RELIGION AND DICTATORSHIP [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sin,—In
the article " The Consequences of Being Heathen," your contributor puts forward the remarkable argument that a Christian's position leads him to oppose dictatorships while a secularist's does not. There is a partnership. he says, between the State and the Christian, and the latter is the senior partner for he is immortal and the State is not. How comes it then that in the huge and ancient Church of Rome one finds the dictatorship of the Vatican ? Does that point to any objection to dictatorship inherent in Christianity Y This it may be said is not the State, but a dictatorship in matters spiritual, that is to say in what one would have supposed, from a Christian standpoint, a more important sphere. But take the evidence of history as regards the State. England was Christian under the Tudors, who could wield the axe like Hitler ; France was Christian under a king who could say L'efal c'est moi ; Russia was Holy Russia, Christian, under the Czars. Need one say more to show that the argument, basic to your contributor's article, is without foundation and has no reference to facts except in so far as it is in direct opposition ?—Yours faithfully, HERBERT A. TRESID DER,
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