The ‘Materialism’ of the Labour Movement

Extract

The attack made on the Church to-day is, not merely different from, but, the exact opposite of, that made in the sixteenth century. What was then an offence is now a recommendation; what was then a mitigating circumstance is now a stumbling block. At the time of the ‘Reformation’ the accusation was one of superstition and materialism, though the latter word was not used. Our opponents posed as more spiritual in their conception of worship. Speech took the place of corporeal action. The pulpit replaced the altar and the preacher ousted the priest. The sacramental idea was almost completely lost.

It is startling to turn from these criticisms to the censure of Catholicism, and, indeed, of all forms of religion, current at the present time. Other-worldliness is the favourite charge. We are said to divert the attention of the democracy from those material interests in the understanding of which lies its hope of salvation, and to fix it on an unreal heaven and hell. Dogmas are derided because they lead to what are regarded as unprofitable discussions concerning abstruse matters remote from everyday needs. It is we now who are too ‘spiritual.’

This wave of materialistic thought finds the old-fashioned types of Protestantism entirely unprepared. The preacher addresses himself to empty pews. The exhortation to face the possibilities of the Future Life falls on deaf ears. Even the moral idealism that is adopted as a substitute for doctrinal truth fares no better; it is stigmatised as bourgeois ideology.