LEISURE IN CHRISTIAN THOUGHT AND PRACTICE

by David Purcell, The New Times October 10, 1958.
You will look in vain in a dictionary for a definition of Leisure. A dictionary will express its meaning vaguely as being "free time," which conveys a completely inadequate impression of what leisure really is. Now it is hardly surprising that a dictionary cannot help us. Leisure is a spiritual and mental attitude - an Idea - and we cannot encompass in a single term or sentence the definition of an Idea. An examination of some aspects of this Idea, however, will help us to understand the nature of leisure. The first thing to note is that leisure has a positive value of its own. It is not merely the negation of work. In Greek and Latin there were only negative words to express the idea of work. In Latin, the word for leisure was "otium." The word for business was "neg-otium"-"not leisure." Similarly also in the Greek. Most of the work in the Greek and Roman civilizations was performed by slaves. A free citizen would however have been involved in negotiations of one kind or another and would have regarded negotiation or what we call commerce or business as the negation of leisure and hence work.

Leisure is an attitude of contemplation, of an inward calm, of surrendering to Reality. The English word "leisure" is derived from the Latin word licere meaning "to be allowed." The Book of Ecclesiasticus gives us an insight into the nature of leisure when it tells us "The wisdom of a learned man cometh by his time of leisure, and he that is less in action, shall receive wisdom." (Ch. 38, v. 25).

"Leisure is a receptive attitude of mind, a contemplative attitude, and is ... the capacity for steeping oneself in the whole of creation." (Leisure The Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper, p. 49.) Here again we note this idea of receptiveness - of letting things happen Licere - to be allowed. It should not be supposed that leisure means just idleness. The meaning of the Old English word ''idel" was probably "empty." (Concise Oxford Dictionary.) An idle person then was one who was empty of reality.

''Idleness...means that a man prefers to forego the rights...that belong to his nature ... he does not wish to be what he really, fundamentally IS."

"At the zenith of the Middle Ages ... it was held that sloth and restlessness, "leisure-lessness," the incapacity to enjoy leisure, were all closely connected, sloth was held to be the source of restlessness, and the ultimate cause of "work for work's sake." (Pieper, op. cit., pp. 48, 49.)

It has been held by many philosophers that what is hard work is good. This view was held by one of Plato's companions, by Emmanuel Kant, by Calvin and by a lamentably large numbers of modern (self-styled) Christians. The historical Christian view, still held (at least nominally) by the majority of Christians, is diametrically opposed to this viewpoint.

St. Thomas Aquinas held that the essence of virtue consists in the good rather than the difficult and that virtue makes us perfect by enabling us to follow our natural bent in the right way. And he wrote:
"there should be men who devote their lives to contemplation ... necessary not only for the good of the individual who so devotes himself, but for the good of human society." (Commentary On Proverbs.)

It is obvious therefore that in classical and mediaeval Christian thought leisure did not derive its value from the relief it brings from work, nor from the fact that it can be a restorative after work or a strengthening agent for present or future work. If leisure is considered as merely a break in one's work it "is still a part of the world of work. The pause is made for the sake of work...and a man is not only refreshed from work but for work." (Pieper, op. cit., p. 56).

But we will more clearly understand the nature of leisure by examining the idea of leisure in Christian thought and teaching. Though one may only rarely find the word "Leisure" mentioned in Christian writing - the idea is inherent in Christianity and indeed is "one of the foundations of Western culture." (Pieper, op. cit., p. 25.) We can only comprehend this by understanding the Christian teaching on man's origin, nature and destiny. The Christian holds that "God created man to His own image and likeness." (Genesis 1, 26-27), and that "This image of God in man, is not in the body, but in the soul, which is a spiritual substance, endued with understanding and free will." (Notes on the Revised Rheims, Douay Bible, 1750, Bishop Challoner). Now although Christians held this for many centuries and the majority still holds it, there has been a denial of the true nature of man, which, as I will show later, has profoundly affected man's attitude to leisure.

"All things are ordered to one good, as to their ultimate end . . . and this is God." (Summa Contra Gentiles III, Ch. 17, St. Thomas Aquinas). Nothing can satisfy man's will completely except God alone, for God is his beginning and his end. Man is imbued with what has been called a "divine discontent." This is what St. Augustine of Hippo had in mind when he prayed "Our hearts, O Lord, are restless, until they rest in Thee." Christian belief then is that God is the ultimate object; the ultimate end of all man's desires, and the possession of God by the soul is complete happiness. Since then this is so, all human activity should be directed towards true happiness. Every effort of man, which endeavours to deny God, or to ignore Him, or to leave out of account the destiny of man, will suffer the fate of the ancient Tower of Babel. Men then attempted to build their own path to happiness. Because their actions were not in accord with reality, their efforts disintegrated. And the very name of the edifice, which they attempted to erect, has become the symbol of confusion - of feverish activity directed to a futile end, of activism, or work for work's sake.

