1.

It is in reality a priestly nuisance to address my comrades from the height of the pulpit. Pulpit, Christianity and religion have often been made to serve so many crooked purposes that it is very unpleasant for an upright man to come in close touch with them. Yet, we must approach them closely in order to do away with those things altogether. If you want to put a brawler out of the temple you must first embrace him, -that’s one of the sensible contradictions of life.

It is not an unusual phenomenon in history to see how one thing is being transformed into another thing with the name remaining the same. To the inexperienced the changed new thing is easily represented as the familiar old one. Such is the case with pulpit, Christianity and religion. This is a conservative trick which causes much confusion in the minds of the people. Even among our comrades there are some who are thus caught. They say: Christ was the first socialist. Yet, Socialism and Christianity differ from each other as the day does from the night. To be sure, there are points of resemblance between them. But show me the thing to which no analogy could be found! What does totally differ? Day and night have this in common, that they are both portions of time. The devil and the archangel are both of the same nature, though one be black- and the other white-skinned, inasmuch as both of them do claim some kind of a skin. It is the fundamental faculty of our mind to bring all diversity under one general heading. Though Christianity and Socialism may have some points in common, it is none the less true that whoever mistakes Christ for a socialist is surely a dangerous muddlehead. In fact, our knowledge is one-sided when based only on what phenomena have in common. We must look also for their differentiation. Not what the Socialist has in common with the Christian, but what distinguishes and differentiates him from the Christian shall be the subject of our consideration.

Christianity was recently qualified as the religion of servility. This seems to me a very apt qualification.

Indeed, all religion is servile, but Christianity is the most servile of the servile. Let us take the next best Christian saying we meet with on the road. On my way there stands a cross with inscription: “Mercy, gracious Jesus! Holy Maria, pray for us.” Here we have the inordinate humility of Christianity in all its wretchedness. For those who build all their hope on mercy are wretched creatures, indeed. Those who start out in life with the belief in an Almighty God, and prostrate themselves before the destinies and forces of nature, and in their piteous feeling of impotency moan for mercy, are anything but efficient members of modern society. When we see that modern Christians act differently, that they brave the storm and courageously face danger, that they actively strive to remove calamity, it is only because of their defection from Christianity. Though they continue to keep their name, their song-books and their anxieties, they are in their doings and dealings perfect anti-Christs. We non-religious social-democrats must be fully conscious of this position. We want to be consciously and deliberately, in theory and practice, the energetic opponents of that sheepish and godly humility.

Rooted in the flesh like an old Adam is that disastrous human disposition to perpetuate a thing which was only meant to serve certain conditions. Inertia and selfishness are joined together to hush up, to deny or to conciliate the contradiction between Christian contempt of worldly life and the joyful, strenuous activity which distinguishes the present generation. Christianity wants resignation, while modern life wants us to work with all our might for the satisfaction of our material needs. Confidence in God is the foremost Christian virtue, while self-confidence, the exact opposite, is necessary to achieve success. Those who dare to put into the mouth of Christianity the maxim: “Trust in God, but thou shalt not hide thy talents,” by which they mean to convey that work was not an un-Christian thing, but, on the contrary, a Christian command, are preposterous sophists. Work in the Christian sense differs wholly from modern and real work. The Christian works for Heaven, crucifies his flesh and subdues his passion. And when he works for his daily bread, then it must only be for such an upkeep as to prolong his tribulations in this valley of tears in order to be worthy of true eternal life. “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal” (St. John, 12, 25) . Heavenly eternity is the aim of the Christian; the earthly world is the aim of sensible men.

Herr Daniel Schenkel, D.D., of Heidelberg, is indignant at the assertion that the essence of Christianity is the negation of this world. “Is it true,” he exclaims, “that Christianity does not regard this world as a worthy place, nay, not even as a possible place for religion – this world of which the Gospel says: So did God love His world that He sent His only begotten Son unto it. Did the primitive Christians renounce the world? Didn’t they rather expect Christ to appear again on earth and to substitute a new order of things for the old, rotten one?” Thus speaks a sophistical reasoner who cares very little for consistent reasoning, but a good deal for a compromise between his half-hearted rationalism and the Christian religion. Or does he feel the need of deluding others, if not himself, too? Does he not know that Christianity has two worlds like the Prussians, one that is white and the other black? The beautiful world of reality the Christian has painted black. Its glories are but temptations of the devil; its labor a curse; its love a sinful lust; the flesh a weariness to the spirit; the body a wretched carcass. As the enchanted prince dwells in a wild beast so does the white world of Christian imagination live in this black reality. To save us from this world God has sent His Son, who leads us into the heavenly world of Christianity. It consists of spiritual matter, which is just as possible as iron wood-blocks. Its men and women are sexless; its bodies have no gravity; its work is painless. To be sure, the primitive Christians did have the desire to renounce the world. They expected the reappearance of Jesus at any moment; they expected the destruction of the world and the crack of doom. “My kingdom is not of this world.”

