Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 94:376 (Oct 1937)
Article: Part 1: Christian Socialism: Its Historical Background and Successor
Author: Rollin Thomas Chafer

BSac 94:376 (Oct 37) p. 430

Part 1:
Christian Socialism:
Its Historical Background and Successor

Rollin Thomas Chafer

I. Introduction

The advocates of the movement historically known as Christian Socialism believed that it possessed sufficient merit to give it ascendancy over all other forms of Socialism as well as extreme Individualism, provided its principles should ever be given wide-spread application to social problems. The scheme never having emerged from the theoretical stage, and now no longer a distinct movement designed to reform society by the application of so-called Christian principles, I have sought to trace the genesis of the system and furnish a brief comparison with radical socialism on the one hand, and Christianity in its Scriptural application to the present age, on the other hand, with a concluding section setting forth the revealed purpose of God for the ultimate establishment of a perfect social order in the earth.1

Early in the nineteenth century, Lamennais, a then orthodox churchman of the Romish faith in France, began publishing tracts on the subject of the Church and Social reform the first of which, entitled, “Indifference in Religious Matters,” appeared in 1817. In it he seeks to defend the authority of Throne and Church and inveighs against the religious

BSac 94:376 (Oct 37) p. 431

indifference of the masses. Being a man of intense feelings and pronounced opinions, he swung to the extreme position demanded by his faith and declared: “Without Pope there can be no Church, without Church no Christianity, without Christianity no religion, without religion no society.” Stripping away his papal bias, we find in this statement the kernel of his Christian Socialism. He attempted to Romanize society, but his impetuous nature and radical plans alienated the papal leaders which caused him to turn from the Church and attempt to spiritualize democracy. In this period he wrote: “In passing through the earth...I heard awful groanings; I opened mine eyes, and saw unheard of sufferings without number. Pale, sick, failing, covered with garments of mourning, stained here and there with blood, Humanity rose before me, and I asked myself, ‘Is that man as God has made him?’”

Like other Socialists, Lamennais traced all the sources of social discontent to the maladministrations of the established order. He affirmed his belief in the application of the ethical principles of Christianity as the only cure. In an address on this subject he said: “When you shall have succeeded in giving to your organization the Christian equity of rights, the regeneration (of society) intended by you, and which God commands you to aspire after, will be accomplished of its own...