Leisure in the New Testament
When we read the New Testament we notice immediately similarities between the civilization in which Christ lived, and our own civilization. We must be similarly struck with the contrast to these attitudes to life in Christ's teaching. Here there is no stressing the virtue of work for it's own sake; there is no praise for material efficiency for its own sake. In fact we find the very opposite. In the New Testament we read the message of peace and tranquility of mind, and we find repeated warnings about the dangers of world-liness - of concentrating our attention on material things. "No man can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and mammon." (Matthew VI, 24). The Knox translation of the Scripture puts it "you cannot serve God and money."
"Come unto Me all you that labour and are burdened and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and you shall find rest unto your souls." (Matthew XI, 28.) I think that the "rest" of which Christ spoke here, could not possibly have been closer to the true nature of leisure. We find in the New Testament too a warning to distinguish between shadow and substance, between what appears to be important and what is in reality our destiny.
"Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust and the moth consume and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor moth doth consume and where thieves do not break through and steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also." (Matthew VII, 19-21.)

There is in the words of Christ Himself the first Christian pronouncement specifically on the subject of what I term activism - that is, the practice of activity without reference to the true purpose of Man - the modern concept of work. The scene was at the village of Bethany and Our Lord was the guest of the two sisters Martha and Mary. Mary sat at the Lord's feet and the Scripture tells us, she "heard His word." But Martha, busy with the housework and serving, complained that Mary had left her to do the work alone. And Christ rebuked her saying, "Martha, Martha thou art careful and art troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary. Mary hath chose the better part . . .". (Luke X, 38-42.)
The primacy of the spirit, the supremacy of the spiritual over the material is exemplified in the Old Testament in the words: "Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." (Deuteronomy VIII, 3.)
And in the New Testament: "For the Wisdom of the flesh is death, but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace." (Romans VIII, 6.)

St. Francis of Assisi
It is important not to misunderstand this attitude to material things - to what in Christian parlance is called the "world." The Christian speaks of this world as a "Vale of tears" and yet he knows that all creation, even material creation bears witness to the existence of God and a higher life.
If we try to divorce this world from its origin and if we deny our own ultimate destiny, then this life becomes meaningless and empty and well we may despair for then we are really idle persons. This is one of the many paradoxes of Christianity. Of all men, this paradox of being in and of the world and yet unworldly, of despising this world's goods for their own sake and yet loving them as God's creation, is most clearly seen in the life of St. Francis of Assisi.
A man so detached from material things that he actively envied with a burning zeal the materially poor and the destitute, and yet a man who so loved all created things that he bestowed upon them the title of "Brother," "Brother Dog" and "Brother Sun," and even his own body, with a paradoxical mixture of contempt and love, he affectionately called "Brother Ass."

I mention St. Francis of Assisi for another reason. He is a Saint who is revered by Christians of all denominations and one who is frequently admired even by atheists and agnostics, usually because there has come to be associated with his name a kind of benevolent humanitarianism and because his poetic nature appeals to the human imagination. It is very strange, that such a man should be revered, because in the sense that our civilization understands the term "work" he was a waster. From youth onwards he didn't do a day's "work" for the rest of his life! Could there possibly be a greater antithesis to modern thinking about work than the spirit of the Poverello of Assisi who typifies the attitude of the Christian Saints?
St. Francis appreciated profoundly the true meaning of leisure. He loved nature - more than any other human being he considered the lilies of the field and the fowls of the air, and because of this, more than any other man, he followed implicitly the injunction: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all things shall be added to you." (Luke XII, 31.)

If a man first seeks the Kingdom of God, and to the extent that he does so he will appreciate truly the gifts of God. It is an interesting commentary on the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries that St. Francis, because he first sought the Kingdom of God, inspired the art and poetry of these ages. These were the centuries in which, however imperfect in their individual lives they may have been, men had a clear idea of their nature and their final destiny. They knew the importance of developing one's personality, which they termed personal sanctification, and so it was natural that one in whom there was so great a development of sanctity should be revered as St. Francis was.

It was not a matter of indifference to the men of the 13th to the 15th century how their lives were spent. They understood craftsmanship because they knew that God is glorified by beauty of form. The appearance of the Church - the House of God - was a matter of importance, and in building the great cathedrals they have left to us, they endeavoured to glorify God by building Him as fitting an abode on earth as possible. All this was directed towards their own sanctification - towards the development of their own personalities through glorifying God. These were the centuries of the artisan, the craftsman who was engaged in the creative, organic process of true work. He was in contact with the finished product of his labour and it was stamped with his personality.

He was "not the servant but the master in the process of production." (The New Tower of Babel, Dietrich von Hilde-brand, 1953.) The artisan loved his work, and he may have been attached to it for the joy he derived from it, quite apart from its usefulness to him. The artisan has gone. He is replaced by the process worker, who is engaged on what is called "repetition work," who is a cog in the machine of the assembly line, who is no longer the master but the slave of production.

It is, I hope, now evident that there is a definite relationship between religion and leisure. Our modern materialistic "full employment" social system however, requires for its service men that are spiritually bankrupt. The spiritual void in the life of modern man is filled with "work" and his total occupation with this activity in one form or another, gives him a false sense of fulfilment which mitigates the despair into which he inevitably lapses.
A man spiritually enlightened achieves fulfilment - achieves his instinct of "belonging" to God and in God's creation in his religion.
A man spiritually bankrupt feels a spurious fulfilment in "work." And so "work" has become the "religion" of our materialist age.

What happened then to break down the idea of leisure, which we have considered, so that, even though the idea survives, it is become clouded and is jostled into the background by new ideas?

