Christianity and the Trusts
By L. A. S.
“The Church as a Trust” is the subject of an article in a recent issue of the Independent, by Austin Bierbower, LL. D. Mr. Bierbower attempts to show that the Christian church was the first great trust or monopoly formed in the world, and that it set the example and furnished the model for all subsequent monopolies. The Christian church, he says, “claimed in time to own and distribute all the benefits of Christ’s religion.” “It claimed to represent the only valid religion in the world, and tried to crush out all competitors. It had the sole means of salvation, and out of its pale was no hope.” “It claimed, in short, to have a monopoly of Christianity, and with it a monopoly of all religion. No other was genuine.” These and other like statements are offered in support of the claim that the Christian church was the mother of those organizations which are doing so much at this time to destroy industrial liberty. It is true that the trust system has been set up in religion, and a vast organization thoroughly monopolistic in character has for centuries been known as the Christian church. But the true Christian church is governed by principles exactly the opposite of those upon which the modern monopoly or trust is based. The Christian church does indeed claim to have a monopoly of the true religion, since there can be only one true religion, and the Christian religion is either the one and only means of salvation, or it is a delusion. It is only as a monopoly of the truth which is unto salvation that the Christian religion is able to confer benefits upon mankind. But the basic principle of Christianity is not that of a monopoly at all. The purpose of Christianity is to impart a gift to mankind; the purpose of the trust is not to give to others, but to get from others. The purpose of a monopoly is to enrich itself at the expense of others, employing coercion to this end. Christianity, on the other hand, is rich to start with, but aims not to increase its wealth, but to make others rich by imparting its wealth to them. Jesus Christ, its fountainhead, was rich, but became poor in order that men might receive “unsearchable riches.” To his followers he says, “Freely ye have received, freely give.” They give not what they have received from men, but from heaven, through the channel opened by the sacrifice on the cross. The best gift of heaven was bestowed upon mankind; and through the Christian church men are to be made partakers of this gift. But Christianity has been perverted by some, and organizations have come up which, while professing to minister salvation to men, have sought to enrich themselves at the expense of their adherents. This is the principle of the trust,—the principle of selfishness. They have employed coercion, just as the trust uses coercion to secure a monopoly. The chief organization of this kind is the papacy, which for centuries employed the arm of the civil power to coerce men according to her will. All coercion in religion tends to the formation of a religious trust, and of necessity such trusts are anti-Christian, since coercion has no place in the Christian system, being the opposite of faith, which means freedom of the will.6 An example of the survival of the coercive system in religion is furnished by the present-day Sunday law. All such laws work toward the formation of a monopoly in religion, and that religion will be necessarily anti-Christian. It is to such religious monopolistic systems that atheists point in deriding Christianity, and such systems which give potency to their efforts to discredit the Christian church.