Just what scope there is for “Christian communism” within the Anglican tradition ought to be clear from the text of this Article. As Browne explains, the Article rejects “the belief that all property is unlawful, and that goods in a Christian society must be common.” Given that the absence of private property is one of the signal elements of communism, its incompatibility with the Article’s statement that “the Riches and Goods of Christians are not common” is too apparent to need much attention. Whether the Article rules out “Christian socialism,” on the other hand, is less clear. It can be argued that socialism does not call for the elimination of private property, making it compatible with the Article. For example, one commentator on the Articles takes pains to point out that “socialism,” properly understood, “signifies the view that the community as a whole should own all the means of production…. Socialism is not the same as communism, since it leaves room for a limited possession of private property.”[1] Therefore, the thinking goes, Christians are at liberty “to differ on such a subject” as whether socialism “is economically sound and will minister to the highest welfare of mankind.”[2]
If socialism is thus strictly defined, it may be possible to contend that it does not conflict with the Article. However, some thinkers writing under the banner of “Christian socialism” are not so careful. Percy Dearmer, one of the pre-eminent Anglican advocates for “Christian socialism,” expresses his desire to “establish, so far as possible, the collective ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.”[3] This conforms to the definition of socialism given above, but later on Dearmer claims that communism “has always been held up as an ideal life”[4] within the Christian tradition, citing the early church as an example.[5] Moreover, he looks forward to a time when, once “humanity has established Collectivism, it might very possibly pass on to Communism; and, after some centuries of Communism, humanity might become pure enough to live without laws at all, which would really be Anarchism.”[6] In Dearmer’s mind, it seems that socialism is but a waypoint to communism, which itself is the precursor to a grander future. How Dearmer—who was also an avid champion of fidelity to the Prayer Book—could reconcile such notions to the Article must remain a mystery, as he and many other Anglican proponents of “Christian socialism” do not trouble to mention it. The obvious answer is that they felt no need to do so, as those who speak glowingly of communism and anarchism are also the ones least likely to have any regard for traditional theology and confessional standards. Hence, while the abstract possibility of a moderate socialism that comports with the Article does exist, it is doubtful whether the flesh-and-blood authors who wish for a perfectly equal society will ever limit themselves in this way.[7]
Notes
- Bicknell, Articles, 557 note 1. ↑
- Bicknell, Articles, 557. ↑
- Percy Dearmer, Socialism and Christianity (London: The Fabian Society, 1907), 14. ↑
- Dearmer, Socialism, 20. ↑
- Dearmer, Socialism, 19. ↑
- Dearmer, Socialism, 13. ↑
- For more on Christianity and socialism/communism, see James Dombrowski, The Early Days of Christian Socialism in America (New York: Octagon Books, 1966); John C. Cort, Christian Socialism: An Informal History, 2nd ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2020); Roland Boer, Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2020); Philip Turner, Christian Socialism: The Promise of an Almost Forgotten Tradition (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021); Anthony A. J. Williams, The Christian Left: An Introduction to Radical and Socialist Christian Thought (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2022); and Stephen D. Morrison, All Riches Come from Injustice: The Anti-mammon Witness of the Early Church & Its Anti-capitalist Relevance (Columbus, OH: Beloved Publishing, 2023). ↑
