Argument Against Abolishing Christianity by Jonathan Swift

First published:An Argument to Prove That the Abolishing of Christianity in England May, as Things Now Stand, Be Attended with Some Inconveniences, and Perhaps Not Produce Those Many Good Effects Proposed Thereby, 1708

Edition used:Jonathan Swift, edited by Angus Ross and David Woolley. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984

Genre: Nonfiction

Subgenre: Didactic treatise

Core issues: Church; Protestants and Protestantism

Overview

The Argument Against Abolishing Christianity by the Irish clergyman and satirist Jonathan Swift presents itself as a case for maintaining Christianity as the official religion of England. The author undertakes this task hesitantly, acknowledging that he is going against popular opinion and the wisdom of the age. Early in the work, however, he makes it clear that he is defending only nominal Christianity; to try to restore real Christianity would be a “wild project” that would destroy wit and learning, ruin trade, and disrupt the entire frame of society.

Having thus limited the scope of his argument, the author describes and dismisses eight proposed advantages of abolishing Christianity. First, it would considerably “enlarge and establish liberty of conscience.” His reply is that nominal Christianity is useful as a subject of mockery for “great wits” who would otherwise target an important institution such as the government. A second supposed advantage is that freethinkers would no longer be required to believe things they find difficult. The response is that the English can already believe and publish whatever they please without endangering their careers or being prosecuted for blasphemy.

The third and fourth points are more pragmatic. Abolishing Christianity would free up the funds devoted to supporting ten thousand parsons plus the bishops; it would also gain another usable day in the week. The rebuttals are equally pragmatic. The income of the clergy would support only one hundred or two hundred fashionable young gentlemen, and the country needs the clergy as “restorers of our breed” rather than the sickly offspring of dissipated gentlemen. As for Sunday, its observance is no “hindrance to business or pleasure,” and churches are fine places to meet for business or gallantry or to sleep.

The author finds the fifth advantage attractive: Abolishing Christianity would eliminate the party differences “of High and Low Church, of Whig and Tory, Presbyterian and Church of England,” which interfere with the functioning of government. The author argues, however, that the party spirit is so deeply engrained in human hearts that people would soon find other labels to maintain divisions in society.

The sixth advantage is that abolishing Christianity would get rid of the practice of hiring men to “bawl” on Sundays against the practices by which others pursue recognition, wealth, and pleasure the rest of the week. The author replies that prohibiting something simply gives it a greater relish. A seventh and greater advantage of “discard[ing] the system of the Gospel” would be the disappearance of religion and all its “prejudices of education” such as virtue, conscience, and honor. The author responds that the current methods of education seem to leave young gentlemen with little trace of such notions anyway and that it may be useful to keep the lower orders of society in some fear of a higher power; religion also gives the common people material for scaring their children or amusing them on a long winter night.

The last advantage is that abolishing Christianity would unite Protestants because Dissenters would be able to participate in all spheres of church and state. The author answers that the spirit of opposition will always motivate some to differentiate themselves “from the reasonable part of mankind.” Every nation has its allotted “portion of enthusiasm,” and it is best to give this an outlet through religion rather than in disturbances of civil society. If Christianity were to disappear, the government would have to find some other diversion for such people.

The author concludes his “proof” by pointing out a few “inconveniences” of repealing the Gospel. If the unfashionable and impoverished parsons were to disappear, wits would need some other target of mockery. Similarly, freethinkers would lack religion as the ideal topic for flaunting their mental abilities. Abolishing Christianity might put the Church in danger and force Parliament to find another supporting vote. Lastly, abolishing Christianity would lead to the introduction of “popery,” for Jesuits have been known to disguise themselves as Dissenters and even freethinkers, and people will seek some method of worship.

Allowing that his arguments may not have convinced those intent on repeal, the author concludes by humbly recommending that the bill substitute the word “religion” for the word “Christianity.”

For, as long as we leave in being a God and his Providence, with all the necessary consequences which curious and inquisitive men will be apt to draw from such premises, we do not strike at the root of the evil though we should ever so effectually annihilate the present scheme of the Gospel.

The real goal of the abolishers being freedom of action, not just freedom of thought, religion in any form must be eradicated.

Even so, the author suggests that the repeal be postponed until a time of peace, for the allies are all Christians and a potential alliance with the Turks would be unlikely, because they are strictly religious and “what is worse, believe a God; which is more than is required of us even while we preserve the name of Christians.” Finally, the “extirpation of the Gospel” might cause stocks to fall 1 percent, much more than the age would spend to preserve Christianity.

Christian Themes

What should a reader make of this “proof,” with its shallow, silly, and shocking arguments? Why would Swift defend nominal Christianity? Have Christianity and the Church of England been defended? One way of approaching an answer is to consider the historical context. In 1708, when the Argument Against Abolishing Christianity was written, Swift was in England representing the interests of the Irish (Anglican) Church. At this time the Whig government was considering relaxation of the Test Act, a 1673 law requiring all persons holding office to receive the Eucharist according to the rites of the Church of England. The act effectively barred Catholics and Dissenters from the government and the universities. Swift, a strong supporter of the state church, opposed the Whig position and wrote several treatises defending the established church. Some of these are straightforward; the Argument Against Abolishing Christianity is not, though it was published with the other treatises.

The work can be seen either as a cynical or purely pragmatic defense of even a nominally Christian established church (positions held by some modern scholars) or as an ironic exposure of the weakness of nominal Christianity and the real motives of the Dissenters and freethinkers eager to weaken the position of the state church. Readers later in Swift’s century tended to see it in this latter way. Some saw it as laughing readers into religion, and Samuel Johnson, a conservative churchman and Tory himself, called it “a very happy and judicious irony.” In other works Swift identifies the Church of England with apostolic Christianity. Also, in the Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, he names prominent freethinkers and refers to “Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Independents, and Quakers.” Therefore it seems reasonable to believe that for him any attack on the established church was an attack on Christianity, whether the offenders were Dissenters or freethinkers.

Yet the irony and satire of the Argument Against Abolishing Christianity make it a problematic text that literary scholars have interpreted in various ways. Some see its “author” as one of Swift’s masks, like Gulliver or the narrator of A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People of Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or the Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public (1729), and the satiric target as the kind of person who would think nominal Christianity worth defending. Other scholars reject the idea of a consistent mask but argue that Swift was demonstrating the kinds of reasoning one would use to defend the state church from such a person. What seems clear is that Swift was more concerned with exposing a false Christianity than edifying those who held to “real” Christianity.

Sources for Further Study

Fox, Christopher. The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2003. A collection of essays providing overviews of many topics related to the author, including religion.

Hoppit, Julian. A Land of Liberty? England 1689-1727. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. The chapter “Faith and Fervour” surveys the social, political, and theological conditions of the church in this era.

Phiddian, Robert. Swift’s Parody. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Discusses the Argument Against Abolishing Christianity as an instance of “open” and hence “anarchic” parody that eludes definitive interpretation.

Robertson, Mary F. “Swift’s Argument: The Fact and the Fiction of Fighting with Beasts.” Modern Philology 74 (1976): 124-141. Considers the Argument Against Abolishing Christianity in the light of Swift’s sermons and political/ecclesiastical pamphlets and offers a sophisticated reading of the work.

Rosenheim, Edward W., Jr. Swift and the Satirist’s Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. This provocative discussion of Swift’s masks sees the nominal Christian “author” as the satiric victim.