lessons' from Our Past: Curricula of Socialist Sunday Schools in the United States"   (Curriculum Inquiry, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Winter, 1990), pp. 407-436. Here reprinted is a Christian Socialist pamphlet from the era when the term "Christian Socialist" was more widely known, a pamphlet reprinting a Christian Socialist lecture by Rev. Dennis Hird, published in 1908. Click here for pdf version.

[Table of Contents]

[1.] Is Christianity the Religion of Jesus	1
[2.] Was Jesus a Socialist?	2
[3.] What Had Jesus Been Taught as a Jew?	4
[4.] What Evils Did Jesus Attack?	6
[5.] But What Had Jesus to Say of the Rich?	9
[6.] What Does It Mean?	11
[7.] In His Universal Precepts	13
[8.] We Will See What Jesus Taught by His Own Life	16
[9.] Our Last Test is the Conduct of the First Church	16
[10.] The Point	18

[1.] IS CHRISTIANITY THE RELIGION OF JESUS?

I AM sorry to learn that some good people are hurt at the title of my lecture [Jesus the Socialist].   Had I known this, I would have used some other title. It would have made no difference to what I have to say. I think that I may safely add, there is some superstition in the objection. I think many of those good people with an unbounded reverence for the Son of God are in great danger of forgetting the Son of Man. When I first said that Jesus was a Socialist, I thought I made a very trite remark; but this storm in a tea-cup about the title shows me that the educated (?) class has left off reading the gospel of Jesus, and that they live in a fool's paradise. I am going to talk more especially about the work of the Son of Man.

The learned [Dr. Henry H.] Milman [1791-1868], Dean of St. Paul's, said, “Christianity has been tried for more than eighteen hundred years [c. 250 A.D. - c. 1900 A.D.]: perhaps it is time to try the religion of Jesus [c. 31 A.D. - c. 250 A.D.].”   That is a pressing question.   Is Christianity, as now usually practised and taught, the same thing as the religion of Jesus?

I maintain emphatically that it is NOT.   I shall use the word Christianity to mean any or all of the organized forms of religion which have stolen Christ’s name.   By the religion of Jesus, I mean all that Jesus taught His disciples to do, not believe, and I shall confine my appeal to the first three Gospels, because these three agree in the main.

Let us bear this in mind, for it will be no answer to my position if you quote St. Paul, or St. Jude, or the Revelation against me. I want to get at “the root of the matter,” i.e., I wish to know what Jesus said and did, and what He meant. I beg you will remember that this is our one point.

Broadly speaking, there are two forms of religion struggling for the mastery in this country–one is a priestly organization with its ritual and sacraments, such as you find in

I hear on all sides that both the forms of popular religion are hard pressed to make any real headway. The agricultural laborer has given religion up, the artisan does not want it, the city business man has no time for it, and the rich?––well, they are happy enough without it. Now, in face of these facts, does it not strike you as strange that the Son of God should come to the world and not be able to discover a form of government or a religion which could heal the world? But before you condemn Him, be sure that you know what the religion of Jesus is, and be sure that it has been tried.

There is no greater marvel among men than that any poor man should not love Jesus, and yet how few of the poor find any real help in Him now.

My lecture can only be a sketch, and will be of no use unless you are going to examine the subject for yourselves. I will abstain from quoting great names, and confine myself to the Bible.

It is no part of my business to defend any particular socialistic scheme, or indeed Socialism itself. A few months ago a lady and a gentleman frankly avowed that to say that Jesus was a Socialist was blasphemous, and that it was a disgrace to a clergyman of the Church of England to say so, and the audiences who listened to these enlightened leaders of profound thought shouted “Down with him. [Rev. Hird].” Now as that was the kind of thing the mob of the gentry shouted about Jesus, I felt cheered when I heard of it.

Our inquiry has to do with one aspect of the life of Jesus. If there are other aspects, it is no business of ours now [not the subject of this lecture today]. Was Jesus a Socialist?

