The Wrong Road

Mr. Piper says that because the Catholic Hierarchy is committed to the doctrine that private property (the right to private property, please) is based on Natural Law and Divine Right, it has accordingly consistently supported fascism against socialism and communism. And by the same reasoning 2 and 2 make sixpence worth of aniseed drops.

Mr. Piper talks of a betrayal of Christ's teachings; he says that the real function of religion is to protect the privileges of the working class. I have as yet to sec the Bible which says that Christ died for the working class alone. He died for all men, because just as there are good and bad amongst the ruling class (which, I suppose, is the most convenient but not the most accurate way of describing the rest of humanity) so there are good and bad amongst the working class. And since He died to atone for the sins of mankind, I rather think the ruling class needed dying for most.

But there is an explanation of this religion for the working class—there are, says Mr. Piper, two Christs, the Christ of the working class and the Christ of the ruling class. This Christly schizophrenia may sound all right to Mr. Piper, but it is not the Christ of the Gospels nor the Christ of Christianity. And even if it were neither Christ appears ultimately to suit Mr. Piper's purpose, except as an opium of the people, a "symbol of their own sufferings and their hopes of emancipation."

Perhaps Mr. Piper believes sincerely, that religion will ultimately give way to the perfect communistic state, where religion is no longer needed to supply the people with their daily opiate. Perhaps. But hardly the belief of Christ. "Do you imagine that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have come to bring a sword, not peace." "Though heaven and earth should pass away, my words will stand." This expectation of the communist millenium, when religion will no longer be needed because there will be heaven on earth, is the great communist myth, and is utterly opposed to the Christian belief in a spiritual reward in a spiritual heaven. When Mr. Piper has dissected away all the teachings of Christ which were once contemptuously referred to as pie in the sky and has uncovered the teachings of Christ which promise just such a heavenly Nirvana on earth for the common man—or the uncommon one—then I will be grateful if he would kindly set the particulars down on a little slip of cigarette paper for me, and I will promise to give it to the nearest Archbishop for inclusion in the New Theology. Or perhaps to Mr. Hoyle.