Churches under Fire
Braden, Charles S.
Churches under Fire Communism and the Churches, by Ralph Lord Roy. Harcourt, Brace. 495 pp. $7.50. Reviewed by Charles S. Braden TT'or a long time now various radio commentators and newspaper...
...Such a study has been long overdue, and those who are responsible for initiating and financing this study have placed all America, and particularly the churches, deeply in their debt...
...Or have they taken the word of irresponsible persons who made the charges without giving any dependable evidence to support their claims...
...If religion be the opium of the people, then the Communist attitude could hardly be otherwise...
...In general he admits to finding a few Communists in the churches, some of them in places of influence...
...The discovery of the churches led logically to the strategy of creating "front" organizations, not avowedly Communist, usually bearing high sounding titles calculated to appeal to all those who cherished the ideal of a peaceful world...
...Here is a first class book of reference on the various celebrated cases of suspected Communist infiltration...
...If the charge is indeed true, then obviously something ought to be done about it...
...Reviewed by Charles S. Braden TT'or a long time now various radio commentators and newspaper columnists have been declaring that the churches, especially the Protestant churches, have been infiltrated by the Communists and that the Protestant clergy are being used by Communists as a principal means of achieving their nefarious ends...
...But it gradually began to dawn upon the Communists that through their hostility to religion they were hurting their own cause...
...American as well as Russian Communists thought this...
...In this effort the Communists were most successful, and it is a fact that some clergymen, not knowing that the movements which they were asked to support were in any way connected with Communism, were induced to lend their names as sponsors or sometimes even as active workers on behalf of the causes represented...
...most of them did not become party members or remained within the party a relatively short time...
...He has interviewed literally hundreds of persons, Communists and non-Communists, who have in any way been related to the Communist movement, and the leaders of the church groups that have been involved...
...The author has read practically everything having a bearing on the question...
...With their handicap of severe racial discrimination, might not Negroes be unusually open to Communist propaganda, heavily larded with the claim that in Communism there is no distinction of race or color...
...On discovering that there was Communist control or at least large influence in them, most clergymen withdrew and asked that their names no longer be used on letterheads or in advertisements of the movements...
...But is it true...
...Particularly they discovered that in the winning of the colored people no better approach was possible than through their clergy, to whom Negroes looked more than to any other source for leadership and guidance...
...If Communists did succeed in attracting any considerable number of the clergy of America, it was chiefly among Negroes...
...It would be unfair to present all of Roy's conclusions, which should be read as the outcome of his study...
...In view of the many thousands of ministers, it is remarkable that so small a percentage should even have been accused of membership, much less really belonged to the party...
...Roy reveals that there were a few clergymen who actually became card-carrying party members...
...in most cases, even these men did record sharp criticism of some of the Communist policies and practices...
...On the basis of all this inquiry, stretching over a period of years, Ralph Lord Roy has put together an amazingly complete study of the whole question and has documented whatever he has written...
...Religion is something to be discarded, ultimately destroyed...
...If one wants to know about Bishop Oxnam, or Elmer Guy Shipley, or Howard Melish, or Jack McMichael, or the Methodist Federation for Social Action, or the fight within the Unitarian church or within the Eastern Orthodox churches, or any others where the question had arisen in acute form, here is the place to get a careful marshaling of the facts...
...A few conspicuous individuals consistently refused to talk or communicate with him...
...Everything considered, it is rather amazing that the Communists were not more successful, for here was surely the group in American life most discriminated against and underprivileged...
...But this did not save many of them from extreme embarrassment later, when the fact of their membership or sponsorship got into the files of investigating committees that paid no attention to the dates of membership or of withdrawal...
...Communism of course starts off with an attitude of utter hostility to the churches...
...So began the cultivation of the Negro ministers...
...Roy notes the Scottsboro case as the occasion of the Communists' discovery of the churches as a possible source of aid in their conquest of America...
...There are still several pamphlets in circulation making utterly false statements concerning these affiliations...
...Communism and the Churches is a careful, painstaking attempt to find out the truth on the basis of all the available sources both within and without Communism...
...to conclude from this that the churches have been deeply infiltrated, or that they stand in danger of serious infiltration from Communism will seem quite beyond belief to those who will take the trouble to read this book and carefully assess the evidence Roy presents...
...There were some rather prominent leaders who, though never proven to have been party members, did follow the party line most of the time...
...Have any of the men who have made the charges ever made a careful study of the matter...
Vol. 25 • April 1961 • No. 4
