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A ideia de uma sociedade cristã - e outros escritos
Conhecemos o Eliot poeta, mas em A Ideia de uma Sociedade Cristã, podemos apreciar a obra ensaística do grande escritor norte-americano que se ocupa de uma temática particular: o que tem a fé cristã a dizer sobre aspectos como a sociedade e a política?
As conferências que T. S. Eliot apresentou em Cambridge, em março de 1939, e publicou sob o título A Ideia de uma Sociedade Cristã, estão no campo da crítica social. Eliot não endossa “qualquer forma política particular”; defende apenas “qualquer Estado que seja adequado para uma Sociedade Cristã”. Também não defende um Estado “em que os mandatários fossem escolhidos em virtude de suas qualificações e menos ainda de sua eminência como cristãos”. O cristianismo não deve ser imposto ao povo pelo governo; pelo contrário, o “temperamento e as tradições do povo” devem ser suficientemente cristãos para impor aos políticos “uma estrutura cristã na qual seja possível realizar suas ambições e fazer avançar a prosperidade e o prestígio de seu país”.
As conferências que T. S. Eliot apresentou em Cambridge, em março de 1939, e publicou sob o título A Ideia de uma Sociedade Cristã, estão no campo da crítica social. Eliot não endossa “qualquer forma política particular”; defende apenas “qualquer Estado que seja adequado para uma Sociedade Cristã”. Também não defende um Estado “em que os mandatários fossem escolhidos em virtude de suas qualificações e menos ainda de sua eminência como cristãos”. O cristianismo não deve ser imposto ao povo pelo governo; pelo contrário, o “temperamento e as tradições do povo” devem ser suficientemente cristãos para impor aos políticos “uma estrutura cristã na qual seja possível realizar suas ambições e fazer avançar a prosperidade e o prestígio de seu país”.
216 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1939
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210 people want to read
About the author
T.S. Eliot
1,084 books5,678 followersThomas Stearns Eliot was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948 "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry." He wrote the poems The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday, and Four Quartets; the plays Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party; and the essay Tradition and the Individual Talent. Eliot was born an American, moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at the age of 25), and became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.S._Eliot
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.S._Eliot
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December 2, 2021
Summary: Three lectures given in 1939 putting forth Eliot’s ideas for a Christian society in the light of rising pagan, totalitarian governments in the pre-World War 2 world.
Most often, T. S. Eliot is known for his poetry, whether the modernist poems like “The Wasteland” before his religious conversion, or “The Four Quartets” afterward. He also gave us “Old Possum’s Book of Cats,” the basis of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats. What is less known is that he gave these lectures articulating his ideas of what a society shaped by Christian premises might be like, and why that might be seriously considered.
The setting of the lectures that form this book is important. They were given in 1939, on the eve of World War 2. The world had already witnessed Communist revolution in Russia, and the rise of national socialism based on an Aryan vision of Germans as a super race. The concern he expresses, as Christianity became a minority opinion in Great Britain which was becoming an increasingly secular state, is that a position of neutrality could not hold. Eliot believed the possibility existed for the rise of a pagan state, nominally democratic (as was Germany) but equally totalitarian in character. He argues that of these alternatives, a Christian state, a Christian society is to be preferred to uphold a moral basis for law and justice.
Perhaps some of the most trenchant things he has to say address the economic structures of the British state, which were far from Christian, privileging a wealthy class at the expense of the flourishing of a broader society. While his proposal is short on practical details of how this would come about, he envisions both a Christian community with a broadly shared Christian vision worked out in shared social morality and a smaller Community of Christians, a group of societal leaders of character and Christian intellect. While he does not think of this in terms of a particular church in broader application but rather an inclusive Christian community, he does think that in the English context, the Church of England offers the best chance for the shared vision and social consensus he would see.
While he does not specify a particular form of government, he sees the commercialized, urbanized, and industrialized society of England as “unnatural” and calls for a kind of “conformity to nature” that anticipates more recent concerns about sustainability. He grounds this in the relationship of nature to the God of nature, severed in modern, mechanized views of the world.
I found myself alternatively fascinated by his prescience and frustrated at other points by what seemed a certain naivete’. He anticipates the structural critiques of democracies and foresees how authoritarian movements can develop in democratic states. He articulates an early form of Christian environmentalism. Yet his assumptions of consensus among Christians and his blindness to the corrupting influence power could have on high-minded Christians, are born out in what we see of the American church of the last fifty years. In Blinded By Might, Cal Thomas wrote about how political influence corrupted early pioneers of the Religious Right. I believe similar narratives might be written of the progressive wing of the church and these divisions give the lie to Eliot’s vision of a consensus of Christians.
