Christian Socialism

When the New York Times headlined last week SOCIALISM FAVORED BY RELIGIOUS GROUPS, many a conservative reader might have viewed indignantly the recurring initials Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. and fumed to himself: "Socialism, indeed!" Hastily next day, like a mother seeking to explain away a gaffe her child has uttered, the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A., in the persons of General Secretary Fred W. Ramsey and Board President Mrs. Robert E. Speer (respectively) explained that the report, Toward a New Economic Society, was no work of their organizations but a pamphlet published by the Economics Commission of the National Council of Student Christian Associations.

Nevertheless, the National Council of Christian Associations-- child of the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A.--does represent the student groups of some 1,000 U. S. colleges. The Council meets annually. Unhampered by the viewpoint of its parents, it has been consistently, since the World War, veering leftwards. In Kalamazoo, Mich, in 1928, chafing (in its own words) "under its own unintelligent inconsistency of failing to square its practice with its radical profession/' it appointed the Economics Commission which reported last week.*

Purpose of this report is "tentatively to define some of the areas in which students may effect social and economic changes . . . [to] raise many questions, each requiring genuine thinking and honest research." Though the Socialist members of the Commission have a majority (seven-to-six), the report makes clear that individual members do not subscribe to all its premises. Seven separate subcommittees in the Commission wrote the seven sections: Christianity and the Economic Order; Economic Implications of Being a Student; Individual Spending, Income and Ownership; Economic Aspects of Vocational Choice and Planning; Students and Modern Industry; The Contribution of the Cooperative Movement: Toward a New Economic Order.

Creature of a student organization, the Commission is yet not a body of impulsive juvenile radicals. Many of its members are mature, experienced religious leaders. Its report is headed by a statement by one of Socialism's ablest, most trustworthy advocates--38-year-old, athletic Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, professor of applied Christianity at Union Theological Seminary. Calling himself a "tamed cynic," he is still known as one who aims to shock the complacent, to kinetize the nation's youth with his own high-powered enthusiasm. Son of a Missouri pastor, he was ordained in the Evangelical Church in 1915, held a Detroit pastorate until 1928. He is an editor of The World Tomorrow, a popular, dynamic orator. In his introduction to the Commission's report he says: "No matter how the Christian ethic is defined it remains true that a wide abyss yawns between it and the facts and assumptions of our contemporary industrial civilizations. . . . Shall a Christian busy himself to change the social order and meanwhile accept its limitations and inequalities as a fate which he alone can not change? Do his Christian convictions require and imply action in the political field, and if so what kind of a political program is most consistent with a Christian ethic?

Dealing in some detail with many an economic problem as related to the life of the U. S. student, the report comes to its climax as follows:

". . . Our political agencies should give American voters an opportunity to express themselves as between genuine alternatives. . . . The present two major parties . . . serve the same interests, which certainly are not the workaday consumers or those best informed concerning economic trends and forces.

"Some socially-minded persons feel that the party which offers this alternative and should therefore be supported is the present Socialist Party. . . . Others suggest that the Socialist Party is not moving fast enough; while many liberals think the name 'Socialist' is a handicap because of the widespread misunderstanding of that word. Still others think it desirable to encourage the League for Independent Political Action, which while cooperating with the Socialist Party seeks a larger political organization more inclusive of liberals and progressives of various shades."

And finally the Council of Christian Associations flatly states that the ideal new party must have a definite platform with these tenets: i) social ownership of public utilities, natural resources and basic industries; 2) increased inheritance, income and excess profits taxes; 3) reduction and eventual abolition of the tariff; 4) drastic reduction of armaments; 5) internationalism; 6) extension of public educational and recreational facilities; 7) unemployment insurance; 8) old age pensions.

Significance. Most educators assume, in the absence of statistics, that the majority of undergraduate Christians are not out-and-out Socialists. But last week's report was clear evidence of the increasing acceptance of Socialism in university religious circles. There has been among the religious leaders of the nation's youth a perceptible swing away from the old-time "inspiration-plus-basketball" type of faith.

Outstanding leader in the more realistic, and incidentally leftward, movement has been that dramatic personality, Sherwood Eddy, who, aged 60, retired this year from the Y. M. C. A., and joined the Socialist Party.

Yale graduate (1892), longtime Y. M. C. A. Secretary for Asia, an orator in nearly every country in the world, Dr. Eddy's chief concern of recent years has been Russia. While condemning its use of force and its anti-religious character, he calls it "a land of the most audacious plans and achievements of social welfare for the masses . . . the most generous sharing of every privilege with their class comrades. ..." Uncompromisingly socialistic, he has expounded his views in many a U. S. college. With Sherwood Eddy in the lead, many another speaker has achieved a campus influence which might have been impossible even a decade ago. Notable among them are Kirby Page, J. Stitt Wilson (onetime Socialist mayor of Berkeley, Calif.), Harry Frederick Ward, Norman Thomas, Bishop Paul Jones, Jerome Davis of Yale. Perhaps most characteristic is the ascendancy of Reinhold Niebuhr who stood boldly with the authors of last week's report.

*Forthright Socialists are its Chairman Francis Adams Henson, 26, a Columbia graduate student; Professor John Bennett (Philosophy of Religion) of Auburn Theological Seminary; Director Walter Ludwig of Pioneer Youth of America; Economics Instructor Patrick M. Malin of Swarthmore College; Field Secretary Paul Porter of the League for Industrial Democracy; Graduate Student E. B. Shultz of Union Theological Seminary; Industrial Secretary Charles Webber of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Its other members: Harold F. Clark, Josephine Little, Lois MacDonald, Mildred I. Morgan, Clara Taylor, Sidnev David Gamble (Ivory Soap family).

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