It is true He was never called a Socialist; it is also true He was never called a Methodist, or a Baptist, or a Papist, or a Church of England man; thank God, He was called by none of these names.

It is true He never saw a Socialist; it is also true that He never saw a bishop or a pope.

What then, is Socialism? State Socialism is a national scheme of cooperation managed by the State. Most forms of socialism demand that the land and other instruments of production shall be the common property of the people, and shall be used and governed by the people for the people. In other words, “Socialism is equality of privilege for every child of man.”

But you say that this is contrary to nature, it is impossible, it is the wild dream of a madman. Well, all this may be true. Certainly those who heard Jesus thought He was a madman, and said so (St. Mark iii. 21).

But that is not our question: Did Jesus teach and live out principles such as now find their embodiment under the word Socialism?

Jesus said, “Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself” (St. Matt. xix. 19 and xxii. 39). I know no definition of Socialism to equal this—“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” You are familiar with this quotation which Jesus made from Leviticus (xix. 18), so familiar with it that perhaps you have thought it was an original utterance by Jesus. We shall see its force [impact] later.

We must remember the method employed by Jesus. He gave us no system of thought, no creed, no cut-and-dried dogmas, no church organizations: He unfolded great principles, and many of those were not new, but were set forth with new vigor and forcible illustrations.

We cannot say this too frequently that Jesus gave principles—life-giving principles—and not dead rules. But, above all, we must be clear upon the fact that those principles were to act in this life and to regenerate this world.

Some think that Jesus came to make a few people ready for heaven. I find no such teaching in His words. It is here, in this struggling world, that there is go be the kingdom of God or there is no kingdom of God.

It is so much easier to worship Christ than to imitate Jesus, that men have taken up the worship, and I think some of them verily believe, when they confess their sins by the aid of a choir, or sing their hymns in fairly good harmony, that God is pleased with the sweet music. Jesus sought men to imitate him rather than to worship Him. “If any man will be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me.” That is a very different thing from listening to a choral service on a Sunday morning, and giving a small check to the curate fund. Jesus seeks imitation, not adulation. A far-away heaven, with a far-away God, enveloped in a far-away glory, is no use to this world, and certainly is no part of the teaching of Jesus.

Take the Lord's Prayer [Matthew 6:9–13, Luke 11:2–4], which you say so often, but not in the words He taught you. Even that has been doctored to suit the palate of sickly Christians. That prayer breaks out with the confession that we are all brothers, and to prevent any mistake says, “Thy will be done on earth,” and its first request is “Give us this day our daily bread”—the great bread cry of the human family stands before all else, “and forgive us our

Now observe in the prayer, as given by St. Matthew, there is no mention of our going to live in heaven, but we are to do the divine will on earth; there is no mention of sin, but of bread; we are not asked to forgive somebody who has offended our pride, but to forgive him what he owes us. Thus read, the prayer becomes the cry of the poor.

In making our Inquiry, I propose to ask–

I. What had Jesus been taught as a Jew?

II. What evils did He chiefly attack?

III. How did He propose to change this world into “the kingdom of God”?

You have noticed the frequent reference of Jesus to the “law and the prophets.” Now the most sacred thing in the eyes of a Jew was the law, i.e., the first five books of our Bible, often called the Pentateuch. These five books were for a very long time the only Bible of the Jew. If we want the kernel of the Jewish religion we must go to these books.

Much of Genesis is composed of allegory or fable. Very few people now believe that the sun, moon, and stars, the earth and all its inhabitants, were made in six days; and surely nobody is so foolish as to believe that woman was made out of the rib of man. But when we leave this field of early myths, which have scarcely any meaning to us, and come to the actual laws of daily life, we find many things that startle us, some that shock us by their coarse language and low morality; still we find some striking laws for national welfare. These laws are such as apply to the rights of the poor. They are homely, useful, and unpleasantly practical; they find no place in emotional religion or pantomimic worship.