What I think Eliot gets right is to raise the question of alternatives, and whether secularity provides a sufficiently robust framework for a just society, for limited government, and the rights of the people. When we move from an assumption of the inherent fallenness and fallibility of human nature to one of the inherent goodness, do we open the door to the attractions and hubris of authoritarian rulers?
But the question remains of how this works itself out in a pluralist society. I don’t think Hauerwas’s stance of prophetic engagement, James Davison Hunter’s faithful presence, or the Christian political activist stance of either the right or the left quite answer the question of what it means to be a Christian in society. Perhaps there is something in Eliot’s call for a Community of Christians who function not as an organization or party but as a “body of indefinite outline, composed of both clergy and laity, of the more conscious, more spiritually and intellectually developed of both.” It seems to me that there is a need for Christian leaders not beholden to political alliances who can think and pray and work and learn from each other across a variety of boundaries, both for renewal in the church and in society. Might Eliot’s vision of national Communities of Christians capture something of what this might look like?
Most often, T. S. Eliot is known for his poetry, whether the modernist poems like “The Wasteland” before his religious conversion, or “The Four Quartets” afterward. He also gave us “Old Possum’s Book of Cats,” the basis of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats. What is less known is that he gave these lectures articulating his ideas of what a society shaped by Christian premises might be like, and why that might be seriously considered.
The setting of the lectures that form this book is important. They were given in 1939, on the eve of World War 2. The world had already witnessed Communist revolution in Russia, and the rise of national socialism based on an Aryan vision of Germans as a super race. The concern he expresses, as Christianity became a minority opinion in Great Britain which was becoming an increasingly secular state, is that a position of neutrality could not hold. Eliot believed the possibility existed for the rise of a pagan state, nominally democratic (as was Germany) but equally totalitarian in character. He argues that of these alternatives, a Christian state, a Christian society is to be preferred to uphold a moral basis for law and justice.
Perhaps some of the most trenchant things he has to say address the economic structures of the British state, which were far from Christian, privileging a wealthy class at the expense of the flourishing of a broader society. While his proposal is short on practical details of how this would come about, he envisions both a Christian community with a broadly shared Christian vision worked out in shared social morality and a smaller Community of Christians, a group of societal leaders of character and Christian intellect. While he does not think of this in terms of a particular church in broader application but rather an inclusive Christian community, he does think that in the English context, the Church of England offers the best chance for the shared vision and social consensus he would see.
While he does not specify a particular form of government, he sees the commercialized, urbanized, and industrialized society of England as “unnatural” and calls for a kind of “conformity to nature” that anticipates more recent concerns about sustainability. He grounds this in the relationship of nature to the God of nature, severed in modern, mechanized views of the world.
I found myself alternatively fascinated by his prescience and frustrated at other points by what seemed a certain naivete’. He anticipates the structural critiques of democracies and foresees how authoritarian movements can develop in democratic states. He articulates an early form of Christian environmentalism. Yet his assumptions of consensus among Christians and his blindness to the corrupting influence power could have on high-minded Christians, are born out in what we see of the American church of the last fifty years. In Blinded By Might, Cal Thomas wrote about how political influence corrupted early pioneers of the Religious Right. I believe similar narratives might be written of the progressive wing of the church and these divisions give the lie to Eliot’s vision of a consensus of Christians.
What I think Eliot gets right is to raise the question of alternatives, and whether secularity provides a sufficiently robust framework for a just society, for limited government, and the rights of the people. When we move from an assumption of the inherent fallenness and fallibility of human nature to one of the inherent goodness, do we open the door to the attractions and hubris of authoritarian rulers?
But the question remains of how this works itself out in a pluralist society. I don’t think Hauerwas’s stance of prophetic engagement, James Davison Hunter’s faithful presence, or the Christian political activist stance of either the right or the left quite answer the question of what it means to be a Christian in society. Perhaps there is something in Eliot’s call for a Community of Christians who function not as an organization or party but as a “body of indefinite outline, composed of both clergy and laity, of the more conscious, more spiritually and intellectually developed of both.” It seems to me that there is a need for Christian leaders not beholden to political alliances who can think and pray and work and learn from each other across a variety of boundaries, both for renewal in the church and in society. Might Eliot’s vision of national Communities of Christians capture something of what this might look like?
October 26, 2025
"In the sense in which Liberalism is contrasted with Conservatism, both can be equally repellent: if the former can mean chaos, the latter can mean petrifaction. We are always faced both with the question 'what must be destroyed?' and with the question 'what must be preserved?' and neither Liberalism nor Conservatism, which are not philosophies and may be merely habits, is enough to guide us" (17).
