Sheep & Goats

"Communism is a response to the failures of Christians." With this warning against Christian self-righteousness, Professor John C. Bennett of Union Theological Seminary prefaces an analysis of the conflicts between Christianity and Communism. In the current Presbyterian Tribune, Congregationalist Bennett points out two major differences between the two outstanding 20th Century faiths.

Bennett rates Communism's "idolatry" as a greater fault than its theoretical Marxist atheism. The Communist regards his particular movement as being able to redeem the world. This passionate "belief, says Bennett, "develops a form of complete human self-sufficiency that is incompatible with the Christian understanding of man's dependence upon God. It precludes any transcendent judgment upon the Communist society. It creates a false optimism and fails to prepare the people in a Communist society for the continuing sin that goes with new forms of power."

Communists--like some Christians--tend to divide the world into white sheep and black goats (their absolutely righteous selves and their absolutely unrighteous opponents). But Christianity, unlike Communism, contains its own sources of self-correction: "Christians . . . should know that the line that is most significant is not to be drawn between themselves and their opponents, but rather right down through their own souls."

Point No. 2 of Christian-Communist conflict is the difference in their attitude toward people. Communists treat opponents as dangerous obstacles to be eliminated, rather than as people to be redeemed. Most of the "religious" persecutions perpetrated in Christianity's name, Bennett admits, have been no better than the Communist variety. But here again, "Christians should know that they and their opponents or enemies belong together before God, and they should realize that, tragic as the situation is in which they seek to destroy their enemies, they never can rid themselves of concern for enemies as children of God."

Communism, Theologian Bennett concludes, which began as a moral protest against social injustice, has turned into a tyranny because it has no transcendent faith to preserve it from idolatry, and no real understanding of the meaning of personal freedom. And all this was largely "because Christians did not see until too late the revolutionary demands in their own faith."

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