Thought
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THE GOD OF WORKTime was when the Christian was told, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness" -was told that only "righteous" work was sacred. Time was when the Christian was told that all work should be dedicated "to the glory of God and the relief of man's estate." How much of present work would qualify for dedication? How much for desecration-to the glory of the devil and the burdening of man's estate? Work for work's sake is not a Christian maxim," says the Bishop of Oxford. Can work for work's sake be "sacred"? Time was when the Christian was told that work, like all other actions, must conform to the principles of justice. The concept of the Just Price, the Just Common Law, the Just Constitution, the Just Account, etc., reflected the Church's search for justice in society-justice as between freemen. Aquinas placed justice before fortitude and temperance, as the highest of the three moral virtues, "because it not only orders man in himself but also the life of men together." The Just Price reflected that "order" in the field of work. The Church today gives the impression of being almost indifferent to the concepts of Order and Justice as applied to "the life of men together." Inflation and ukase have become the "order" of the day. The parish priest is demoted in esteem in favour of "the factory chaplain or 'industrial adviser'." Man is sacrificed to his functions. Blake's "satanic mills" become the "mills of God"; "full employment" becomes the "life more abundantly." Dia-bolus est deus inversus." The teachings of men like William Temple are "bearing fruit." And so are the teachings of Marx and Lenin. It was Temple who declared, "We want supremely the control of human purpose"- the policy and philosophy of the Communist and "Welfare State." This is the policy and philosophy of Power, not of Love; of Anti-Christ, not of Christ. It matters little that a Socialist archbishop spoke it. "Modern warfare is only possible by our new and fearful capacity for work. In blind slavery to the god of work men do more violence to themselves than in following the silliest superstitions," wrote Mrs. Jacquetta Hawkes in the Spectator in 1953. The god of work is the god of Communism, the god of those who seek absolute power over the lives and purposes of others. It is the god of Mammon. It is, in the words of Isaac Disraeli, "the art of governing mankind by deceiving them."-T. V. Holmes. | |
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