"Good prose cannot be written by a people without convictions" (20).
"The tendency of unlimited industrialism is to create bodies of men and women--of all classes--detached from tradition, alienated from religion, and susceptible to mass suggestion: in other words, a mob."
The parish as the community unit (29) / Parochial System (47)
"Behavior is as potent to affect belief, as belief to affect behavior" (20).
"Virtue and well-being in community" (34)
"Educational theory closely follows political theory" (36)
"A great deal of ingenuity is expended on half-baked philosophies, in the absence of any common background of knowledge" (38)
"What is more insidious than any censorship is the steady influence which operates silently in a ny mass society organised for profit, for the depression of standards of art and culture. The increasing organisation of advertisement and propaganda--or the influencing of masses of men by any means except through their intelligence--is all against them. The economic system is against them; the chaos of ideals and confusion of thought in our large scale mass education is against them; and against them also is the disappearance of any class of people who recognise public and private responsibility of patronage of the best that is made and written. At a period in which each nation has less and less 'culture' for its own consumption, all are making furious efforts to export their culture, to impress upon each other their achievements in arts which they are ceasing to cultivate or understand. And just as those who should be the intellectuals regard theology as a special study, like numismatics or heraldry, with which they need not concern themselves, and theologians observe the same indifference to literature and art, as special studies which do not concern them, so our political classes regard both fields as territories of which they have no reason to be ashamed of remaining in complete ignorance. Accordingly the more serious authors have a limited, and even provincial audience, and the more popular write for an illiterate and uncritical mob" (39-40).
"You cannot expect continuity and coherence in politics, you cannot expect reliable behaviour on fixed principles persisting through changed situations, unless there is an underlying political philosophy: not of a party, but of the nation. You cannot expect continuity and coherence in literature and the arts, unless you have a certain uniformity of culture, expressed in education by a settled, though not rigid agreement as to what everyone should know to some degree, and a positive distinction--however undemocratic it may sound--between the educated and the uneducated. I observed in America, that with a very high level of intelligence among undergraduates, progress was impeded by the fact that one could never assume that an two, unless they had been at the same school under the influence of the same masters at the same moment, had studied the same subjects or read the same books... It might have been better if [undergraduate students] had read fewer, but the same books" (41) This has me thinking about an "approved canon" for families, churches, schools, education systems, etc.
"Truth is one and... theology has not frontiers" (53).
"As political philosophy derives its sanction from ethics, and ethics from the truth of religion, it is only by returning to the eternal source of truth that we can hope for any social organisation which will not, to its ultimate destruction, ignore some essential aspect of reality. The term 'democracy,' as I have said again and again, does not contain enough positive content to stand alone against the forces that you dislike--it can easily be transformed by them. If you will not have God (and He is a jealous God) you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin" (63).
"Might one suggest that the kitchen, the children and the church could be considered to have a claim upon the attention of married women? or that no normal married woman would prefer to be a wage-earner if she could help it? What is miserable is a system that makes the dual wage necessary" (70).
"Good prose cannot be written by a people without convictions" (20).
"The tendency of unlimited industrialism is to create bodies of men and women--of all classes--detached from tradition, alienated from religion, and susceptible to mass suggestion: in other words, a mob."
The parish as the community unit (29) / Parochial System (47)
"Behavior is as potent to affect belief, as belief to affect behavior" (20).
"Virtue and well-being in community" (34)
"Educational theory closely follows political theory" (36)
"A great deal of ingenuity is expended on half-baked philosophies, in the absence of any common background of knowledge" (38)
"What is more insidious than any censorship is the steady influence which operates silently in a ny mass society organised for profit, for the depression of standards of art and culture. The increasing organisation of advertisement and propaganda--or the influencing of masses of men by any means except through their intelligence--is all against them. The economic system is against them; the chaos of ideals and confusion of thought in our large scale mass education is against them; and against them also is the disappearance of any class of people who recognise public and private responsibility of patronage of the best that is made and written. At a period in which each nation has less and less 'culture' for its own consumption, all are making furious efforts to export their culture, to impress upon each other their achievements in arts which they are ceasing to cultivate or understand. And just as those who should be the intellectuals regard theology as a special study, like numismatics or heraldry, with which they need not concern themselves, and theologians observe the same indifference to literature and art, as special studies which do not concern them, so our political classes regard both fields as territories of which they have no reason to be ashamed of remaining in complete ignorance. Accordingly the more serious authors have a limited, and even provincial audience, and the more popular write for an illiterate and uncritical mob" (39-40).
