Jeremy Morris, the politics of Maurice ‘was never anything other than a direct application of his ecclesiological convictions […] his Christian Socialism was simply another presentation of his thinking on the church’.13 The church, argued Maurice, declared the ‘unity of God’, which was the basis for ‘all unity among men’. It was the church, he wrote, which represented ‘Universal fellowship’ and unity ‘for all kindreds and races’, as well as being ‘the divine means of declaring to all men their relationship to God; and of transmitting its blessings to succeeding generations’.14 It was this emphasis that explains Maurice’s reluctance to support reform movements, trade unions, political parties, or even the co-operative ventures to which he did, at length, give his approval: the church was already, as Morris terms it, ‘a universal, spiritual society for all human beings’, and none other was needed.15 The task at hand, thought Maurice, was to draw attention to the church as the basis for a co-operative society, not to create a new basis. In Maurice’s view, society was made up of three spheres: church, nation and family. Unlike other theories of this type – for example, the sphere sovereignty of Abraham Kuyper – which posited autonomous, non-overlapping spheres, Maurice’s spheres were in hierarchical relationship to one another: church at the top, then nation, and then family. Furthermore, Maurice at times seems to suggest that the church encompassed all – a complete overlap between universal church and universal society.16 As such, the church was the basis for all societal co-operation.
Though significant, Maurice’s ecclesiological arguments were not as durable as his theology of the incarnation, which would be a key emphasis in the work of the next generation of, especially high-church Anglican, Christian Socialists.17 Maurice ‘sees the union between Godhead and humanity as the central message of Christian Scripture’, for it ‘reveals the unity of God with humanity’.18 This is not an exclusive unity, but underlines the presence of Christ in all human lives – hence, the universality of the church and its message of unity and co-operation. It demonstrates that all human beings are linked together in a common brotherhood, as a common family, and therefore that a society based on economic competition and rivalry is unnatural and inhumane.19 In place of such a competitive society, Maurice called for a co-operative society based on ‘fellowship’ or ‘communion’.20 Nowhere are these ideas represented more clearly than in the Eucharist, which represented for Maurice the incarnate Christ as well as the communion – the fellowship – of all people, both with each other and with God.21 Thus incarnational theology was linked to the core Christian Socialist concept of brotherhood, as well as to co-operation.
Maurician co-operation, though based on the fraternal fellowship of all people, was not egalitarian. Indeed, it is noticeable that Maurice employed the phrase ‘Liberty, Fraternity, Unity’ in place of the more familiar conceptual trio, with unity replacing equality.22 Nevertheless, Maurice wanted all to take their place in a society based on the fraternal, co-operative values of God’s kingdom. For Maurice – and for Kingsley – socialism was the expression of a kingdom of God, which already existed if men would but realise it. This, however, meant that socialism must be kept from party politics, unions, strikes and revolutions, all of which mitigated against this reality.23 ‘Every successful strike tends to give the workmen a very undue and dangerous sense of their own power, and a very alarming contempt for their employer,’ Maurice declared, while unsuccessful strikes led, he claimed, to even more radicalism.24 ‘Organizations, political parties, trade unions, strikes – these implied a denial of “the Divine Order”,’ explains John Cort. ‘It was all rather pathetic. The message, in effect, was: “Politics are not for the people – at least not yet”.’25
Cort gives rather a more charitable assessment of Ludlow, whom he regards as the true founder of British Christian Socialism. Ludlow had spent time in France, was influenced by ethical socialists such as Henri Saint-Simon (see Chapter 3) and Charles Fourier, and was supportive of the co-operative initiatives he observed in Paris. He went far further than Maurice or Kingsley in arguing for state ownership and worker management of key industries.26 Maurice certainly emphasised the significance of co-operation. In his Christian Socialist Tract he declared that the ‘principle of co-operation’ is the core principle of socialism and that all who prefer it to competition are socialists; co-operation would allow the working class to assert their share of ownership in society, a share denied to them by the capitalist system.27 Maurice, however, needed his arm twisting before he would commit to putting his principle into practice – perhaps he feared attempts to create rather than simply recognise co-operation – and it was Ludlow who was the driving force behind the associations for tailors, shoemakers, builders, bakers, needlewomen, and other professions, all of which were affiliated to a new Society for the Promotion of Workingmen’s Associations, which was responsible for providing guidance and raising funds where necessary.28 Yet Maurice’s unwillingness to countenance union activity and strikes prevented this developing co-operative movement from forming links with the trade unions; the movement faltered and finally failed in 1855, the progress of Christian Socialism itself coming to a simultaneous halt. Its supporters reflected that things might have been different had Ludlow rather than Maurice been the leading figure.29
Maurice’s achievements should not be denigrated – he founded the Working Men’s College, also known as The Camden College, which still exists today, and was a champion of adult education in a similar manner to R.H. Tawney in the early twentieth century – but these were the achievements of a Christian reformer rather than a Christian Socialist. Maurice protested that his view of co-operation as a present reality, embodied by the church, which needed to be recognised in society rather than of co-operation as a future objective which needed to be created did not mean he was less of a socialist than Owen or Fourier – yet insofar as it kept him from actually trying to establish co-operation, this is exactly what it did mean.30 Ludlow was regretful that he deferred to Maurice’s cautious approach and continued political activism for many years, serving as a member of the executive committee of the London Christian Social Union from 1891–1903. Henry Scott Holland described how Ludlow ‘retained to the last his democratic faith in the people, his passionate pity for the poor and downtrodden, his fiery cry for righteousness’.31 Maurice, however – always more a theologian than a political or economic theorist – did provide for the next generation of Christian Socialists a theology of God as universal Father and the consequent brotherhood of all people, which would be the lasting foundation of Christian Left thought.
Church socialism
It was Stewart Headlam more than anybody else in the next generation of Christian Socialists who acknowledged his debt to Maurice. In his estimation Maurice and the others revealed ‘the theological basis of Socialism, by showing how essentially Christian it was […] They brought into the world of thought all the suggestion which is contained in that most pregnant phrase, “Christian Socialism”.’32 It was not, argued Headlam, that Maurice was responsible for a new form of socialism, but rather that he demonstrated that socialism was inherently Christian regardless of whether socialists recognised the fact. Given Maurice’s intention to battle against the ‘unchristian Socialists’, Headlam may here be overstating his case; he certainly overstates it in the assertion that Maurice wanted to go further than any ‘mere co-operative store or association of workmen’.33 Nevertheless Headlam viewed his own Guild of St Matthew (GSM) as continuing the work of Christian Socialism. As noted above, the basis of the GSM was more thoroughly socialist than Maurice, or indeed than any organisation that came before in British politics. It was not therefore when it came to practical politics or socialist theory that Headlam was indebted to Maurice, but rather in theology. Headlam’s socialism was based on the foundation laid by Maurice – as Headlam phrased it, ‘the fact of the Fatherhood of God, implying as it does the Brotherhood of men […] as children of one God we are all united in one common Brotherhood’.34
Headlam was an eclectic mix of opinions and preferences – yet somehow he shaped
