It may be hard to be young, but, it is apparently harder to be objectively truthful. I make that remark a propos of the report of Mr. Wad-man's address at the Students' Service in Salient's last issue. Let me say at the oulset that I was not present at the service, but if the submitted report is an accurate one, then Mr. Wadman's remarks certainly ought to be challenged.

His initial theme seemed to be that Communism had good foundations, good intentions, but resulted in Treachery. Cruelty, Hatred and Fear.

Treachery?

Who to? All over Europe and Asia the Communists proved to be the most faithful patriots in the recent war against Fascism—at a time when, we might add, Christians like Petain. Degrelle, Quisling, Cardinal Innitzer and Archbishop Stepinac were selling their nations with a cover-up of smooth verbiage reminiscent of nothing so much as the kiss of Judas Iscarlot. You are quite right to interrupt me by denying that the rank and file of Christians followed this line. But this was rather because they were rank and file than because they were Christians. And they were no enemies of Communism—they did not find it treacherous. Writes Rev. D. A. Garnsey, General Secretary of the Australian Student Christian Movement: "At meetings of the World Student Christian Federation in Europe in 1946 I met many members and leaders of the Resistance movement. Co-operation between Catholic, Protestant. Jew, Communist, patriot and democrat was a striking feature of their story. A similar militant unity of men of goodwill is much needed today if tryranny and disorder are to be overcome in peace-lime . . . Christians must see that it is not prejudice, ignorance or cowardice on their part which prevents such co-operation."

Cruelty?

Well, we've heard of Dachau and Belson, but the Communists there were the victims, not the perpetra-tors nf the barbaric cruelty. And We'hv heard of the Spanish Inqui-Sition, too, where I "fancy the blameless Christian Church featured rather largely. The October Revolution? The Czar was given a quick, clean death cleaner than the Christian Puritans gave to Charles I.

Hatred?

There's certainly plenty of hate in the world—so let's blame it on the Communists, like everything else. Perhaps you will tell me that the Communists incite class struggle? Allow me to quote from no less a source than a Southern Cross editorial January 7, 1917): "Karl Marx did not invent the class struggle; he merely happened to observe that it is inherent in an industrialised society in which one class owns the means of production, and the other much more numerous class works for wages. Since the employer naturally wants to make as much profit as possible, and the workers want to be paid as high a wage as possible, and since the two aims are opposed, a conflict or interests is inevitable."

Communists believe in revolution? Revolution, bloody or otherwise, was inferred by Marx's exhaustive study of history to be the natural process of change from one form of society to another. And when as we see everywhere in the world today, the masses of the people rise to take the power into their own hands, who fires the first shot? Did the Spanish people start the Civil War, or did the Fascist Franco? Was it the E.L.A.S. or the Monarchist police who started the war of hate in Greece?

Who today pours out the hate? Vyshinsky, with his disarmament proposals? Stalin with his offers of peace talks? Or somebody else, with talk of atom bombs and Third World Wars? "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."

Fear?

Communism inspires fear. Certainly. You've got something there, Mr. Wadman. I don't wonder at any landlord or big businessman in Europe fearing that force which would expropriate him of his parasitic ownership of what rightly belongs to the people on whose labour it was built.

Surely that force, inspiring such fear, is but the modern version of the force which whipped the moneychangers out of the temple? What is the difference, in effect, between "Love the neighbour as thyself," and "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"? Remember this one? "He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away. . . ."

"End Justifies the Means"

Mr. Wadman imputes this proverbially Jesuit adage to the Communists. But what is meant by this catch-phrase? When we, democratic citizens of New Zealand found our conception of freedom was challenged by Fascism, did we scruple at resorting to war (which we do not enjoy as such) for the sake of defending that freedom? It is not so much a matter of ends justifying means, as of becoming hardened to the constant situation of having to make a choice between two evils. That is certainly not consistent with absolute moral standards. But even Christ, accordine; to the scripture, resorted to most unseemly violence On at least one occasion, when the alternative was, in his judgment, worse.