Original Sin and Leisure
At this point it is necessary to explain the Christian doctrines of Original Sin and Justification, for the Christian attitude to leisure is dependent upon the truth about the nature of man, and his state before and after the Fall of Adam. When the truth of these doctrines was denied, then the basis of the idea of leisure was undermined. Briefly then, I summarise the teaching, which was denied in varying degrees by Luther, Calvin, Jansen and others.

In the Genesis story: God created Adam as the first man and Eve the first woman. From Adam and Eve the whole human race descends. When God created man, He gave him, in addition to his nature, certain other endowments to which man could lay no claim by virtue of his nature. Of these gifts the primary one was sanctifying grace. God gave Adam other gifts - immortality (ie., freedom from bodily death and from sickness and pain) and integrity. By the gift of integrity man was free from that inclination to evil, called concupiscence. These gifts Adam lost through the Fall and through Adam they were lost by his descendents - the whole human race. Justification is a Divine act, which conveys sanctifying grace to the soul, which by sin, either original or actual, was spiritually dead.

Calvanism
As simply and as briefly as I can put it, those are the doctrines, which were held generally by Christians until the time of Martin Luther. It is true that early in the fifth century, a British monk, Pelagius, denied the doctrine of Original Sin. His view and the views held by Luther on the matter were poles apart, and we need not concern ourselves in the context of Leisure with Pelagianism. It held sway for only some 25 years, and its chief opponent was St. Augustine (354-430). Primarily it was the doctrine of Justification, which Martin Luther denied. Luther's teaching is not pertinent to the subject of the Christian view of leisure except in one aspect, and that is the influence of his teaching on his own and subsequent generations, which opened up the way for Calvinism. (I am not here dealing with what is held by modern Lutherans or Presbyterians, on which I am not qualified to comment. Here, and in the paragraphs which follow, I speak of what Calvin himself believed and taught.)

In the middle sixteenth century John Calvin accepted the Lutheran view that human nature is irremediably vitiated by original sin. But Calvin was a much clearer and more logical thinker than Luther. He developed Luther's ideas and held that view of the absolute predestination of mankind which though humourously expressed by Robert Burns in "Holy Willie's Prayer" is by no means misrepresented:

"O Thou, that in the heavens dost dwell,
Wha as it pleases best Thysel',
Sends ane to Heaven and ten to Hell,
A' for Thy glory,
And not for onie guid or ill
They've done afore Thee."

Calvinism spread from Geneva to France (where its adherents were called Hugenots), to Scotland (where John Knox was its chief propounder to Holland, to Poland, and to England through the Puritans. From England it crossed the Atlantic to America.[1]
In Geneva where Calvin had complete control, doctrine was quickly translated into action. Elders were appointed whose function was to watch over the lives of all individuals. They were stationed in every quarter of the city so that nothing could escape their scrutiny.

There must be no leisure for its own sake - "those that are prodigal of their time despise their own souls." (The Worth of the Soul," Matthew Henry.) Contemplation became for the Puritan, a form of self-indulgence. Work was exalted into a virtue - "God hath commanded you in some way or other to labour for your daily bread." (Baxter's Christian Directory, Vol. 1, p. 168.)
Calvin's followers accepted "the necessity of ... large scale commerce and finance, and the other practical facts of business life." (Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, p. 113, Prof. R. H. Tawney, 1926.) The word business is more correctly written and pronounced busy-ness.

Jansenism
In the year 1640, there was published a book (Augustinus) which was the fruit of twenty years' study of the writings of St. Augustine. Its author, Cornelius Jansen, a Flemish Catholic Bishop, had died two years before its publication. In his book he refused to recognize that in the state in which man was created by God, he was endowed with numerous gifts and graces that were the pure gifts of God, in no way due to human nature. Since these gifts were, according to Jansen, an integral part of man's natural equipment, and since they were forfeited in the Fall of Adam, it followed that by Original Sin, our nature was corrupted in its essence. Man fell helplessly under the control of evil, so that, do what he would, there was an irresistible inclination drawing him towards evil.

To counteract this inclination, Jansen held, God gives grace as a force drawing man in the opposite direction, consequently man is drawn, and drawn irresistibly towards good or towards evil according to the relative strength of these two conflicting inclinations. The Jansenist doctrine was taken up in France by many who had hitherto rejected the teachings of Luther and Calvin, and led to a campaign of rigorism in the Catholic Church in France which lasted for nearly a century, and which was reminiscent of Pharisaism or Puritanism, which have much in common. It has been said that the Jansenists never learned to smile.

These policies were the logical outcome of the philosophies from which they sprang. They have reached their apotheosis in the period from the end of World War I to the present day. Exactly how successful they have been in completely changing the social structure of the world is, I think, self-evident. Why they were so successful and how the policies have been helped to fruition is outside my scope and would require a separate study.

The Greek and Roman Attitude to Work
To the Greeks and the Romans work was un-leisure. To the modern world leisure has become un-work. We rest from work only to repair the wear and tear of past work - only to build a reserve of energy to fit us for more efficient work. The work of man has become the same as the work of animals. Both men and animals work to produce something. The sheep works of its nature to produce wool and lambs.
There is no intention on the part of the sheep to do this - it does so of its very nature, operating by instinct. But in the work of man there is an element other than the result produced - this element is intention or purpose, which involves the exercise of reason and will and which includes self-perfection or self-development.