“The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land. If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold. And if the man have none to redeem it, and himself be able to redeem it; then let loam count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; that he may return unto his possession. But if he be not able to

In Num. xxii. 52 to end of 54–

There is no doubt from these passages that the land belonged to the nation, and could never get into the hands of a few hundred land-grabbers. The nation was protected from the curse of landlordism in three ways

In ascertaining the outlook of Jesus of Nazareth we must remember that these strong laws were a part of the heritage of every Jewish peasant. The least reflection will show what untold horror would be swept away by the application of this one class of laws to a nation's sickness.

And from this remarkable passage to the Epistle of St. James there are precepts in favour of the poor which of themselves would stamp the Bible as the most wonderful book of the world. “He that hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the the Lord; and that which he hath given will he pay him again” (Prov. xix. 17). No words can exceed these in force, and the Psalms are full of such. In forming an estimate of the childhood and growth of the village boy, Jesus, you must collect and examine all these passages, and see how large a part they formed of the religious teaching of the Jewish nation; then you will be ready to come with an enlightened mind to study the gospel story of the Nazarene.

Mark upon what evils He [Jeus Christ] turned the indignation of His denouncing woes most frequently. He spent His fiercest energy in denouncing two classes, the official and the rich.

1. THE OFFICIAL.–In St. Matthew's Gospel xxiii. 13 to 33, we read–

How does that sound as part of a sermon in the Parish Church?

Add to this St. Luke xi. 45 to 54–

Now what can be the meaning of this violent language? Mark this Perfect Man, the Savior of the world, with all the reeking wickedness and suffering around Him, turns His full force upon scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers.

Who were these men?

Scribe means a writer, a man who copied the law of Moses. The scribes really came into importance under Ezra, after the return from the captivity in Babylon. Those skilled in the were scribes, whether among the tribe of Aaron or the lay people. They not only copied the law, but they interpreted and fixed it. They decided what books should be in the Old Testament–in fact they made your Bible, up to the Gospels, and counted every word and every letter in it. When the scribes had gained this great position, many of the priests became scribes. They were the priests and clergy and preachers of their time. They were leisured, learned, set apart, trained in school and college, ordained, well versed in the letter of the law, full of the traditions of the elders, embalmed in a brilliant respectability, keeping the truth from the people, and crucifying the Lord of truth. In a general way they answer to the clerical class of most countries since the crucifixion of our Lord.

Lawyer means an interpreter of the law, and therefore is the same as scribe.

Who were the Pharisees? The word Pharisee means

separatist. It was the name given them by their enemies: they preferred to call themselves companions, i.e., the members of a brotherhood. They began as Puritans; they ended as Ritualists. They were mixed up with politics sometimes, and they always fought the Sadducees on their national council. They were very orthodox, and held the whole faith of Judaism. They believed in angels and spirits, the resurrection of the dead, and future judgment; but the Sadducees did not. It is a marvelous fact that our Lord should have uttered NO WOE against the unbelieving Sadducees, and yet He uttered so many woes against the orthodox Pharisees.

In politics, the Pharisees strengthened the people in the notion that it was not lawful to give tribute to Cæsar; and by this doctrine they largely brought about the war [68 A.D. - 70 A.D.] which destroyed their nation. In religion they were as bigoted as Englishmen, and they held that most accursed doctrine, that they only were right. But they inflicted the greatest injury upon the cause of truth, because they held that God not only gave Moses a WRITTEN law, but also an ORAL law––the tradition which had been passed on by word of mouth from one generation to another. Perhaps they originated the blasphemous fable, that God gave one revelation which nobody could make out, so He had to give a second to the priests, and leave it to them to explain.

