relation of Christianity—to the state is a crucial issue brought into
164 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER FAITHS
7. The relation of religion—and in this discussion we mean the relation of Christianity—to the state is a crucial issue brought into sharp focus by a recent book, How to Serve God in a Marxist Land. Does Jesus' teaching about God and Caesar mean that the Christian in Russia or Communist China must serve two masters? Does the Pauline injunction about being subject to the governing authorities instituted by God apply under a Communist dictatorship? Is Communist government an order founded by God to which the Christian citizen owes allegiance? These are questions that mean different things to different people, and are answered in divergent ways, in Eastern and Western Europe, in India and China, in North America and in Africa. A neutral attitude does not appear possible in a Communist-dominated country, where certain accommodations must be made. In countries influenced by Communism, neutralism may result in the surrender of vital freedoms. Yet to some people freedom from hunger is more important than freedom from political autocracy.
The Bible was written on the background of Hebrew theocracy and ancient empires. It teaches no one pattern of government or economy, although we find in the last book of the New Testament an intense opposition to the despotism and injustices of the later Roman Empire. The prophetic message of the Scriptures seems to be fulfilled, as far as human civilization is concerned, in democratic rather than dictatorial rule. But the whole question of religious liberty is exceedingly difficult and complex. Christians need to approach it thoughtfully, earnestly, and with sensitive consciences, prepared to struggle and to sacrifice for basic human, God-given rights which people everywhere-should enjoy. At the same time the Christian, when pressures are imposed or crucial tests come, must witness boldly to his supreme loyalty, and be ready always to say,
"We must obey God rather than man," or the government of man.
8. Christianity and Communism meet also as organized communities of faith. The Christian Church, with nearly two milJenniums of history, encounters a party, an army, a system, a world-wide organization, that is less than a hundred years old, yet overwhelmingly strong and fierce. Roman Catholicism is more similar to Communism in its centralized controls and totalitarian pattern than is Protestantism, but the Reformed churches, while freer from ecclesiastical rigidity and the shackles of tradition, are woe-_ fully disunited in the face of Communist power.