Errors regarding the nature of personal beings have led to the idea that the importance of a man consists primarily in the production of impersonal goods or in some aspect of organization of that production, and in his accomplishments for the State, for art, for science, for economics - even for sport. Achievement, as such, is placed above personality. Within the range of goods produced, the preference is given to those which are least stamped with the impress of individual personality. These goods are considered to represent the "important" and "serious" part of life such as the sphere of economics, politics, national "development" and so on. Pure knowledge or art, or communities such as family and marriage, are relegated to the background.

Work, as such, is immensely overrated. The terrible rhythm of work enslaves the individual person and prevents him from fulfilling his true purpose. Pope Pius XI pointed out (in Quadragesima Anno) that "... it may be said with all truth, that nowadays the conditions of social and economic life are such that vast multitudes of men can only with great difficulty pay attention to that one thing necessary - namely, their eternal salvation." This is a modern reminder of the injunction of Christ to Martha "... one thing is necessary"... Speaking as the shepherd about his flock he remarked in a most poignant passage: "We can scarcely restrain our tears when we reflect upon the dangers which threaten them."

Work for Work's Sake
The position to which the function of work has been exalted, does not mean that all persons are engaged in the work itself for particularly long stretches of time. In fact, it is probable that the majority of people work for less time than they have done in past epochs. The important thing is though, that the function of work has been elevated into an end in itself. Individuals, trades' unions, employers' unions, political parties, whole nations are pursuing work as an end in itself.
All clamour insistently that we must have "full employment."

Since work has become an end in itself, life is orientated towards it. Studies of the aged are made with the primary aim of equipping them for useful work. They must not be allowed even to grow old in graceful leisure. Hours of work are shortened, and leave from work is increased, so that work may become more efficient. Special universities are instituted for the specific purpose of training people for work. Even the insane are conscripted for work. It has been found that they excel at certain functions, which are soul-killing for a normal person. There has been speculation about what this type of work will do to one who is normal.

The alternative to work is amusement, and this is regarded as important and necessary, but of course, somewhat frivolous in comparison with the really serious business of work. Amusement plays an enormous role and is considered an essential part of life. The racecourses, the football field, the television screen, the radio, the picture theatre, the hotel, have become the alternatives to work. We hear frequently the terms "escape films" and "escape literature." Escape from the soul-destroying tedium of work into the dream world of amusement. Idleness in its true sense. Beelzebub is invoked to cast out Satan.

"The modern alternative to work on the one hand and amusement on the other is, in a certain way, an expression of infantilism. It is normal for children to consider school as being the serious part of life and to identify seriousness - with unpleasant, burdensome tasks. The child is free to play only when schoolwork is done, and playing thus becomes identified with the joyful. The same unfortunate alternative has sometimes grave consequences in education. Many guilt complexes are due to the fact that work is considered to be the only serious part in life. Some people feel morally guilty as soon as they are not working. They even feel "guilty" when they give their time to some important human affair rather than to professional work, even though in doing so they behave in the morally right way." (Von Hilderbrand, op. cit., p. 226.)

Note:
[1] Anthony Cooney ("Social Credit: Aspects" - Myths of the Mayflower), writes:
"The curious myopia ... which regards history as the events subsequent to the landing of Norman William, with his select body of Jews, in A.D. 1066, enables the statement that Christopher Columbus' discovered America at the end of the fifteenth century to be accepted as accurate. Apart from the fact that Columbus never saw America, the mainland of which was 'discovered' by John Cabot, who sailed from Bristol in 1497, there is strong reason to believe that various Scandinavian peoples had fairly constant intercourse with the North American Continent hundreds, if not thousands, of years earlier. Their traditional name for it was Markland." (C. H. Douglas Programme for the Third World War")

One of the illusions of my childhood, which I suppose would be termed a "block" in the jargon of today, was that the "Pilgrim' Fathers" were Quakers. It created confusion in my study of history until in my early 'teens I was able to fix firmly in my mind that the Puritans were Calvinists: Quakers were not Puritans: the Pilgrim Fathers were not Quakers: the Pilgrim Fathers were Calvinists.
For many years I supposed that the illusion had arisen, not from school history books, not from a general miasma of misinformation, but from denseness on my own part.
To this day I cannot say exactly how and where I got this impression, but I had a distinct idea that it was general among my peers. When I had finally sorted the matter out and was free of the delusion I concluded that it was quite impossible that the delusion had been shared and that it must, all through school days, have been peculiar to myself. It came therefore as both a surprise and relief to find the Welsh-Quaker author and scholar, the late H.W.J. Edwards, examining this illusion, and finding it common. I must add here, "at least among ordinary people," because the response of an Oxford history lecturer when I first aired this matter was, "Of course nobody imagines the Quakers were Puritans." …

The evidence for this, even if it were the only piece of evidence, is in the nature of the case, overwhelming and may be stated briefly: Alun Villiers, Captain of the Mayflower replica which crossed the Atlantic in 1957, attended a civic reception at Plymouth wearing Quaker costume! I consider that sufficient evidence that the illusion was popular and widespread.
The dispersion of such an illusion suggests a source, and a source suggests a policy. The purpose of such a policy is not difficult to determine. The Quakers were tolerant and quietist, the Puritans were not. Whiggery however, which is closely allied to Puritanism, pretends to the virtue of Tolerance.

