Sage Brush

Over the two thousand years of Christian history there have been repeated attempts to politicize Christianity; these were less common during the early centuries of the church, more common during and since the Middle Ages. David Martin, professor of sociology at the London School of Economics, surveys some of the shifting winds of “Christian politics” in his “Revs and Revolutions: Church Trends & Theological Fashions” in the January 1979 Encounter. The old culture-religions of “Throne and Altar” and “God and Country” have been thoroughly discredited. Says Martin: “ . . . the Catholic Church has shifted out of the intégriste camp in Latin America, France, Spain, and even Portugal, and . . . the old military style Protestantism of (say) Northern Ireland is quite untypical. . . . Action Française is dead and Opus Dei probably in decline.” In Western Europe, the Catholic Church “has become increasingly unhappy about Christian Democracy as the political arm of corporate Christianity. . . . Thus the Roman Catholic Church in [West] Germany . . . has withdrawn from involvement with the CDU [Christian Democratic Union],” and in Portugal the Church “wisely kept a safe distance from the party which claimed a Christian label.”

But however decidedly the Catholic Church may be backing off from political entanglements, individual Catholic priests and laymen in Europe and, even more, in Latin America are cozying up to Marxism and various Communist parties and movements. Martin notes that “whereas Catholic priests were once the most anti-Marxist [of Christians] . . . they are now quite prone to the Marxist seduction.” This is so because there is an “evident if superficial analogy between medieval organicism and modern collectivism.” On the other hand, being less given to medieval nostalgia, Protestants are also less prone to Marxism.

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Dale Vree

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Alexis de Tocqueville

ACLU

Latin America

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Over the two thousand years of Christian history there have been repeated attempts to politicize Christianity; these were less common during the early centuries of the church, more common during and since the Middle Ages. David Martin, professor of sociology at the London School of Economics, surveys some of the shifting winds of “Christian politics” in his “Revs and Revolutions: Church Trends & Theological Fashions” in the January 1979 Encounter. The old culture-religions of “Throne and Altar” and “God and Country” have been thoroughly discredited. Says Martin: “ . . . the Catholic Church has shifted out of the intégriste camp in Latin America, France, Spain, and even Portugal, and . . . the old military style Protestantism of (say) Northern Ireland is quite untypical. . . . Action Française is dead and Opus Dei probably in decline.” In Western Europe, the Catholic Church “has become increasingly unhappy about Christian Democracy as the political arm of corporate Christianity. . . . Thus the Roman Catholic Church in [West] Germany . . . has withdrawn from involvement with the CDU [Christian Democratic Union],” and in Portugal the Church “wisely kept a safe distance from the party which claimed a Christian label.”

But however decidedly the Catholic Church may be backing off from political entanglements, individual Catholic priests and laymen in Europe and, even more, in Latin America are cozying up to Marxism and various Communist parties and movements. Martin notes that “whereas Catholic priests were once the most anti-Marxist [of Christians] . . . they are now quite prone to the Marxist seduction.” This is so because there is an “evident if superficial analogy between medieval organicism and modern collectivism.” On the other hand, being less given to medieval nostalgia, Protestants are also less prone to Marxism.