Religion and money—Attitude of clergy—Emphatic condemnation of riches by Christ—Notable texts and sayings—Want of conviction—Importance attached to dogmatic religion—Necessity for stronger denunciation.

“The religion we profess has for one of its most significant and salient features the denunciation of wealth as a trust or a pursuit: Christianity condemns riches as a snare, a danger, and almost a sin, and even Pagan-nurtured sages and statesmen are never weary of pointing out how this disastrous passion vitiates all our estimates of life and its enjoyments, and fosters and exasperates all our social sores. Yet in England and America, perhaps the two most sincerely Christian nations in the world—one the cradle, the other the offspring of Puritanism—the pursuit nearest to a universal one, the passion likest to a national one is money-getting; not the effort after competence or comfort, but the pushing, jostling, trampling struggle for vast possessions or redundant affluence.”

The above is a quotation from the Enigmas of Life, by W.R. Greg. He wrote this in 1873, and the passage goes on to observe that there were signs of a sounder perception which might herald a reaction against the struggle for money. His forecast, however, was wrong, for even in the last thirty years the scramble has become much wilder, the power of wealth greater, the influence of the wealthy more extensive, and the millionaire more common, while luxurious living has outstripped all reasonable bounds.

The Christian condemnation of riches remains as emphatic as when it was first uttered, but the Church continues to explain it away or to disregard it, and the clergy as a whole neither preach it nor do they attempt to practise the doctrine laid down by their Master. The clergy of the Church of England, in fact, are among the readiest to accept the hierarchy of modern society founded on the gradations and valuations of wealth. Even in the village churches the very seats are assigned in such a way as to acknowledge the worldly standard of means. The front rows are reserved for the squires and their dependents, the “gentry” behind them, the “poor” at the back; while the vicar inconsistently declares from the pulpit that they are all equal in the sight of God. The Church as a profession (every decade it becomes more of a profession and less of a calling) is arranged on the ordinary worldly system of increase of salary according to rank and promotion. And, indeed, if it were suggested to them that an increase of their spiritual practically implied and necessitated a decrease of their material responsibilities, and that the performance of the former is by their own testimony interfered with by the existence of the latter, with a very few exceptions they would scoff at such a fanciful idea.

If confronted with the words of the Gospel on the subject of riches, they shuffle and seek excuses by declaring that they are figurative, and that they point to an ideal which unfortunately is unpractical and not compatible with our modern social system, which in its highly “civilised” development has got beyond extreme and uncompromising maxims of that kind. But we cannot get beyond what is eternally true, nor surely should we desist from some attempt to reach forward towards it, however unattainable and distant the ideal may seem. Whatever doubts Christians may have as to what Christ’s meaning was in some of His preaching, there can be no two opinions as to His view on this point. There is diametrical opposition between His injunctions and our belief. The world says nothing makes life easier than to have money and possessions; Christianity says nothing makes life more difficult. As a body the clergy see nothing incongruous in taking up this stand on the side of the rich; they overlook their consequent estrangement from the poor, and they ignore the fact that they are gradually drifting away from any close contact and sympathy with the life and soul of the people. The elasticity of their religion has amounted in this case, as in others, to its distortion.

Long before the Christian era philosophers propounded this same doctrine, and many reformers have done so since. As a single instance we need only repeat the words of Sir Thomas More:

“For where is the justice that noblemen, goldsmiths, and usurers and those classes who either do nothing at all or in what they do are of no great service to the commonwealth, should live a genteel and splendid life in idleness or unproductive labour; whilst in the meantime the servant, the waggoner, the mechanic, and the peasant toiling almost longer and harder than the horse, in labour so necessary that no commonwealth could endure a year without it, lead a life so wretched that the condition of the horse seems more to be envied?... Thus after careful reflection, it seems to me, as I hope for mercy, that our modern republics are nothing but a conspiracy of the rich pursuing their own selfish interests under the name of a republic. They devise and invent all ways and means whereby they may, in the first place, secure to themselves the possession of what they have amassed by evil means; and in the second place, secure to their own use and profit the work and labour of the poor at the lowest possible price.”

Would he find words to express himself were he alive to-day?

But of them all no one has emphasised so clearly or insisted so strongly on the vanity and danger of worldly goods as Christ did.