As C. H. Douglas puts it:
"That is where Whiggism is so successful in that it puts forward in moral form something which it is extraordinarily difficult to disentangle for its slyness, something which, in fact, it is not really aiming at all." ("The Policy of a Philosophy")

Second Mayflower myth:
This consideration brings us to the second Mayflower myth, that of the "Pilgrim Fathers." The word "Pilgrim" carries the connotation of someone making a journey for a worthy purpose. There is a general belief that the voyagers on the Mayflower were escaping religious intolerance with the intention of establishing tolerance in America.
The word "Fathers" suggests originators, and not surprisingly we find the widely held belief that the Mayflower's passengers were the first British settlers and hence the "Founding Fathers" of British America and therefore of the United States of America.

Indeed the six hundred families who trace their descent from the Mayflower's passengers now constitute an American aristocracy.

The facts are otherwise.
We may easily dispose of the Quaker illusion: George Fox founder of the Society of Friends, was not born until four years after the Mayflower voyage. The "Founding Fathers" notion could also be disposed of without difficulty if the mere citation of fact were sufficient to dispel cherished illusion.
As Douglas has pointed out America was rediscovered by Cabot, sailing under the English flag, in 1497, some years before Amerigo set foot on the mainland. Nevertheless the established fact of Cabot's achievement has failed to dispel the popular illusion of Columbus' "discovery."
The fact of British North America is that Jamestown and "The Old Dominion" of Virginia werc established in 1607, thirteen years before the Mayflower sailed.

It may perhaps be necessary to justify "rediscovery," in relation to North America. It is now established that there existed, until late in the 13th Century, regular trade between Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland and "Vinland," (the territory around the St. Lawrence estuary.) Scandinavian colonies werc established on the southern coasts of Greenland, and possibly on the American coastline itself. Both trade and the Greenland colonies came to an abrupt end, something which remains an historical puzzle.
My suggested solution is that this was the result of a dramatic chance in climate in the early 14th Century, when Europe experienced several years of wet summers and a general fall in temperature, followed by repeated visitations of the Plague. The movement south of land and sea animals upon which the Esqimaux depended, forced the latter to follow and they overwhelmed the Greenland colonies, probably greatly weakened by failed harvests or even Plague. Contact with Europe was lost and "Vinland" remained all but forgotten for nearly two centuries until the voyages of discovery began.

The propagation and perpetuation of the Pilgrim Tolerance image is entwined and contingent upon the Quaker illusion and the "Founding Fathers" myth.
The Mayflower's destination, in company with a supply ship which find to return to port, was not the barren coast of Massachusetts, nor was the intention the founding of a new colony. The Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Rock as the result of a combination of bad weather and poor navigation. The intended destination was Virginia and the purpose was to reinforce the Puritan element there.

In 1619, Argall, the Puritan governor of Virginia had been deposed by the Episcopalians, and there was clearly a determination to reverse the set-back to the Whig-Puritan cause.
In short, the "Pilgrims" left not England, where they were restrained, but Holland, where the Puritans enjoyed power; not to escape religious intolerance but to establish it in the New World.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS: -

MAN'S TRUE PURPOSE

Modern man has lost the sense of his real destiny. When he had this sense of his real destiny the emphasis was on the person, as such, rather than on his achievements. This was not strange, since man was regarded as a personal being who was an image of God, destined for immortality.

His primary vocation was the development of his personal being - the gradual unfolding of the divine principle in him - the Middle Ages called it personal sanctification or holiness. The man who had attained the greater holiness - in other words, the saint as I have mentioned in the case of St. Francis was the man who was most revered.

When the sense of man's true destiny was lost, the emphasis shifted to his achievements. Modern society is more interested in what a man does rather than what he is. Now as soon as a created good is made absolute and is idolized in the true sense of the word, one loses sight of its real value and this good inevitably degenerates.
When man was made a God, he degenerated into a superior ape. Great achievements were made idols, and their worship degenerated into the worship of industrial magnates, film stars, cricketers, and politicians.

Leisure in its true sense is the sine qua non of the development of human personality or (to use a simpler expression) of holiness. If holiness means nothing, then leisure becomes meaningless too.

THE FEAR OF LEISURE
by Eric D. Butler

Notes of Eric D. Butler's paper at the Fourth Social Credit Seminar:
"The New Times," vol.24. no.21. November 8, 1958.

In spite of the fact that it can be easily demonstrated that it is possible for a small and decreasing number of people in a modern industrial society to produce all the physical requirements for the whole community, and that the most important potential of the semi-automatic production system is increasing leisure time for all, any suggestion of a policy which would enable the individual to obtain a financial income, however small for a start, without first being compelled to engage in economic activities, or in filling in forms of some description in the growing Government bureaucracies, meets with widespread opposition.

Both Communist and non-Communist Governments are in complete agreement on a policy of "Full Employment" as the only means through which the individual is entitled to life. And as every policy must derive from a philosophy, it is clear, as a number of outstanding Western thinkers have pointed out that although the West is referred to as the free world, it is progressively retreating from freedom.
Lip service is still paid to freedom in the Western world, but in fact the individual is being increasingly subjected to centralised direction of all aspects of his life. Many express concern at the effects of this centralised direction but at the same time endorse the policy of "Full Employment" which makes these effects inevitable.