More than one Church claims to have the sole right to that fable. Finally, It became of more importance to the Pharisees to wash their hands, or chatter a prayer at a street corner, than to do justly to the widow and orphan. Now we see who the Pharisees were;–orthodox, respectable, chiefly the well-to-do, educated, patriotic, with a vast creed and religious accuracy. When Jesus of Nazareth met them and spake His words of life, they reeled like [dust] edummies in a whirlwind. To understand Jesus on this point we must take in one other case. In St. Luke xiii. 31, 32, 33, I read–

Is this the way to speak to a king? I fear Jesus of Nazareth is not very reverent. At least, judged by the hoity-toity standard of Ledbury, you would say “ reverence is not the strong side of his character.” *         What would happen to Mr. Bebel [a then famous German Socialist living under Kaiser Wilhelm II] if he spoke of the German Emperor [Wilhelm II] as a wolf? Now remember that here we have a chance of judging of His attitude towards the official ruler. When we couple this with the “woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,” repeated again and again, we are driven to ask, What does it mean ? These cannot
__________
* A lady in Ledbury made this premature attempt at my biography.

be idle words. They cannot refer to some passing local evil. He who was so calm, so gentle, so tender, would never utter these fierce denunciations on some trifling subject.

For a comment upon them I turn to His own conduct when He begins His only work of organization and selects His apostles. Does He choose a single scribe? No. Does He a single member of their national council, the Sanhedrin? No. Does He choose one of the ruling class? No. Does He choose a Pharisee? No. Does He choose a priest? No.

Now, what can this mean? It seems to me to prove that He turned His back on all officials, as the tyrants of the world. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, give a man a permanent office with a big salary, and you have ruined that man. He begins to crow, and feed, and fight.

So Jesus turned away from them all, and went and selected a few simple fisher-folk and suchlike–men without education, without social position, without wealth, and with no more influence in either State or Church than the Herefordshire day-labourer who has “tilled the earth and wrung want from the soil,” and waits to die in the workhouse.

Now, it is well known that there is no tyranny so great as ecclesiastical tyranny, and sometimes I wonder what those sacred magnates will have to say to Jesus for treading his followers underfoot and for breaking Truth in pieces with a rod of iron.

Here I confess that I am astounded at the teaching of the Master. Unless I knew that most of you revere the name of Jesus, and almost worship the very words of the Gospels, I hardly dare call your attention to this subject.

In St. Luke iv. 18-21, I read of His sermon at Nazareth in the synagogue on the Sabbath day. The text was Isa. lxi. 1: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” Then, as all eyes were turned on Him, He said, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” They were amazed, enraged, thrust Him out of the city, and tried to throw Him over a cliff.

In St. Luke vi. 20 He lifted up His eyes on His disciples and said, “Blessed be ye poor.” And again, “Woe unto you that are rich” (ver. 24).

Not the drunken rich, the betting rich, the greedy rich, the careless rich, the tyrannical rich, the wicked rich–simply, without qualification, “Woe unto you that are rich.”

In St. Luke xviii. 18 it is written–

This is Jesus of Nazareth's idea of being “saved.” No more astounding passage is to be found in religious literature.

Note [that] the Teacher [Jesus Christ] is One who can give the final answer on all religious questions, because He is above all men, and equal with God [John 1:1-4, John 4:25-26, Phil. 2:6, Heb. 1:1-3, 8, 10-12, Rev. 1:13-16].

The question is pointed; the ruler wants eternal life. The world ought to pause and listen to that answer! It is an answer which would not satisfy the professional teachers of any religious school in Europe. There is not a word about sin, not a word about the Atonement, not a word about creeds, worship, sacraments, repentance, conversion, justification, sanctification. All that you call spiritual is left out of sight in this divine answer to the seeker for eternal life.

From the ten commandments He deliberately chooses those only which have to do with social life, and then to the dumbfounded ruler He says, “Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor,” and buy heaven with that.

I can hear some pious people groaning, as they exclaim with real horror, “What? Be saved by this sort of stuff!”

Well! Is there some mistake?

Do you think that Jesus ever said it?

It is more difficult to believe that He uttered this than to believe all the miracles at once. It contradicts nearly all Church history; it denies all your pet notions that you are going to heaven because you vaguely believe in Christ and worship Him sometimes. Yet it is written in all the three Gospels! [Matthew 19:16-30, Mark 10:17-31, Luke 18:18-23]

Jesus speaks two parables in which He introduces the rich: in one case He makes him a fool; in the other He places him in hell, according to the popular notions of His day.