However, the fantastic salvation of Christianity, which aims at removing the toils of the world, not by energetic work, but by believing and trusting, could not possibly suppress forever the sensible desire for the enjoyment of material life. The heretics, reformers, Protestants, old-Catholics, Unitarians and high critics have all of them contributed to the victory of the blackened and libelled truth over the whitewashed lie of religious imagination. Insofar we Socialists are at one with the Progressives. But we protest against this cowardice in clinging to the old name and in trying to pass off their defection from faith for a restoration of true Christianity. It is necessary to discredit the name in order to do away with the thing itself.

The religion of the Capitalists is as equivocal and contradictory as their political economy, liberty, equality and fraternity. The farce of the renunciation of the world, played by the fat monk, is being continued by the well-fed bourgeois. And the most ludicrous part of it is that the Progressive falls a long way behind the monk, who at least was conscious of the austere character of religion. The lukewarm and insipid Christianity of the modern humbugs claims to be the only genuine article. The old leaders of Christianity, the Saints of the Calendar, manifested a real contempt for the world and its pleasures; they loved the life of a hermit, wore the hair shirt, mortified their body and fed themselves on roots and herbs. Their life bore evidence of their doctrine: “God is a spirit.” Our modern crusaders turn to another page where it is written: “He was made flesh and dwelled among us.” No doubt, the germ of equivocation and senseless contradiction lay from the beginning in the Christian doctrines. The apostles and church fathers made sometimes concessions to the public. They taught how to drive out lust by marriage, and Satan by Beelzebub. From some passages it might appear that praying and fasting were the highest Christian duties, while from other passages the opposite conclusion might be drawn, that the Lord finds no pleasure in sacrifice. Christianity, not being above nature, cannot dispense with the joy of life altogether, and must end by compromising and trimming. The clear-sighted social-democrat will not be detained by the trees from recognizing the forest. The essence of Christianity is abstemiousness in this world and sweet peas in Heaven.

A doctrine which swayed nations and continents for centuries has surely its historic significance. But this granted, we must reject its claim to eternal domination. The good which Christianity contains, as, for instance, mortifying the flesh as a means against non-married lust, or brotherhood of man against national jealousies, is readily accepted by social-democracy. We condemn all jingoism which, however, the Christian church as a rule fosters. Yet we cannot regard that truth as divine and holy.

With that difference between religious and secular truth we arrive at the point which essentially distinguishes the Socialist from the Christian. To its elucidation I should like to ask you, my friends, to give me your special attention for a while.

Truth is truth, undoubtedly! But in its religious form it is one-sided, insensate and intolerant. Take for instance the principle of brotherhood of man. It is an eternal truth, i.e., it is a human need that men shall live together. Sociability is in their nature, they must love one another; and where they fail to recognize it they suffer in their own well-being and happiness. Where, however, the religious believer has taken up that principle, where the Christian commands: Love thy neighbor as thyself, there he goes at it with such a fierceness that he knocks all rime and reason out of it. When he be smitten on the right cheek he is to offer the left one, too. When he preaches love he excludes hatred. On the other hand, Socialism does not only preach love of humanity, but is based on it. The anti-religious, reasonable love of humanity knows how to limit itself; it does not over shoot the mark or exclude its antithesis: the hatred, but includes it as a holy because necessary means for temporary use. We, too, desire to love the enemy and to do good to him who hates us but not ere we have effected his unconditional surrender. Meanwhile we sing with Herwegh

Die Liebe kann er�sen nicht, Die Liebe nicht erretten, Halt du, O Hass, dein j�ngst Gericht, Brich du, O Hass, die Ketten.

Bis unsre Hand in Asche stiebt, Soll sie vom Schwert nicht lassen, Wir haben lang genug geliebt Und wollen endlich hassen.

(Love cannot save, Love cannot redeem, Arise thou, O Hate, and break our chains.

Until our hand withers We shall not relinquish the sword, We’ve loved long enough, Let us now hate.)