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Recommended Reading: Christ and Communism by E. Stanley Jones



CHRIST AND COMMUNISM
Author: E. Stanley Jones
1st Edn: 1934; 2nd Edn: 1951
Indian Edition: 1963 by Lucknow Publishing House, Lucknow, India
ISBN 81-87739-05-03

In Stanley's own words this book attempts to expound the Christian answer to Communism; the Christian answer is the Kingdom of God on earth.

Some quotes from the book:
The whole basis of society must be shifted form competition to cooperation.

There are three great issues before India embodied in three persons: Mahatma Gandhi represents the demand for religious equality as he presses the rights of the Untouchables to temple entry; Doctor Ambedkar, the leader of the Untouchables, says he is not interested in this temple entry, his demand is for the doing away with caste--in other words, social equality; Jawahir Lal Nehru, the idol of the youth, represents the demand for economic equality. The first two men are free, the third is in jail, for the demand for economic equality is the most far-reaching and dangerous to the present order.

There were Christian slaveowners who treated their slaves kindly, but this did not touch the basic injustice of their relationships. There are splendid Christians amid this present economic system who do much to soften it, but that very fact often hides the basic injustices.

It may be that God is using the Communists to awaken Christendom to something neglected in its own gospel.

Necessities should be provided for all, before luxuries are provided for any.

I do not want to look with equal eye on the Brahmin and the outcaste, I want to do away with the outcaste.... Religion should not make us indifferent to distinctions, but should do away with the distinctions themselves.

The cross is God's redemptive word spelled out in living fact.

We expect Christianity to outlast atheistic Communism because it has a deeper and a more meaningful universe, and a firmer ground for believing in man.

The world situation awaits a collective Christian act. It is the one thing that can save us.
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