In St. Luke xii. 16 occurs the parable of the rich man, whose fruitful soil had produced so much that his barns were too small, and he said to his soul, “Take thine ease, eat, drank, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.”

Why “a fool”? What had he done? Ask your minister to explain this.

In St. Luke xvi. 19 occurs the other parable–

Note there is not a word said against the rich man's character. He was rich, and he lived as the respectable rich men of his time. That is all.

Have you noticed how Jesus constantly brooded over this problem of the rich? In St. Luke xvi. 13, He sums up the opposition of riches to God in the celebrated line, “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.”

Again, in St. Mark xii. 41, as He sits watching the religious people casting into the treasury, He notes “many that were rich cast in much,” but there is no word of praise for them; His heart is stirred by the poverty-stricken widow, who “threw in two mites which make a farthing.”

Jesus is constantly dealing with this subject, and always in the same way. There is never a good word for the rich: there is never a censure for the poor. If some curate [clergyman] preached in this way, you would call him a monomaniac, and one Sunday would be the longest time he would be allowed to stay in most parishes.

Again I ask, What does it mean? What are we to do with this teaching? I am almost afraid to make any suggestion. You can blot it all out of your Gospels. You can say it does not concern us because we are not rich. This would be rather feeble.

You might shelter yourselves, and say it is a religious mystery which the ordinary mind cannot grasp; but what if it should be one of the keys to the whole secret of the teaching of Jesus? The fact remains, throughout the life and teaching of Jesus there was an undying antagonism to the ruling, official, and rich class.

I marvel that there can be a poor man who does not love Jesus, but I marvel still more that any rich man can endure His teaching.

Those of us who know something of the virtues of the rich are stunned at this part of the teaching of Jesus. When real nobility of character and wealth are possessed by the same person, there is a wonderful charm and fascination. We admire their delicate pity for the suffering, their graceful tenderness in soothing sorrow or relieving want, their happy, easy manners in the trying moments of life; they live in a charmed world, they smile across the desolations of Time, their friendships are perfumed with plenty, they rise to a sublime heroism in the presence of calamity.

If we bear in mind the low origin of man, when he lived in caves or treetops, with the instincts of “the ape and the tige” fresh and strong in him, a cannibal among cannibals, we are

filled with admiration at the refined elegance which has turned life into an art and religion into a sweet-smelling odour.

It is hard to think that these refined specimens of the race of man should be maintained by a terrible cruelty to others, and should be obstacles in the pathway of Jesus.

When we have been taking part in a gorgeous function at the dedication of some church, built and endowed by a rich man, it is enough to paralyse the strongest of us, as we walk back through the slums of a large town, and a bowed, pale, ragged man, in the gloaming, says: “Woe unto you that are rich,” and vanishes in the twilight to the nearest workhouse. And that was Jesus! Great God, what am I to believe?

I would like to believe in the lovely luxury of the rich; I am almost compelled to believe in the ragged truth of Jesus. But the wish is vain. They wage an eternal war with each other, and the same world cannot hold both and be at peace.

Now let us see if we can find any way out of this difficulty. As the Son of God, Jesus must have seen through all the shams of human society; as the Son of Man, who had not where to lay His head [Matt. 8:20], He knew by experience something of the cruelties which society inflicts upon the poor. Every carpenter's son in Europe knows enough of this. For steady, mechanical, daily cruelty, there ls nothing in the history of mankind to equal the suffering which the rich, the official, and the rulers inflict upon their less favoured brethren.

I do not say they intend it as individuals; I cannot even say they know it. But there it is–the thousand heartaches, the wretchedness of sickness and want, the dally dread of losing work by offending the great or the capitalist, the burden of having to work in failing health and without sufficient food, the blighting curse of a life without leisure, without freedom, without liberty of conscience–these are some of the untold miseries which roll, in one endless sea of anguish, around the golden thrones of Christian [so-called] kingdoms.

And so long as you have a few thousand rich, who, practically, hold thy power of life and death in their hands, so long must this pestilent misery degrade and blast the human family.

lf, for a single week, the poor were to inflict the same injury which the rich inflict upon the poor, and wrong upon the rich, one wild wall would rend the air. You thank I am raving.