"You cannot expect continuity and coherence in politics, you cannot expect reliable behaviour on fixed principles persisting through changed situations, unless there is an underlying political philosophy: not of a party, but of the nation. You cannot expect continuity and coherence in literature and the arts, unless you have a certain uniformity of culture, expressed in education by a settled, though not rigid agreement as to what everyone should know to some degree, and a positive distinction--however undemocratic it may sound--between the educated and the uneducated. I observed in America, that with a very high level of intelligence among undergraduates, progress was impeded by the fact that one could never assume that an two, unless they had been at the same school under the influence of the same masters at the same moment, had studied the same subjects or read the same books... It might have been better if [undergraduate students] had read fewer, but the same books" (41) This has me thinking about an "approved canon" for families, churches, schools, education systems, etc.
"Truth is one and... theology has not frontiers" (53).
"As political philosophy derives its sanction from ethics, and ethics from the truth of religion, it is only by returning to the eternal source of truth that we can hope for any social organisation which will not, to its ultimate destruction, ignore some essential aspect of reality. The term 'democracy,' as I have said again and again, does not contain enough positive content to stand alone against the forces that you dislike--it can easily be transformed by them. If you will not have God (and He is a jealous God) you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin" (63).
"Might one suggest that the kitchen, the children and the church could be considered to have a claim upon the attention of married women? or that no normal married woman would prefer to be a wage-earner if she could help it? What is miserable is a system that makes the dual wage necessary" (70).
June 20, 2021
Occasionally profound, notably impossible, and unfortunately boring after a while. Still contained many excellent critiques and somewhat vague thoughts on the Christian living in a world that no party can define.
March 20, 2020
(Read together with Notes towards the Definition of Culture in Christianity and Culture, but reviewed separately because rated differently. I also think the combination smacks more of convenience than complementarity, so few compunctions on that head.) Eliot attests at the top of this series of three lectures, "I am not at this moment concerned with the means for bringing a Christian Society into existence; I am not even primarily concerned with making it appear desirable; but I am very much concerned with making clear its difference from the kind of society in which we are now living," that being, the Neutral Society, which has just about overturned the preexisting social idea without (yet) replacing it with a positive one of its own, such as that of the Pagan Society, from which it is also distinct. If I had to compliment this essay on something, I'd put all my eggs in that basket - Eliot's identification, that is, of his contemporaneity as negative, as interested predominately in loosening and disestablishing, and his further sense that "a negative element made to serve the purpose of a positive is objectionable." If it were only to come away with an insight like the following, I'd still have read this book gladly: "We are always faced both with the question 'what must be destroyed?' and with the question 'what must be preserved?' and neither Liberalism nor Conservatism, which are not philosophies and may be merely habits, is enough to guide us." As it was, I thought Eliot disingenuously insisted that, really, he left his vested interests at home, and so my appreciation of the first lecture was counterbalanced by having to write off enough of the rest. Of course, the manifest elitism here didn't sit well with me at all, oh no, but then again, I don't rate books on the basis of (dis)agreeing with them.
Oh by the way: "We are being made aware that the organisation of society on the principle of private profit, as well as public destruction, is leading both to the deformation of humanity by unregulated industrialism, and to the exhaustion of natural resources, and that a good deal of our material progress is a progress for which succeeding generations may have to pay dearly." Speaking of agreement. 1939, much?
Oh by the way: "We are being made aware that the organisation of society on the principle of private profit, as well as public destruction, is leading both to the deformation of humanity by unregulated industrialism, and to the exhaustion of natural resources, and that a good deal of our material progress is a progress for which succeeding generations may have to pay dearly." Speaking of agreement. 1939, much?
January 26, 2021
At age 39, the author became a believer in our Lord Jesus Christ and was confirmed in the Church of England (Anglican). Ten years later in the turbulent year of 1938 he gave the lectures at Cambridge University which form the body of text in this book.
This book is tough sledding for any 21st century reader who does not enter into the mindset of an English intellectual who was buffeted by the dis-quieting events of pre-war Europe. But pray do persevere and carefully read all of this valuable little book.
Below are three of the many jewels in this work:
"The more highly industrialized the country, the more easily a materialistic philosophy will flourish in it, and the more deadly that philosophy will be." (Page 21)
"A nation's system of education is much more important that its system of government; only a proper system of education can unify the active and contemplative life, action and speculation, politics and the arts." (Page 41)
"It is not enthusiasm, but dogma, that differentiates a Christian from a pagan society." (Page 59)
This book is tough sledding for any 21st century reader who does not enter into the mindset of an English intellectual who was buffeted by the dis-quieting events of pre-war Europe. But pray do persevere and carefully read all of this valuable little book.