The Anglican Archbishop of York, (England) in his book. The Church of England Today, points out that the modern, planned industrial society takes "responsibility and incentive from individuals who soon feel that they are impotent in a mass-organised society which provides for their livelihood, arranges their work, and caters for their amusement.. . The result is dangerous, for the individual loses the power of independent judgment . . . We are drifting toward the formation of a mass society in which the individual becomes submerged."

Similar statements have been made by other leading Churchmen, but the Christian flocks are given no guidance on policies necessary to prevent the development of the mass society. Christian chaplains in industry may help minimise some of the effects of the mass society but can make no basic contribution to the growing threat to individual freedom and the human personality so long as it is accepted that the economic system exists, not to provide the individual with the production he requires with the minimum of human time and energy, but to keep him at work.
The unfortunate fact must be faced that Christians generally, who should be more concerned about making freedom a reality than other people, share the widespread fear of leisure.
Whether or not this fear can be overcome will be one of the decisive factors in the ultimate outcome of the clash between two philosophies: that of freedom and that of totalitarianism.

When we consider the efforts by large numbers of people to gain economic independence for life by purchasing tickets in lotteries or by guessing the number of goals football teams will kick, it does appear contradictory that there is such general fear of leisure. But it is significant that individuals are not afraid of having economic independence and leisure for themselves.
There have been no recorded instances where any of those winning a substantial lottery or football pool have refused to take the prize because they have been afraid of having leisure time! In fact surveys taken of those winning big lottery prizes reveal that very few have used their money foolishly.

No, people do not fear leisure for themselves. It is the other fellow they are concerned about.
The purpose of this paper is to make an examination of the basic causes of the fear of leisure and to indicate how the re-orientation of society towards a policy of increasing leisure and freedom for the individual may be obtained. It is essential for our examination that we first clearly define our meaning of the two words "Leisure" and "Work."
Words are one of the principal media through which individuals attempt to convey their ideas to one another, and even when there is no conscious attempt to pervert the meaning of words in order to distort the conception of reality, it is easy for different people to obtain different ideas from the same word.

Defining leisure
Leisure to many people conjures up a picture of passive idleness. The very fact that many people are repulsed by the thought of individuals being little more than vegetables, neither engaging in any physical activities nor in conscious thought or contemplation indicates that the normal man, no matter how much he may have been depersonalised by an environment which stifles his individual initiative, is basically creative.
We can term a man of leisure as one who possesses sufficient economic independence to enable him to choose how he shall express and develop his creative powers. A man of leisure does not have his activity, whatever form it may take, forced upon him.
We can therefore define leisure as free, voluntary or unenforced activity in contrast with forced activity, which we call Work or Labour.

Defining Work
In order to clarify still further our conception of Leisure, we do need to look a little closer at what we mean by work. Douglas pointed out that physically there is no basic difference between one man expending energy in playing football and another man expending energy in some economic activity. But there is a tremendous psychological difference. The man playing football is prepared to put up with a great deal of physical discomfort, even risking injury, without any offer of material reward, simply because he is acting voluntarily. He enjoys expending his energy in this way. But the man working in a factory may be there only under the compulsion of obtaining a financial income with which to purchase the necessities of life.
It cannot be pointed out too often that the normal man is creative and, if freed to do so, will express his creativeness in accordance with his natural abilities and desires. The individual desires not so much to be employed, or "set to work," as to be able to seek his own employment.

In his address entitled The Approach to Reality, Douglas said:
"Most people prefer to be employed - but on the things they like rather than on the things they don't like to be employed upon. The proposals of Social Credit are in no sense intended to produce a nation of idlers - and would not. There never was a more ridiculous piece of misrepresentation than to say that as a class the rich are idle. They may be wrongly employed, but they are not idle. The danger to the world does not come from the idle rich - it comes from the busy rich.

"No. Social Credit would not produce idlers: it would allow people to allocate themselves to those jobs to which they are suited. A job you do well is a job you like, and a job you like is a job you do well. Under Social Credit you would begin to tap the amazing efficiency inseparable from enforced labour, and the efficiency of the whole industrial system would go up."

While many will readily grasp that the man possessing free time can develop himself through physical activities of his own choosing, it is easy to overlook the important fact that a man with leisure may also develop himself through contemplation.
This important aspect of the subject has been dealt with beautifully in the following extract from Professor Thomas Robertson's great work, Human Ecology:
"To expand the individuality ... is the chief end of man, but growth in reality requires proper conditions, such as are almost unattainable in Occidental society, where visible activity alone is a measure of efficiency. This is evident from the common English idiom about 'doing nothing." Thus, to sit and feast the eyes on nature is 'doing nothing.' One of the most serious sources of human dissatisfaction today is the confounding of physical inactivity with inaction.
Unless we are to admit the need for 'doing nothing,' we dethrone the human and make man no better than a beast of burden. Life becomes futile the moment we forget the end of existence, and permit activity for any other end, or even for its own sake. This is precisely what, in ever-increasing degree, the financial mechanism imposes on us. Life becomes an empty round of doing things, which are meaningless. In Upton Sinclair's description, 'We go to work to earn the cash to buy the bread to get the strength to go to work to earn the cash to buy the bread,' and so on.

