Book Review: Duff and David
“The Christian Ethic” is the slogan now blared from ugly little godboxes to venerable fanes of this Precious Island; hot gospellers join hands with Soviet-loving Deans; ecclesiastics clinging tenaciously to a Good Job in inverse ratio to their hold on the “tenets” of their faith join lustily in the racket; the Church dubbed by their fellow Christians as the “Scarlet Woman” pitches the loud speaker to its own peculiar note, assured that it alone is sole arbiter of what constitutes “Christian Ethic.” This by way of introduction to Duff Cooper’s book, “David,” which is just, a clumsy revelation of the mentality of Duff Cooper and his set.
Look up this rather mythical biblical character’s record; it is no better, and not much worse, than Carlyle’s favourite “heroes,” or of the “heroes” ef our own time. There will yet be a haloed Stalin in the Christian Calendar. Holy Writ roundly declares David to have been a “man after God’s own heart”; he was accorded the privilege of ancestoring the Messiah himself. Duff Cooper is hard put to it to justify the ways of God to Man through his enthusiastic write-up of a lecherous, treacherous guerilla chief; he even has to blacken the character of Uriah, with no warrant whatever from the Book of Kings, to make some excuse for the dirtiest action of his hero. David, while “on the run,” had the chance to slay his enemy Saul while asleep. Duff Cooper’s treatment of this episode is revealing.
“His statesmanship told him that that was not the way to win a throne. . . . David, believing himself to be the anointed of the Lord, would not raise his hand against the only other man who had been so anointed. … It was a great act of statesmanship, and a great act of faith.”
Our author gapes in wonder and admiration at David’s exhibition of “patience and prudence”; a genuine Blood-Tears-and-Sweater of the olden time.
“The future could not have been darker for David, yet even so, he was prepared to leave it to the Lord in whom he trusted.” In the name of Faith, St. Augustine, substantially the codifier of “Christian Ethic,” sanctified brutal Intolerance, quoting Christ for his authority; in the name of Faith Christians tortured and burned each other; in the name of Faith chattel slavery was strenuously defended, elementary rights to women denied. None of the horrors resulting from Capitalism in its worst Moloch period but found its apologists among bishops and hired Christian “economists.”
It seems incredible that anyone can be found to throw away half-a-guinea on this outrageous castration of vigorous Authorised Version English, eked out with fluffy “corroborative detail” in the familiar B.B.C. juvenile religious broadcasts, and comments in the flabby style and unctuous spirit so mercilessly flayed by the unfortunately little known “The Four Gospels ” of Tolstoy.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain is fairly and squarely opposed to “Religion,” whatever guise it may assume. It respects the sincere Christian reformer, but deplores his fundamental errors based on superstition. It is under no delusion that a Secularist political regime would ensure Socialism. Germany, and more especially Russia, are sufficient warning that skilful training with emotional appeal on non-religious lines can produce a youth fanatically attached to the equivalent of “Altar and Throne.” But the Secularists of Britain seem hardly alive to the serious recrudescence of the worst sides of Spiritism, the subtle danger of “agreed syllabuses,” and the rest of the present religious racket.
REGINALD