The upper level class is reading Animal Farm by George Orwell this year. It’s a biting critique of communism and illustrates well what the communistic ideal fails to take into account, namely, the selfishness of our nature. Interestingly, C. F. W. Walther, the first president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, gave a series of lectures against communism and socialism. Labor unions were becoming popular in St. Louis in his day, a newspaper claiming to uphold the rights of the laborer was gaining readership in the city, and he saw the agenda behind it all: the goal of promoting communistic ideals. The labor unions of the time were nothing more than catechism classes in communism, and the newspaper that was supposedly for the good of the worker was openly atheistic. The paper claimed, “It shall be our chief concern to show, that man, with his claims on material prosperity, need not be directed to another world, that he can and should find such prosperity here on earth.”
Walther begins his incisive critique of communism with these three points:
1. It is a fact that men are not equal
2. It is a fact that men are naturally selfish
3. It is a fact that happiness does not consist in external advantages
Concerning the first point, Walther writes, “Communism paints a picture of a fool’s paradise and thinks, if only all property becomes common property, then all will have equal claims upon it, and this will become a glorious world. But it is altogether overlooked that many thing would be involved which would make this impossible. The communists would have all possessions equally divided. But if all have been made equal today by such division, how will it be tomorrow? One locks up his money in a drawer, another spends his for drink in a tavern and still another runs through his money at even worse places. By tomorrow the equality is again destroyed.”
Concerning the second point, “Man’s heart is naturally full of envy, ambition and avarice. These are all wild beasts which abide in the natural man, and which the communist will never be able to control with his new social arrangements” (a point illustrated very well in Animal Farm).
Concerning the third point, “Even the communist must acknowledge that outward equality would not by any means make all men happy, because the wants of the human heart are not alike. One person is happy only in this particular position; another only in that position. He who has not yet learned these imaginary wants, who has his cup of coffee, bread and butter for breakfast; a common dinner in the presence of a faithful wife and obedient children; potato soup for his supper, and holds his family worship, does not only think himself happier than a king,—he is in reality a thousand times happier. Happiness does not dwell in palaces, it dwells in the heart….The Word of God alone can make us happy.”
Walther speaks with good, clear common sense, and he has much more to say. He spoke against communism in a series of four lectures, and the quotes here are only excerpts from the first. If you’d like to read more, you can get to the lectures at this link. May the Lord preserve us from a false view of this world and of our own nature, that, contrary to the newspaper, we always be “directed to another world” where alone true paradise and true hope rests, as St. Paul writes, “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20).
In Christ,
Pastor Richard