"To live properly, it is the significance of experience, even of the humblest and most commonplace, which is of vital importance to man. This significance cannot be grasped without time and opportunity. Putting it another way, we are so busy doing things that we have no time to utilise experience. The pace is too hot. Leisure is rightly understood as free time from occupation. It is commonly used for purposes of play and sport, but there is another variety of use, which assumes importance as maturity and age approach. It is contemplative leisure, which is the unique human technique of browsing on events, of chewing the cud of experience, to digest out the virtue of living.

It is the tragedy of European and American culture that in it there is no place for contemplative leisure, which, far from being a doing of nothing, is a doing of the one thing which pre-eminently separates man from animals. At one end it is a simple turning over of events in quiet seclusion.
At the other it represents the highest activity of man in contemplation of 'reality.' It is a phase of creative quiescence, the very antithesis of inactivity, which is vital to human welfare and satisfaction. It represents the solitary aspect of development in distinction to all other phases of activity which are best carried out in fellowship with others."

In examining the fears which prevent the acceptance of increasing leisure, it may appear waste of time and merely perverse to suggest that there is a fear of scarcity at a time when there is talk once again of "over-production" and automation. But it is true that there is still a deep, subconscious fear in the mind of man that the threat of scarcity is never far away and still a reality. Man's history does partly account for this fear.

There have been approximately 7000 years of recorded human history and it is only one-seventieth of that time since Faraday invented the dynamo and the industrial revolution got under way. Insidious propaganda keeps alive the idea that life is a permanent and grim struggle, and that any widespread leisure must inevitably lead to decadence and disaster. History is perverted to attempt to show how leisured classes in the past became "soft" and passed under the control of vigorous barbarians. No reference is made to the fact that leisured classes and the civilisations they helped build were destroyed by policies of financial and economic centralism.

The class-war propaganda of the Communists and Socialists, which insists that those enjoying a degree of economic independence only do so at the expense of the poor, also helps create the impression that there is a limited amount of real wealth and that there must be a levelling down. The idea of leisure and economic independence for the individual is repugnant to the Communist, who is dominated by the false doctrine that "Labour produces all wealth."
The Communist is at one with the puritan who preaches that work is "good" for the individual. A number of competent observers of Russian society have commented upon the dominating puritan atmosphere.

Fear reinforced by finanial polices
The subconscious fear of scarcity is strongly reinforced by present economic and financial policies, which foster economic sabotage on so vast a scale that most people are unaware that much of the activity in which they are engaged is unnecessary and robs them of potential leisure.
The very complexities of the system make it difficult for the individual to realise that what he thinks is most essential is in reality nothing but a waste of precious human lives and a squandering of economic resources.

Think of the thousands engaged in fantastic advertising, much of it designed to stimulate support for the ever-changing models in motor cars, washing machines, refrigerators and other mechanical appliances. All this feverish activity is designed to "make work."
Even women must in increasing numbers leave their homes to enter the production system. Economic "experts" now state that it is "impractical" for women to stay at home; the production system would collapse without their services.

As Douglas pointed out, the perversion of technological development merely resulted in more work being done, not in the freeing of the individual. The urgent appeals for still greater increases in production ignore the fundamental question of whether the increased economic activity does serve the genuine requirements of the individual or whether it is part of a never-ending programme of making work. It is undoubtedly true that many do find some satisfaction in the unnecessary activities in which they are engaged.

The transport engineer striving to solve the problem of moving an increasing number of people to and from their places of work considers that he is spending his time and using his talents creatively. And there can be no logical quarrel with this attitude so long as no questions are asked concerning the alleged necessity for moving people and production around. Enormous numbers of very competent people are harnessed up dealing with effects. Until there is sufficient clarification of the perversion of means into ends in the economic field, it will always be difficult to present to people the vision of the Leisure Society that is physically impossible. The perversion of the money system and the misrepresentation of the true nature of money have also had such a deep psychological impact upon most people that, even when there is some grasp of economic realities, they shrink from the prospect of receiving money without first participating in some form of economic activity.

While it is true that there has been a widespread exposure of the Money Myth over the past 40 years, nevertheless the belief still persists amongst large numbers of people that money of itself is important. In his Policy of a Philosophy, Douglas pointed out that most policies today "have no relationship to Christianity."
"Our policy, " (i.e., the Western world's) he said, "so far as it can be defined ... is related philosophically to the adulation of money. Money is an abstraction. Money is a thing of no value whatever. Money is nothing but an accounting system. Money is nothing worthy of our attention at all, but we base the whole of our actions, the whole of our policy, on the pursuit of money; and the consequence is, of course, that we become the prey of mere abstractions . . .."

The great Francis Bacon appealed for a just relationship between the mind and things.
It is because there is no such just relationship today that the worship of abstractionism, which prevents the emergence of reality, is so prevalent. One of Christ's major crimes in the eyes of Jewish Sanhedrin was that He attacked the religious abstractionism, which had been developed to the stage where it took precedence over the real needs of individuals. It is not money that is the root of all evil, but the love of money. The reference to the love of money is a condemnation of the worship of abstractionism, as was Christ's famous statement that it is impossible to worship both God and Mammon. So long as the worship of the abstraction money continues and its true nature is obscured, there will be fear of any proposal to pay individuals a financial dividend in order that they may enjoy genuine independence and leisure.