The rich man consults Him, and tells Him that all the chief commandments he has observed from his youth. But Christ sees what is amiss, and the man goes away grieving, “For he had great possessions.” Then follows the great generalisation: “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” As to whether or not the “needle’s eye” was the name of a narrow gate of the city through which heavily laden camels could not pass, does not signify. The meaning is clear beyond question. In the Kingdom of God upon earth, that is an ideally constituted human society, there is no place for a man encumbered with riches; his presence would assuredly disturb the even balance of the whole. Rousseau saw that it was a condition of good government that no citizen should be rich enough to buy another, and no citizen poor enough to be compelled to sell himself.32 If all the social organisation of humanity, the arrangement of which rests apparently to a great extent in our control, were so constituted as to allow each man a full competence, far from its producing a deadening equality as some pretend, it would free the human race to make the most of its varied natural capacities and talents which are now mostly lost, and a competition of achievement and service founded on altruism would take the place of a competition for gain and profit based on egoism. The ideal may be unattainable for the present because we have drifted so far from it, but that is no reason for discarding it altogether and turning our faces in the exactly opposite direction.

There are many other equally noteworthy sayings in the Gospels, staled by custom and familiar to most of us in the same way as the Church service becomes familiar to children without their understanding one single syllable of what it all means.

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where the moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.” And again, “The seeds that fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them, and they yielded no fruit. These are such as hear the Word, and the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other things entering in, choke the Word and it becometh unfruitful.” And yet again the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. These are not mere fantastic and rhetorical figures of speech, but are a few of the many instances of the reiterated insistence on the supreme importance of the dispersal of the riches heaped in the hands of the few. It is needless to multiply texts to prove that it is one of the cardinal doctrines of Christ’s teaching. He was profoundly impressed with the impediment, the handicap, the burden of wealth, the undischargeable responsibility which weighs men down and incapacitates them from participating in a juster and more perfect arrangement of society. And down through the ages many a great mind has strongly endorsed this lasting truth which, let it be remembered, though the world is blind to it, is as strictly utilitarian as it is moral.

There is nothing in the least complex about this teaching. It is almost self-evident; far easier to teach and far simpler to preach than the intricate speculative tangles of dogma which are cast like nets from pulpits over the minds of congregations. But there is this difference, that while the latter is only an intellectual effort on the part of the preacher or on the part of some other divine who has prompted him, the renunciation of worldly riches cannot be preached by any man who makes no attempt to practise it.

The clergy are like the rest of us, they do not really believe in it; they cannot therefore act as if they did; they are persuaded in their inmost hearts that to be richer must mean to be happier, and so they take refuge in what is for their congregations the less comprehensible and for themselves, therefore, the less embarrassing side of their religion. Accordingly, from our moral physicians we can get no guidance, on the contrary, with a very few notable exceptions, they encourage the fallacious belief in money-making, and slur over this important part of Christ’s message. Why did He associate with the poor and choose His disciples from among their ranks? Not because He hoped to enrich them, but because their deficiency in worldly goods made them fertile ground for the seed of His doctrine of self-sacrifice and humility. If we reject His teaching, well and good, we can discard this with the rest, but it is just those who do the most lip service to dogmatic Christianity who calmly ignore this unqualified essential. It would be unfair to insist that no Churchmen are aware of these dangers. Occasionally a voice speaks out boldly.

“We are not in touch with the mass of the labouring people,” says the Bishop of Birmingham. “Is not the reason of this because we are the Church of the rich rather than of the poor—of capital rather than of labour? By this I mean that in the strata of Society the Church works from above rather than from below. The opinions and the prejudices that are associated with its administration as a whole are the opinions and prejudices of the higher and higher middle classes rather than of the wage earners.... Capital and labour are names now for great class interests and organisations representing men in many, and the Church finds itself in fact and on the whole moving in the grooves which are precisely those from which Christ warned us off: it finds itself expressing the point of view which is precisely not that which Christ chose for His Church.... Our whole system of Church charity expresses a bounty administered out of benevolent feeling, by a wealth which makes no apology for enjoying itself to a poverty which it makes no pretence to share.”33

Or the Bishop of Manchester to the Church Congress in 1908:

“I suggest that our religious revival may lead us to a new appreciation of the spirit of brotherhood—one of the great ideals of the democratic movement. Secondly, I suggest that our religious revival may take the form of a mission to the wealthy and prosperous. It is the curse of riches that they blur and even conceal altogether the heavenly vision. They tend to make pleasure the business of life. A man’s wealth is measured by the time and money that he can spend on amusement. So the outlook, not only of the rich, but of all classes, becomes narrowed and confused.”