Then take a small, homely illustration. Go into any country district, where the labourer works from about six in the morning to six in the evening, for the princely fortune of twelve or fifteen shillings a week. The poor man tries to work his garden in addition to his other toil, but the squire’s rabbits or my lord's pheasants will clear off every green thing in his garden, kill his trees, and spoil his crops. And when a few idle gentry have had a fine day's sport, and have shot a hundred brace, to send with sweet compliments to their club friends, they sit down to a feast of plenty and a wealth of mirth. Do you know any case where the square made a habit

of pressing the bell next morning, and of sending John round to ask how many cottagers required compensation for the little all which they had lost through his game?

Now turn the situation round. Suppose Tom Tree, a hard-working man, with a family of six children, tries to feed a pig. He has not too much food, and perhaps the sty is not very good, for Tom had to make it in the dark after his work, so the pig gets out, and not being used to this aristocratic freedom, it roots up the squire's [rich man's] flower-bed. Well, the squire is rich, his gardeners can put the flower-bed right, so the squire takes one of his shilling cigars, and says, Never mind, brother Tom must have a pig and I must not say anything lest I should hurt his feelings. Would he [the rich man] do this?

Or suppose that in Tom Tree's home there is a child being born. The doctor is three or four miles off, and his fee just swallows up a week's wages; there is no one to send, so if he is a man he [Tom Tree] will stay at home to see if all goes goes well. Now, what reward does he receive for this kindness to that most ill-treated of all creatures on God's earth, the labourer's wife? He loses his day's wage! But you would not rob the parson or the lawyer of a day's wage if he did such a kindness to his wife! Now this sort of cruelty to the poor, merely because they are poor, you may multiply a thousand-fold. It happens every day and every hour. I dare not trust myself to speak further about it. I can only bow my head in silence, and hope that there is a God over all.

But this kind of thing may be some explanation of the awful language which Jesus used about the official and the rich, for if he is Son of God He is absolutely just.

And this brings us to the root of the whole matter. How did Jesus propose to do away with the paid official and private property?   Or, in other words, How did He propose to change this world into “the kingdom of God”?   Now for the test.

We have seen the destructive teaching of Jesus; let us see what He has to offer to build up the new kingdom.

It is often easier to destroy than to build up. Nevertheless, destruction is the first necessary step in all regeneration.

I will answer our inquiry in three ways–as shown in His universal precepts, in His life, in the conduct of the first Church.

We must always distinguish between the universal precepts of Jesus and the local or temporal precepts.

For instance, “Is it lawful to give tribute to Cæsar or not?” is a purely local question.

The Roman Cæsar ruled over the Jews. The Pharisees, knowing that Jesus was a revolutionary agitator, and wanting to get rid of Him, “took counsel how they might entangle

Him,” and tried to hound Him into a declaration of war against the Roman Government. So they came to inquire, in their most oily tones, “Is it lawful to give tribute to Cæsar or not?” (St. Matt. xxii. 17) Now the Divine Pauper never had a penny in his pocket; when they wanted the poll-tax, He had to send a disciple to catch a fish to meet the demand; and on this occasion He had to borrow a penny–“and they brought until Him a penny.” Now observe the question was, “ Is it lawful?” Not, Is it right? Is it a binding law on all men in all ages? You might ask, Is it lawful to take off your hat to the squire? Quite so, my good man, but do not take your head off too.

Some of these Pharisees said it was a sin to acknowledge Caesar as king, because God was their King.

We read, “Jesus perceived their wickedness,” and said, “Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things which are God's.” If you say that means that, all over the world, the powerful are to grab all they can from the weak, and that the strongest thieves are to form a peerage, and that all Christian people are to support them, I do not an agree with you.

Jesus took a scourge and cleared the temple, but I do not think He meant that the clergy should take a whip and drive the wicked out of church.

It would be silly indeed to take such a view as this of the merely local and temporal parts of His teaching.

