The Idea of a Christian Society by T. S. Eliot

First published: 1939

Edition(s) used:Christianity and Culture: “The Idea of a Christian Society” and “Notes Towards the Definition of Culture.” San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1976

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): Critical analysis; didactic treatise; essays

Core issue(s): Capitalism; ethics; morality

Overview

In 1928, T. S. Eliot defined himself as “Classical in literature, royalist in politics, anglo-catholic in religion.” After his conversion to Anglicanism in 1927, the satirical poet of The Waste Land (1922) became the devotional poet of Four Quartets (1943). Likewise, Eliot’s social criticism was boldly guided by his faith, addressing the problems of an increasingly secular Western culture.

Eliot wrote The Idea of a Christian Society in the pre-World War II political climate of Europe in the 1930’s, under the shadow of fascism and communism. Facing the very real threat of domination by a totalitarian, pagan regime, Eliot argued that democratic societies in the West were now “neutral,” that is, not running on any positive principles but merely the principle of “Liberalism,” which tolerates all ideas and has no “positive” culture of its own. In fact, liberalism produces a “negative” culture, moving away from anything definite in its inclusiveness. However, a society that is neutral or negative will not remain so. It may dissolve further and further into chaos, but more likely, it will reform into a positive pagan culture. If the idea of a thoroughly secularized culture is unappealing, the only alternative left is the formation of a positive Christian Society.

This Christian Society would be composed of three elements: a “Christian State,” a “Christian Community,” and a “Community of Christians.” The Christian State would govern legislation and public administration. All the citizens of the Christian State would constitute the Christian Community, those who are mostly unconsciously living according to the norms of Christian behavior. Within the larger Christian Community there would exist a small group of people who are consciously practicing Christians, the Community of Christians, those with exceptional spiritual and intellectual gifts.

Eliot stresses that for the majority of citizens in a Christian Society, religion would be “a matter of behaviour and habit.” Thus, Christian principles would guide and direct the lives of all citizens, regardless of their personal faith, and a small group of citizens, because of their personal faith: “It would be a society in which the natural end of man—virtue and well-being in community—is acknowledged for all, and the supernatural end of man—beatitude—for those who have eyes to see it.” Thus, a Christian State would not necessarily be led by the most saintly citizens, or even necessarily by Christian statesmen, but it would confine statesmen to acting in accord with the Christian principles of the people whom they govern. Likewise, education in a Christian Society would be guided by a Christian philosophy of life, in contrast to the education provided in a negative liberal society, in which there is no common agreement on curricular content. It is only in the context of a coherent positive culture that literature and the arts can flourish, as well. Because religion in a Christian Society would not be separate from culture, the Church would have a relation to politics, education, and the arts. The Church in a Christian Society would act as a moral guide, speaking as the absolute authority for society in matters of dogma and faith and morals. In other matters the Church would speak through its individual members. Inevitably, at times the Church would need reform, but this reform should come not through the State but through the Christians within the Church. While Eliot allows that an Established Church might not be the best form for all countries, he argues that there should be a national faith to which the State would give official recognition and which would be in direct contact with the State. The Church can and should be in conflict with the State at times, rebuking its policies. In fact, it is this very tension between Church and State that is the unique characteristic of a Christian Society; never should temporal and spiritual power be conflated, but rather, there would always remain within the citizen a dual allegiance to Church and State.

Furthermore, a Christian State could never be a utopia; it would be a society not of saints, but of ordinary people, for the Kingdom of Christ is not attainable on earth, and there is no specific type of government that could bring this about. The particular form of government that a Christian State would have should be relative to the time and place in which a people live. Eliot stresses that the best form of government for a Christian Society is not necessarily a democracy. In fact, democracy in the West, ordered around the principle of private profit, has led to materialism and unregulated industrialism. With only the values of a “mechanised, commercialised, urbanised way of life” to guide them, humanity has become deformed, alienated from nature and God: “It may be observed that the natural life and the supernatural life have a conformity to each other which neither has to the mechanistic life.” In contrast to a community centering on material progress, Eliot argues that the Christian Community is best lived out in a local “community unit,” such as the English parish, that is both religious and social, rooted in the soil and centered in a particular place, growing over generations. Such a culture, lived in conformity with nature, is only possible in a Christian Society. Eliot warns, “If you will not have God (and he is a jealous God) you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin,” for Western democracy does not have enough of a positive culture to withstand the forces of secularism.

Christian Themes

Eliot is primarily concerned with how the average Christian can best live out his daily life in community, and so he turns to the secondary question of what type of society will make the life of virtue the easiest to live. Augustine’s concept of the Christian citizen’s dual and sometimes conflicting allegiance to the city of God and the city of man is here fleshed out in the context of the industrialized democracy. What if a society’s values, stemming from a desire for profit, have become so antithetical to Christian values that it puts an undue strain on the ordinary Christian’s ability to live a good life? Eliot observes that “to be conscious, without remission, of a Christian and a non-Christian alternative at moments of choice, imposes a very great strain.” Even basic daily decisions become moments of moral crisis when the way of life of a nation is in conflict with the way of life of the Christian, and this, for the average man, is a burden too great to carry.

In a highly industrialized nation, a philosophy of materialism, which is utterly at odds with a Christian philosophy of life, flourishes. The effect of unrestricted industrialism on a people is to make them “detached from tradition, alienated from religion, and susceptible to mass suggestion: in other words, a mob.” The life of the citizen is interwoven with the systems and institutions that make up his nation, so that when they begin to reflect non-Christian principles, the citizen is, by his very citizenship, implicated in them. For this reason Eliot argues that a complete separation of church and state is undesirable; the church must have influence in the private and public spheres. Temporal affairs will not remain neutral but will tend toward increasing secularization, with the effect that it is harder and harder for the Christian to live a sanctified life in his political community and to reach beatitude in the Community of Saints.

Eliot offers a warning for Western society as a whole and for its individual Christian citizens against passivity and excessive tolerance: By doing nothing, we make a choice. By allowing Western democracy to be guided by nothing more than the principles of inclusiveness, toleration, and private profit, we create a vacuum that may be filled by positive principles that are in conflict with Christianity.

Sources for Further Study

Donoghue, Denis. Words Alone. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000. The tenth chapter of this biography discusses Eliot’s preoccupation with how the Christian vision of life could be presented and advanced.

Frohnen, Bruce. “T. S. Eliot on the Necessity of Christian Culture.” Witherspoon Lecture, Family Research Council. http://www.frc.org. This lecture places Eliot’s views in the context of the Western tradition and applies them to the secularization of American culture.

Kirk, Russell. Eliot and His Age: T. S. Eliot’s Moral Imagination in the Twentieth Century. Peru, Ill.: Sherwood Sugden, 1988. The seventh chapter places the essay in the historical context of the imminent World War II and provides an insightful summary of its ideas.

Yancey, Philip. “T. S. Eliot’s Christian Society: Still Relevant Today?” The Christian Century, November 19, 1986, 1031. This article argues that while Eliot correctly diagnosed the ills of modern society, his solution of a Christian Society may not be the best for living out the Christian life.