(FREEDOM AND COMMUNITY)[12th April 1987]

[Redbook3:176-180][19870412:2137](FREEDOM AND COMMUNITY)[12th April 1987]

19870412.2137

I have repeatedly* criticised the Church for engaging in political activity – basically, because I feel keenly that the Church is degraded by descending to the level of the Separation in the way it conducts itself (The Separation is a condition, not a place: what matters is not where, but how, the Church operates). This must appear at times to be a negative message, and an unsympathetic one. What do I care for those for whom the Church cares?

'Man is born free, and is everywhere in chains**.' When I worked in the City***, with a part of my brain, I wrote: 'I am as much a slave as any Israelite in Egypt'. So were my fellow workers. We wasted our lives, in the Mediaeval**** as well as the Modern sense of the word. The distinction – the crucial distinction – is not between those who are employed and those who are not – between the higher paid and the lower paid – {but} between those – higher or lower paid, or unemployed – who are slaves in Spirit, and those who are Free. I am freer now, without doubt, than I was then; though not yet wholly free. Necessarily or not, I came through great struggles to reach this state of freedom: 'With a great price bought I this freedom'#. I am careful of it: careful enough, I hope.

I wish for a World Community in which the material aspects of the struggle for freedom would not even seem to be necessary: when all Men could truly say: 'But I was born free'. So in the end, I do believe in a kind of Commun-ism [sic], right[-]winger though I may seem to be#*: it is a Commun-ism [sic] based on real communities, founded on Love and Harmony. In other words, it is a transformation from the inside, not from the outside, of the mind; and freely chosen, not imposed through the 'political re-education' of#** the shallow activists. Politics has no place in this vision. If, as a result, it never comes about, then that is our loss, and we deserve it.#***

*[[Redbook2:38][19740531:2011]{Christian Terrorism} [31^st May 1974]

[Redbook2:312-313][19831025:2115]{Political and Church Circles}[25^th October 1983]

[Redbook3:73-75][19870329:1210w](Church Material)[29^th March 1987]

[Redbook3:76][19870330:0950b]{Political Error}[30^th March 1987]

[Redbook3:77-79][19870330:0950c]{Racial Separation}[30^th March 1987]

[Redbook3:106-111][19870404:1821](THE CHURCH AND POLITICS {1})[4th April 1987]

[Redbook3:146][19870408:1218e](THE CHURCH AND POLITICS{2})[8th April 1987]]

**(or 'jeans', as a nice modern variant has it) <930418>

["Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they are." Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 'The Social Contract' (1762).]

***[of London – London's financial district – in a lowly capacity. <20160222>]

****{(& legal)}

#Acts 22:28 [“And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born.” (KJB/AV).]

#*(So are many Communists.)

#**[= “by”, presumably]

#***So far as material conditions are concerned, the proper point is neither destitute nor affluent, but sufficient for each individual, for his life in the Spirit. The creation of wealth is subject to the law of diminishing returns: from essential positive returns, diminishing through zero to negative effects. <901001>

[continues]

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