His universal precepts are plain: “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” [Matthew 19:30,   Mark 10:31,   Luke 13:30,   Commentaries.]   “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called, benefactors. But ye shall not be so; but he that is are called greatest amongst you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve” (St. Luke xxii. 25).   “I am among you as he that serveth” (ver. 27).   There you catch the keynote of the new kingdom. Its King is the servant of all. He smites “the kings of the Gentiles and those that exercise authority”––away with them. Please, your gracious majesties and you noble lords, come and be servants, or stay outside. What a Democrat is the Son of Man!

I dare not have said these things, and many will hate me for ever because I have ventured to repeat the words of Jesus.

Notwithstanding these plain utterances of Him “who spake as never man spake,” for eighteen hundred years Christian [so-called] nations have modeled their governments on the same [secular, heathen, Roman] principles as those of the organized pagan brutalities which crucified Jesus! No wonder those pious shareholders in heavenly kingdom, which pays earthly dividends, are afraid lest there should be a resurrection of Jesus.

But, again, if you want to be children of God, He says, “Love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest” (St. Luke vi. 35). For “if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye?

for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again:” (ver. 34).

This is reasonable. Even a Christian can hardly suppose that Jesus came to our world to promote an order of civilization in which praying people should get ten per cent. [interest, usury] on their money.

Again, He says, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth” (St. Matt. vi. 19). That sixth chapter of St. Matthew, if put in practice to-morrow, would overturn every nation and nearly every Church on this globe, and give us such a paradise [of economic equality] that starving children would think the angels of heaven had come to be their playmates.

Again, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not” (St. Luke xii. 32, 33).

The new kingdom is taking shape!

Again, Jesus said, “Al1 things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (St. Matt. vii. 12).

My professional priests and politicians, what think you of this kind of kingdom?

If you like the people to take away all your land, then take away all the land from the poor; if you would like to toil from twelve to fourteen hours a day, make your labourers. your bus drivers, your bar-keepers, your waiters toil twelve to fourteen hours a day. Do not defraud them of their hours; for if you like slavery, they may like slavery too; and, besides, you will make bigger dividends, and then you can give something to a missionary society; if you like others to deprive you of your vote, then do not make your servants vote; if you like to stay at home on election day, why should not they stay at home?

“All things whatsover ye would that men should do to you!” Glorious gospel!

Finally, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (St. Matt. xix. 19).

Not quite, surely? Do you really mean that? “As myself”? Did I ever love anyone as myself? Do I love my mother as myself? Do I love my child as myself?

I confess I stand dumbfounded, blinded by the blaze of this brilliant idea of a kingdom of life where there is no murder, and where an equal love has changed cannibals into sons of God.

I thank thee, Holy Jesus, for this word of life! And yet I have had clergymen some and talk to me, and say, “You see, my dear fellow, human nature is always the same. It cannot be altered.”

Well, I am sorry for that; for if human beings cannot be brought into this kingdom of love, Jesus made a mistake, and there is an end of the matter.

I leave the persons to settle that point.

Now you can see why Jesus objected to the officials and the rich; why He told them to lend without interest, to lay up no treasure on earth, to sell all they had, because they were to come into His kingdom, under the shelter of a universal and equal love–that is His Socialism; co-operation of kindness and equality of privilege.

And yet one of your educated peopled thought that Socialism consisted in “following a herd (sic) into pastures not their own,” * – a little unbridled thieving in fact. I can only bow to the originality of his nightmare and the stupendous depth of his ignorance!

A few words will suffice here. You know that life. It needs no explanation or comment. He was poor to the verge of pauperism; He had no money, often He had not where to lay His head [St. Matt. 8:20]. His friends went out to lay hold on Him; for they said, He is beside Himself (St. Mark iii. 21): His enemies said, He hath a devil. “This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of devils” (St. Matt. xii. 24).

You need no further evidence to see that life of frightful misery–misunderstood, slandered, betrayed, buffeted, spat upon, jeered at as a criminal and a failure.