Thus, when it comes to the point, ends are means.

"They are in Blinkers"

I believe that Mr. Combs has already adequately answered this accusation of Communists by a Christian. Only let me add that, at least the Communist bases his "beliefs" on evidence of the sensible world, culled and abstracted in a perfectly scientific way, whereas the faith of the so-called Christian is based on accepting, in contradiction to evidence and commonsense, the truth of what has all the signs of being 90 per cent. myth.

"The Church has Produced Tremendous Things ..."

The list of the Church's achievements is a formidable one, but close examination will, I fear, show that it is almost entirely inaccurate. (1) "The world's greatest art."

Well that may be a matter of taste, and Mr. Wadman claims to be among other things, an art critic. "Well, I don't know much about art, etc." But surely "the world's greatest" must include Durer, Rembrandt, Holbein—all very much sons of the great Renaissance materialism. And even where great artists were under the direct influence of the Church-Michelangelo, Leonardo. Botticelli-it was rather because it was the dominant ideology of the times.

(2) "... the World's Greatest Music" When the Church can claim Beethoven, I'll agree.

(3) "... the World's Most Searching Literature."

Well, Eccliastes and the Book of Job, not to mention the whole range of Greek drama and epic, were written long before the Church was thought of. As for the Renaissance masters of literature—Shakespeare. Marlowe. Cervantes. Rabelais, Spinoza. Bacon—the same goes for them as for their artist contemporaries. Even Milton was more of a rationalist than a Christian, and he certainly was anti-clerical. And were Tolstoy, Balzac, Goethe, Zola. Thomas Mann, scions of the Church? I think not.

The Abolition of Slavery

Wilberforce may have been a Churchman, but so were the bishops and dignitaries who screamed so loudly against the abolition for the reason that the Lord's people had slaves in the Bible.

The Church's initial move for the abolition of slavery in the Eastern Empire, under Justinian, was but another sign of Christianity accommodating itself to changing social forms—"I'll "still be the Vicar of Bray, Sir"—and also of the fact that Christianity began, historically as a "slave movement."

Trade Unions

The Church "tends to resist reforms," says Mr. Wadman. One of those reforms was the establishment of trade unionism. The fact that George Loveless was a Christian does not transfer the allegiance of the whole church militant to a cause it did its best to stifle at birth. To those day the pulpit combines with the press in the general assault on the organisation of trade Unions.

If Mr. Wadman is referring as Pope Leo XIII was wont to in this context, to the medieval guilds as "trade unions," it is true that they sprang from the Church—but it is, not true that they were trade unions. Their function was entirely different.

Their aim was to emasculate independent action by the lower orders, by tying them to a rigid hierarchical organisation, dominated by the small ruling class. This aim is perhaps consistent" with the Christian conception of "love"—bringing master and servant together, stilling class wars—lying the wolf down with the lamb. It was just this belief in Christian love and brotherhood that led Dr. Buchman to say "Thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler."

Civilisation Itself

What about Ancient Greece? Rome? Israel? Each of them could in turn claim to have been the mother, not only of Western Civilisation, but of the very Christian Church.

Certainly the Church did dominate that civilisation during one period of its existence, but that does not raise it to the rank of progenitor. Nor does it destroy the other fact that Communism is the child of the same Western civilisation, and perhaps even of Christianity. So much so, that Rosenberg, Fascism's leading "thinker," remarked that "Bolshevism is the logical descendant of Christianity."

Pie In The Sky

When it comes to Christianity's implied criticism of the status quo—included" really, in the very fact that it envisages a better life hereafter—then the Brownshirt gutter philosophers show the way to Bolshevism. And they seem to be right. Christ said: "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." "Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased." And Paul. "If any would not work neither should he eat."

Here and Now

In the very hypothesis of a class' less society after death, the Church, de facto, recognises class society as evil. Thus socialism and religion have a common basis, only that socialism offers a concrete, positive programme for the here and now.