‘Start Young’ Argues Socialist Panel in Fight for ‘Political and Democratic Power’

A recent panel sponsored by Vanderbilt University Divinity School’s Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice and the Institute for Christian Socialism considered how Christian socialists ought to be involved in the fight for economic and political democracies.

Jessica Gordon Nembhard, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, spoke toward the end of the panel regarding the importance of training young people in a socialist ethic from an early age, even to the point of leveraging churches to that end.

“We really have to start young,” she insisted. “We have to start with the youngest; we have to start changing the way our young people see, think, and do things, and what they see us doing and thinking. So I’ve been talking about changing kindergarten and if we’re talking in a religious context, change Sunday school… They’re going to be the leaders one day, and if they don’t know how to think or how to do these things, then we have no hope.”

Entitled “Engaging Christianities and Socialism: What Is To Be Done?”, the panel was hosted by Aaron Stauffer, a postdoctoral fellow working with the Wendland-Cook program. It also featured Andrew Wilkes, a pastor of The Double Love Experience in Brooklyn, Micah Uetricht, the deputy editor of Jacobin magazine, and Ed Whitfield, a social critic and community activist.

Stauffer began by laying out the chief concern for Christian socialists, that “working people are placed once again at the mercy of a capitalist system that prizes profit and shareholders over working people’s lives and our planet.” While criticism of this state of affairs took many forms over the course of the panel, it was clear that for each of the panelists this issue was personal and meaningful. Wilkes especially poignantly discussed having to conduct a funeral for one of his parishioners who died after being unable to receive potentially life-saving health care due to his insurance lacking coverage.

One recurrent theme in the panel was capitalism’s use of people as a tool for the powerful. Whitfield summarized this critique of capitalism, arguing that the existing status quo system elevates profit to the point of being sacred. He said, “Unless you are coming from an anti-capitalist position… you are in fact objectively elevating as sacred the accumulation of profit for the purpose of advancing the vanity, the power, the privilege, and the prestige of a tiny group of people.”

But along a similar line of thought, one might reasonably wonder, based on the panelists’ comments and radical action proposals, whether Christianity amounts merely to a tool for political purposes. Christianity seemed often to be viewed as either a moral backdrop for political action or a strategic place of social cohesion and organization. Uetricht acknowledged the value specifically of a form of Christianity that appeals to the socially left-leaning, noting, “People are hungry for that kind of political morality… because contemporary liberalism hasn’t taken that moral project seriously.” Wilkes spoke about how “thoughts and prayers, when radicalized, could be viewed not as the enemy… but as the fuel for contentious action.” 

In general, the panelists spoke more about how socialist aims might impact the practice of Christianity than about any changes affected in the opposite direction. For example, Wilkes argued for changing certain rhetoric to create a wider door for a broad range of anti-capitalist sympathizers. He advocated a strategic push toward more “spirit talk,” because “That’s an easier on-ramp for folks than Jesus talk in some settings. Spirit talk can be more multi-faith, more of an on-ramp for folks who have ethical frameworks and don’t necessarily go to church.”

The panel sought in various ways to answer the question “What is to be done?” However, rather than placing Christianity and socialism in a true side-by-side cooperation with each other in order to further the goals of both, their responses usually pressed Christianity into the service of socialism. At least at times, the thread of why Christianity and socialism are interrelated was lost. This approach displayed an underlying notion about the nature of Christianity that was stated early on by Stauffer (and never challenged by the other panelists): “Christianity is about power – economic, political, and democratic power.”