If you will turn away from Churchianity and Chapelolatry, and watch some man, who has been out of work two months, plodding his way from one workhouse to another, you will lave the truest picture of the life and social position of Jesus of Nazareth which the world has to show this day.

There you see the servant of all, “who for our sakes became poor [2 Cor. 8:9],” without a single possession [Phil. 2:5-8], pouring out a fathomless love in divine service to the world, which tortured Him. Twenty million such would create a new heaven and a new earth. He lived what He taught. And if He walked this earth now, feeding the hungry and telling the rich to sell all that they have in order to obtain eternal life, He would be mobbed [denounced] as “secularist” with low material views.

The first Church was in Jerusalem.

I suppose you will agree with me that, if the apostles and those around them did not know the meaning of Christ's teaching, that meaning has been lost to the world for ever.

Let us see what they [Christ's immediate apostles and disciples] thought it [Christ's in-person words] meant.

In Acts ii. 41, I read–

Again, in Acts iv. 32–

Then follows the case of Ananias and Sapphira [Acts 5:1-11], who wished [pretended] to be Christians, but refused to obey Jesus, and thought they could take in [deceive] the first Church. They failed in the attempt, and they paid the penalty of being born some generations too soon.

I do not want to weaken this striking piece of Church history by comment.

That [First Century Christian] Church was a brotherhood, without the tyranny of paid officials or the oppression of the rich.   It was a cooperative institution, bound together by love, where there was not “any among them that lacked [Acts 4:34],” for “they had all things common [Acts 2:44].” There was no private property.

If the apostles were wrong in all this, I give up the teaching of Jesus as a riddle which I cannot understand.

If these apostles were right, then I am right when I call Jesus a Socialist, and I do not quite see why this highly respectable county of Hereford should feel itself scandalized because I say what the twelve apostles did. *

If the apostles were right, Jesus was a Socialist, and if Jesus was a Socialist, why should a meeting be called to protest against the title of my lecture? I take it to be little short of blasphemous, to hold the gospel of Christ in their hands, and swear that they believe in Him, and with the same breath deny the teaching of Jesus. There is no logic in that, no fairness, no common sense [no repentance, no “having the mind of Christ, Phil. 2:5]. It is either the twaddle of compromise or the cant of hypocrisy.

If these apostles were right, then all the forms of elaborate
__________
* Lady E. B., in the fervor of her success said: “I think to bring such a sacred name [Jesus] down, as he [Rev. Dennis Hird] did the other night, is considered a scandal throughout the country.”

Because I had said Jesus was a Socialist!

worship, or all the phases of hypnotized emotion, are not the ESSENTIAL part of the religion of Jesus.

I do not care now to make one of you a Socialist. That is not the point of this lecture.

I sometimes could fain wish that Jesus had let the sribes and Pharisees alone, and had not howled at the rich; and that the apostles had gone round, either working miracles or talking about the glories of heaven; because their doctrine turns the world upside down. But that is not the point before us. What I wish, or what you think, is not the point that brought us together.

[10.] That point is this–Was Jesus a Socialist?   And if proof means anything, I have proved it up to the hilt.   I find a New Teacher came to the world.   He goes to Jerusalem, where there is a college of the scribes, the clerical class of their time, and He openly and indignantly censures them;   He derides their kings and those who exercise authority, and says to all His followers for all time, “but ye shall not be so [Luke 22:26].”   He never loses a chance to show His hostility to the rich, by uttering indignant woes against them, by parable, by universal and unmistakable precepts;   His standard is that every man shall so love his neighbour that the believer does not know his own interests from those of his neighbour.   His whole life is outside all class interests.   He has scarcely left the world before His chosen and trained apostles establish a Socialistic society, in which there is no paid official, no rich man, no private property, and no poor.   The whole evidence is of one piece; the teaching is put into practice, and around the crumbling thrones of kings and among the mouldering tombs of priests a few fishermen of Galilee scattered the seeds of the divine Socialism of Jesus; and even yet those seeds may grow and spring up through the dust of centuries.