Itttfro to tho
CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS.
Belfast, 28th December, 18.58. Sin—There is no doubt of the truth of your remark, that most statesmen and men of the world would laugh at any proposal to settle national or in- ternational affairs on purely Christian principles. But you have not an- swered nor attempted to answer the question whose fault it is that this is true.
Of course those who regard themselves as religious men will mostly say that the fault lies entirely with the world, which is not good enough to per- mit, or to bear, the application of purely Christian principles ; and many will agree with them who make no special pretence to that character, but are satisfied to apply the principles of natural justice and ordinary common sense to both private and public affairs. This opinion appears to me, in great part, erroneous. It is only in recent times there has been any general disposition on the part of either what is called the religious world, or of society in general, to assume any incompa- tibility between politics in their present state and the Christian religion. According to the religious world, this proves that a higher standard of Christian duty is now recognised than formerly. According to common sense, it only proves the increasing disinclination of the religions world to interfere in ordinary politics. But suppose any national crisis to occur of such importance to all our interests, both spiritual and material, as to compel every man to be a politician, and those to be most political who have the strongest sense of duty - how would those act whose sense of duty is strengthened by religion ? Those whose religion is more for show than use, more for talk than work, might still continue to constitute a re. ous world apart ; but those whose religion is the reverse of this would find theim. selves borne into the thickest of the struggle with a force exactly in pro- portion to the intensity of their sense of religious duty. Many of them would feel sadly out of place there, but a strong faith is a power that will avail in any degree of perplexity. h would not be the flint time, however, that they had felt themselves compelled to apply their religion to the affairs of this life. Every truly religious man who mixes in business or in society at all is every day called on to apply his religion to the affairs of ordinary life ; not by applying a code of morals too high for the appreciation of the world, but simply by adhering with more care and exactness than his worldly neighbours to the ordinary and recognised principles of justice and mercy ,- and when circumstances make him a politician he will do all he can to apply the same principles to politics. Christianity applied to national affaixs, then, means nothing more than a careful and rigid application of those principles of justice and mercy, which all Christians believe to be binding in private life. Of course it is easy to quote texts from the New Testament in favour of a different view. It is easy to quote texts which appear to prove that no Christian can ever have anything to do with the employment of military force. But it is equally easy to quote texts to prove that no Christian go to law to maintain his rights, or retain more property than is requisite to provide his family with the necessaries of life. Consequently, when I hear men maintain that it is our duty as Christians to abandon Constanti- nople to the Czar, Africa to the slave-traders, and India to Nena Sahib, (which I have heard maintained by men whose sense and integrity I would trust in private affairs") I cannot believe in their sincerity until I see them cease to amass and enjoy wealth, and refrain from defending. their rights by law. If the New Testiment is clear against all war, it is quite as clear against all litigation.
I do not know how I could continue to be a Christian if I believed that Christianity teaches something else for the guidance of either private or poli- tical life than the ordinary principles of justice and mercy ; and if I believed, with Mr. Bright, that it is more Christian to set class against class at home than to resist wrong to the death abroad. But, while denying that Chris- tianity contradicts reason, I fully admit that it does oppose man's natural desires and propensities : and this I regard, with Archbishop Whately, as one proof of its Divine origin.
To return to my original question : whose fault is it that the application of Christian principles to national affairs is so generally regarded as hope- less ? I reply that it is in great part due to the perversity of that part of the relief/11B world who call themselves the peace-party, and under the name of Christianity demand the application of impossible principles to the affairs of the nation ; while they are themselves guided by far other and mere common-sense principles in their private lives. The effect has been also in great part produced by the folly of another sec- lion of the religious world, who wish the power of the state to be used for the encouragement of what they regard as religious truth : against which politi- cal society has so decidedly declared, that they are inclined to give up po- litical Newt), as hopelessly unchristian. But the wrongheadedness of the religious world could not have confused men's minds on this most important subject, but for the sullen half-aqui- escence of political society, which half-audibly says : "Yon may be very right, but your principles are not fit for use in the present state of the world": when it ought to say : "You are wrong. It is more Christian to fight for law and against oppression than to advocate peace on principles which would make peace impossible. It is more Christian to set all religions on an equality, and to give truth a fair field an no favour, than to revive a.policy which would differ in degree, but not in kind, from that of the Inquisition.
Previous page