Directly linked to the worship of the abstraction money is the carefully-fostered idea that "something for nothing" is morally bad for the individual - and, of course, can only be obtained at the expense of other individuals.

One of the fundamental philosophical cleavages between Christianity and Judaism concerns this very question. Judaism repudiates the Christian conception of unearned grace - and criticism of "something for nothing," so widely prevalent amongst those who call themselves Christians, demonstrates the powerful influence of the very philosophy which Christ challenged.
Douglas related how a Jewish millionaire stated that Social Credit financial proposals would save Western Civilization, but that that Civilization was not worth saving. It is not without significance that a number of historians have drawn attention to the fact that there are many striking similarities between Judaism and Marxism.

The Christian God is one of love Whose abundant Universe offers the life more abundant.
The philosophy underlying the doctrine that "Labour produces all wealth" logically elevates man into his own God and infers that he alone is responsible for the basis of life. But the truth is that, to use Douglas's words, "The laws of the universe transcend human thinking. ' If these laws are discovered and obeyed, they provide the individual with increasing freedom. The truths of the Universe are gifts to the individual: "something for nothing."
Man is an heir to a heritage, which his forefathers built up by their discovery and application of the truths of the universe. Rejection of this fundamental fact is one of the major barriers to the creation of the Leisure State.

It is appropriate that we mention here that, contrary to what might be reasonably expected, the modern Trade Union movement has both directly and indirectly opposed the leisure idea. Instead of demanding that "the wages of the machine" by paid to the individual who can be displaced by technological advances, Trade Union leaders have consistently attacked both profits and the dividends arising out of profits. They fear the independence, which an extension of the dividend system would bring.

Douglas drew attention to this matter in Social Credit, in which he said:
"Now it is fair to say that Labour leaders are, although they may not consciously know it amongst the most valuable assets of the financial control of industry - are, in fact, almost indispensable to that control; and the reason for this is not far to seek. They do not speak as representatives of individuals; they speak, as they are never tired of explaining, as the representatives of Labour, and the more Labour there is, the more they represent. It is natural that employment should be represented by them as being the chief interest of man: as the representatives of the employed, their importance is enhanced thereby."

The insistence upon forced work as the only means to a financial income makes the production system an instrument of government. High-sounding references to the alleged virtues of work cannot completely mask the fact that the economic system, dominated by financial policy, has been developed into a system through which the will-to-power of those controlling policy is expressed. Those seeking complete power over all others fear leisure and independence more than anyone else. There is adequate evidence to indicate that it is those seeking complete power that foster and encourage all the other fears, which prevent the realisation of leisure.
The deliberate elevation of the production system into a system of control, and the consequent subordination of the individual to functionalism, is a manifestation of the growing dominance of the philosophy of materialism and collectivism.

The situation is a deadly challenge to Christianity and the Christian Church.
The Church could and must give a lead to remove the fear of leisure by stating in unequivocal terms the true purpose of man and his systems.
If it is prepared to stand passively by and allow the growing knowledge of God's gifts and truths, as demonstrated by the growth of automation, to be described as a "problem," then the victory of the anti-Christ is certain.
If the Church believes that freedom is indispensable for the moral and spiritual growth of the individual, then it should be giving an authoritative lead by insisting that the individual be permitted full access to his heritage of leisure.

There are, of course, legitimate grounds for the view that a too sudden access to leisure and economic independence may result in some undesirable developments. We all know that the habits of some of the new rich are not very pleasant, a fact which Social Credit recognises. But if we accept the Christian view of man, that he must express his sovereignty through himself, and not through others, then a start must be made towards placing him in the position where he can develop that sovereignty.
The Welfare State is undoubtedly the most insidious barrier to the creation of a society of genuinely free, independent individuals, because it guarantees the individual a minimum of the material requirements of life in exchange for the loss of freedom of choice, the only real freedom.

The much-publicised Four Freedoms are provided in any prison.
In some American prisons today prisoners are given the best possible food, entertainment is provided, they can earn money at some trade, and even sexual intercourse with their wives is permitted. The question then arises, "Well, what constitutes the punishment in these prisons?" And the answer is that work, play and breeding is all done at the behest of those who have sovereignty over the prisoners. The real punishment is the lack of free choice.

Man does not live by bread alone. It is what free time the individual possesses after providing bread, and what he does with that time that is important.
Increasing leisure for self-development and the spiritualising of his life is today possible for all individuals. Is fear going to be used to deny man his God-given heritage? No real Christian can ignore this issue.

How, then, can fear of leisure be overcome?
The brief answer is the application of the Christian teaching concerning love. The foundation of Christian teaching is love. The tremendous implications of this teaching have unfortunately been blurred by the modern mania for sex, which many people mistake as the same thing as love.

The Christian teaching is that "Perfect love casteth out fear."
The Social Credit policy of growing leisure and financial dividends for all is based upon this type of love. It is a policy stemming from love of, and faith in, one's fellow human beings. It is the antithesis of policies based upon fear of what one's fellows would do if they had genuine leisure.

To fear leisure for others is a manifestation of distrust; it denies the divine nature of man.

A society whose members were dominated by the Christian conception of love would be transformed into one in which individuals would freely and voluntarily associate in expanding leisure for all in order that they could know God, love God, and serve Him more completely.