And of course other instances could be quoted, but the main body of the Church shows no disposition to follow. They are bound to the governing classes, and the governing classes have the money and therefore the power such as it is.

The Free Churches on the whole are bolder, for they deal with a simpler class. But neither do they tirelessly condemn money-hunting, because, being poor themselves, they are far too dependent on the large subscriptions of the richer members of their congregations. But not even by building chapels can a rich man justify himself, though he may be blessed as a benefactor by his co-religionists.

The Roman Catholics too, who anyhow in their churches do not give any special privileges to rank, have their tongues tied by the lavish donations of rich and noble patrons which they are only too glad to receive. To emphasise the Christian condemnation of the rich man would therefore not be politic or in accordance with what they conceive to be their best interests.

It is not as if Christians of all sects and denominations could not discover texts and arguments enough in their Bibles to support them were they to alter this course and advance courageously along the straight way. The best words ever uttered on the evil and folly of riches are to be found in its pages in the Old Testament as well as the New. A collection of these sayings would form the strongest indictment of wealth that could be framed.

There is the great Proverb, “A good name is rather to be sought than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.” Or the passage from Job, “Though he heap up silver as the dust and prepare raiment as the day, he may prepare it, but the just shall put it on and the innocent shall divide the silver,” and “Will he esteem thy riches? No, not gold nor all the forces of strength.” Or the Psalmist’s warning, “If riches increase, set not your heart upon them.” Or the words of Ecclesiastes, “There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.”

But we must resist the temptation of making a collection of quotations here. The declarations of this truth are well known, even though they may not be accepted or appreciated. The truth about money may still be looked upon as impracticable Utopianism; one day it may be discovered to be sound economics. The practice of restraint and renunciation is not only theoretically sound, but both subjectively and objectively expedient.

There is, we must confess, a recurring note in modern thought, the constant use of which is amounting almost to a popular mannerism. It is a method of reasoning which inclines men to spurn deep convictions or strong single-minded purpose as clumsy, uncouth, and unphilosophic, and to welcome in their place involved generalisations and a spirit of abstract compromise and theoretical balancing. Whether this tends to a more profound acquisition of knowledge and a more exact and scientific adjustment of mental conceptions, is not for us to say, but that it casts a weakening spell over personal initiative and greatly impedes decisive action is clear beyond doubt.

As for the Church, it is failing in its mission, because it refuses to insist equally on the two aspects of the message it has undertaken to deliver to mankind.

If religion is received in a purely dogmatic sense, it can appeal only to our emotions and to the spiritual cravings of the more mystical side of men’s natures. This is only confusing and quite unsatisfying to our more rationalistic inclinations, which prefer a simple and direct ethical teaching. Christianity combines the two elements—the mystical and the rational—and fuses them together. Unfortunately there is a proneness to detach the former as all-important and sufficient in itself and to neglect the latter. The former has been built up gradually in successive centuries of varying and imaginative speculation, and however much it may appeal to the religious-minded, it is valueless when broken off from the latter. The ethical precepts for duty and conduct are, on the other hand, immutable, and in their pristine simplicity carry all their original force of authority and lose nothing from being divorced from dogmatic teaching. It requires no heights of spiritual exaltation to accept Christ’s explicit precepts as to sacrifice, humility, altruism, and the renunciation of worldly possessions, but men are encouraged by the Church to seek consolation in a fog of doctrinal obscurantism. Christ no doubt foresaw that we should take refuge in the incomprehensible in our failure to accept what to the humblest intelligence was perfectly comprehensible when he said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven.”

His immediate successors were not handicapped by considerations for or subservience to those in authority who held the worldly power, and they spoke with no uncertain voice.

What is wanted in the Church to-day is something of the uncompromising spirit of those bygone days. Not condonation, or at the most half-hearted criticism, but wholesale denunciation in words of splendid vehemence such as the passage in the Epistle of St. James:

“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rest of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you.”

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