What are the relations between Christianity and the social order, between the Church and those societies in which men live? Sometimes the Church is blamed because she has not solved effectively the many evils which afflict organised humanity, because she has not stopped war, for instance, or issued a remedy for the unemployment problem. Sometimes, on the contrary, her teaching with regard to current questions is disdained’ as either too medieval or too corrupt to be of use. In any case, the assumption is there; she should have something to say to enlighten a world in darkness. Another factor that has increased the demand for a statement of the implications of Christian principles is the emergence of a new and formidable political and economic force, equipped with a fighting doctrine. Communism, with its practical and apparently successful realization in Soviet Russia, is a challenge not only to the capitalistic societies to which it is formally opposed, but also to the basic ideas which have formed the Christian tradition. Lenin, of course, identified the two and saw in religion nothing but a support and sanction of the dominant regime: for him as for Karl Marx it was simply ‘dope for the people.’ The fact that he was wrong makes it all the more urgent to clarify the issue and make the independence of Christian teaching plain.

This book is a commendable effort in that direction. It has a twofold aim. In the first place it seeks to give a systematic account of the history of the Christian Social Movement in England with some reference to its growth in the United States.