Christian Maoists

(A post I first wrote some years ago.)

It should give us all pause for thought that the only Christian group in the world that is increasing its numbers is … the Christians.  I mean the sort of Christians who call themselves Christians, as much as to imply that Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists and Mennonites are something else.  It’s a neater semantic trick than any other sect has yet pulled off – to stake the claim that one’s own group are the only true believers and the rest don’t count, without even going to the trouble of an argument.  To locate them precisely in the wider tradition one would have to call them evangelical Protestants, but I prefer the term Christian Maoists.  To explain why, let me give an example of their theology.

When my son was baptised, our gift from the amiable Anglican vicar was a book published by the Bible Society called Level 27: 27 Personal Messages from the Creator of the Universe to You.  It turned out to be an edition of the New Testament, presented as a computer-game manual – complete with echoes of ‘Congratulations, Mr X, you have been specially selected to receive a free gift …’.  But that was just the packaging.  Here is the first statement it contained about God: ‘GOD is the big boss’.  And, two pages later: ‘THE CHOICE IS… [in a white box] Accept Jesus, allow him to pay your penalty, follow him as the boss and end up in heaven with him.  OR … [in a black box] Reject Jesus, pay your own penalty, follow the ways of the world and end up in hell all alone.’

Here, in a nutshell, we see the winning combination of Christian Maoism.  The flattery and the threat; the fashionable marketing ploy and the eternal appeal of naked power; the amnesiac and the atavistic, all in one package.  Just so did Chairman Mao impose a veneer of modernity on an age-old tyranny.  Just so did he create a personality cult, the cult of the loving but stern father, to appeal to fear and altruism without apparent contradiction.   In the case of Maoists and Christians alike, what cannot be accommodated is history: the individual’s membership of a rooted human community, the practical wisdom of centuries, the detachment of institutions, an ancient and beautiful culture – all the things that can transform a power structure into something predominantly humane.  Christian Maoists, like their communist counterparts, glory in sweeping all that away.  What really matters about God is his absolute power, one on one: he’s the big boss.  Do you accept it or not?  Are you saved or damned?

Thanks to the Maoists’ takeover of the Christian brand-name, it is this version of Christianity that the rest of the world sees as representative; while other denominations, particularly the Anglicans with their long-standing acceptance of different points of view, fail to notice that they are being edged aside by an exclusive sect.  Some are sincerely attracted by the Maoists’ fervent belief; all are intimidated by it, because it confers an aura of superior ideological purity.  Surely a firm belief in the risen Jesus and the Bible is what Christianity is all about?  Fearing to be seen to have capitulated to the godless modern world, traditional churches hurry to adopt the rhetoric of evangelicalism.  As a result, many people who used to be ‘ordinary churchgoers’, the phlegmatic, the sceptical, those who were a bit embarrassed by religion but knew that there had to be ‘something more’ to life, no longer feel welcome.  They are replaced by people who like to be more ‘committed’, which usually means spending much of their spare time huddled together with other Christians, talking about religion.  Alpha courses.  Study groups.  Reading the Bible, isolated from its historical and literary context, as one might read tea-leaves, to find out ‘what it means for me’.  Little political cells, checking up on each other’s soundness, frantically warming that spark of assurance that Jesus loves me, that I’m saved, that God isn’t going to get out the big stick today.   

Evangelicals like to imply that the established churches have given way to modern secular values, while they themselves stand bravely against the trend of the times.  The irony is that the truth is almost the opposite.  It is the Maoists who have adapted themselves to the values of the majority, true to Chairman Mao’s dictum that the revolutionary must move among the people like a fish in water.  The problem for the established churches has never been that their doctrines were too absurd for belief.  The majority of humans still find it easy to believe in six impossible things before breakfast, from UFOs to homeopathy.  Nor has it been that their doctrines were harsh and cruel.  Why do we read the tabloid press if not because we like to see the wicked punished good and proper, as long as their vices are not those we are tempted by ourselves?  No, it was when the established churches attempted to adopt Enlightenment values like rationality and tolerance, and to banish the lumpen human tendencies to unreason and cruelty, that their slow decline began.  Christian Maoists succeed in winning converts by the thousand, simply by allowing these impulses back.

Unreason and cruelty may be timeless, but Christian Maoism is just as much at home with distinctively modern phenomena like consumerism.  In fact, evangelicalism has become the religious wing of consumerism even more than its predecessor, Calvinism, was the religion of manufacture and commerce.  As a dissolver of old allegiances and traditions, consumerism outdoes state terror by a considerable margin, in a way that Mao himself could only have envied.  Its tendency is to make everything disposable, starting with household goods and proceeding through works of art to belief systems and human relationships.  Thus, it creates an endless craving for what one has not, and, all being well, results in endless market growth.  But the by-products – shallow, lonely, discontented individuals – are the ideal recruiting pool for Christian Maoist activists offering the supernatural dictatorship of God as both punishment and cure.  Maoists gloat over the spiritual casualty list of modern life, as a First World War chaplain might have boasted that there are no atheists in foxholes.  What they don’t admit is that they are merely offering more of the same thing.  Christian Maoism just raises the consumerist thirst for power, status and security to a supernatural level.  It barely scratches the surface of emotional commitment, thought, or the sense of beauty: that would be too much of a challenge, and might even quench the insatiable addict’s craving on which the Maoists’ influence depends.

This explains Evangelicals’ dislike for worshipping in medieval churches, and their preference for carpets and TV screens; their dislike for the ritual of religion, and preference for the ritual of the political rally or the TV talk show; their dislike for Tudor anthems and Victorian hymns, and their preference for amplified rock, accompanied by congregational movements which recall the sad swaying of autistic children and by sounds which resemble badly faked orgasms.  An evangelical clergyman may claim that he favours his style of worship because it is ‘relevant’ or ‘inclusive’, but deep down he favours it because it is superficial, ugly, and demands little effort – although it may be quite expensive.  Expensive is OK.  Let his congregation earn lots of money selling people holidays and health insurance, and then use it to buy a quality sound system and some CDs.  Much better than taking time off for choir practice.  To spend all that time and trouble on mere musical performance would be the next thing to idolatry.  And so uncool too. 

It is perfectly possible for a young person to ‘become a Christian’, allegedly the challenge of a lifetime, without their consumer lifestyle being disturbed in the least.  The study group replaces the exclusive clique of teen peers, Jesus and his charismatic preacher surrogate replace the favourite pop star or style guru, the frisson of eternal damnation replaces the seductive danger of drug-taking or unsuitable sex.  The anomie, the fragmented individualism, the insistent refrain of ‘me, me, me’, remain unchanged.  Christian Maoism does not require contemplation, quietness, reverence, or the admission that one’s self, one’s status as ‘saved’ or ‘damned’, is less important than the divine harmony.  No wonder it’s so popular.

If Christian Maoism does take over completely, historical precedent suggests that the outlook is not quite hopeless.  Once before, under the late Roman empire, Christianity, with all its dumbing-down and punitive tendencies, succeeded in destroying an intellectual and moral tradition, that of Stoic philosophy, which was the best the western world had yet come up with.  It took nearly a thousand years for Christians to dare to bring their moral reasoning back up to the Stoics’ level.  But they brought it there and further, and succeeded in turning this moral framework into social reality to an extent unsurpassed in world history.  And now it is that achievement that the Christian Maoists are trying to destroy.  If ever they want to build it up again, the tools will still be there – but it could be a long job.