Religious Socialism by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jul 1, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 34, No. 27.

Religious Socialism.

By Editor

A printed article has come to us from the officers of what is called "The Christian Socialist Fellowship" which met in New York the last of May. The organization is only two or three years old, but already they declare that the Protestant churches are rapidly being honeycombed by the Socialist movement. Fully three hundred of the clergy of the country are already openly allied with the movement. Hundreds of others are secretly in sympathy with it. The object of the "Christian Socialist Fellowship" is declared to be "To permeate churches, denominations, and other religious institutions with the social message of Jesus; to show that Socialism is the economic expression of the Christian life; to sound the class struggle by established industrial democracy; and to hasten the reign of justice and brotherhood upon the earth." While it is declared that the movement is not political, yet it is admitted that thru political actions its principles are to become operative.

We note this as a matter of news, yet we would remark that there is no such thing as the "social message of Jesus." The only message which He gave, and still gives, is to the individual heart—the Gospel, which is "the power of God unto salvation." There are social fruits flowing from it; there are many other blessed consequences of the reception of that Gospel which follow as a matter of course, but the prime end of the Gospel is the individual salvation or regeneration of character of the individual.