Below are three of the many jewels in this work:
"The more highly industrialized the country, the more easily a materialistic philosophy will flourish in it, and the more deadly that philosophy will be." (Page 21)
"A nation's system of education is much more important that its system of government; only a proper system of education can unify the active and contemplative life, action and speculation, politics and the arts." (Page 41)
"It is not enthusiasm, but dogma, that differentiates a Christian from a pagan society." (Page 59)
August 5, 2018
"The problem of leading a Christian life in a non-Christian society is now very present to us, and it is a very different problem from that of the accommodation between an Established Church and dissenters. It is not merely the problem of a minority in a society of individuals holding an alien belief. It is the problem constituted by our implication in a network of institutions from which we cannot dissociate ourselves: institutions the operation of which appears no longer neutral, but non-Christian. And as for the Christian who is not conscious of his dilemma--and he is in the majority--he is becoming more and more de-Christianised by all sorts of unconscious pressure: paganism holds all the most valuable advertising space."
August 22, 2015
This book is excellent and vague. Both are pursued with wit and ability. One of the most interesting ideas Eliot flirts with is the notion of the 'positive' society. Here positive means what a society proactively pursues rather than what it negatively forbids. We tend to define a 'christian' society by what it does not do. Eliot would probably call that a negative or neutral society. And then you are off to something else equally excellent and vague. The flirty nature of this book is kept bearable by its short length.
June 24, 2024
Eliot was profoundly involved in the glitches affecting the culture of the individual in modern times. The struggle of our time is to “re-establish a vital conation between the individual and the mass” (After Strange Gods, 48). Differences are conceivable regarding the nature of a vital connection. But some intimate relationship has to be established.
Eliot speaks of Christian society in the context of culture. By the “Idea of a Christian Society “he means” something that can only be found in an understanding of the end to which a Christian Society, to deserve the name, must be directed.” The crisis of feeling that emerged in September 1938 made him doubt “the validity of the civilization” of Europe.
A Christian community is one “in which there is a verified religious — social code of behaviour”.
In such an organization “the natural end of man—virtue and well-being in community is acknowledged for all, and the supernatural end — beatitude — for Lose who had eyes to see it.” Nonetheless in reality, the machinery of modern life is simply a sanction for un-Christian aims.”
As he explores the Christian society, he finds: “the distinction between the use of natural resources and their exploitation, the use of labour and its exploitation, the advantages unethically accruing to the trader in contrast to the primary producer, the misdirection of the financial machine, the iniquity of usury, and other features of a commercialized society must be scrutinized in Christian principles
We are being made aware that the organization of society as the principle of private profit as well as public destruction, is leading both to the deformation of humanity, by unregulated industrialism, and to the exhaustion of natural resources, and that a good deal of our material progress is a progress for which succeeding generations may have to pay dearly.”
Unregulated industrialism leads to the emergence of a mob in the place of a society. Eliot notes that the modern material complication has created a world “in which Christian social forms are imperfectly adopted”. Eliot is thus criticizing liberalism and democracy because the symptoms of social ailments are best indicated by the decay of culture.
Eliot observes “the steady influence which operates silently in any mass society organized for profit, for the depression of standards of art and culture. The increasing organization of advertisement and propaganda— or the influencing of masses of men by any means except through their intelligence—is all against them.” With all this denunciation Eliot offers no positive proposal in The Idea of a Christian Society.
Eliot speaks of Christian society in the context of culture. By the “Idea of a Christian Society “he means” something that can only be found in an understanding of the end to which a Christian Society, to deserve the name, must be directed.” The crisis of feeling that emerged in September 1938 made him doubt “the validity of the civilization” of Europe.
A Christian community is one “in which there is a verified religious — social code of behaviour”.
In such an organization “the natural end of man—virtue and well-being in community is acknowledged for all, and the supernatural end — beatitude — for Lose who had eyes to see it.” Nonetheless in reality, the machinery of modern life is simply a sanction for un-Christian aims.”
As he explores the Christian society, he finds: “the distinction between the use of natural resources and their exploitation, the use of labour and its exploitation, the advantages unethically accruing to the trader in contrast to the primary producer, the misdirection of the financial machine, the iniquity of usury, and other features of a commercialized society must be scrutinized in Christian principles
We are being made aware that the organization of society as the principle of private profit as well as public destruction, is leading both to the deformation of humanity, by unregulated industrialism, and to the exhaustion of natural resources, and that a good deal of our material progress is a progress for which succeeding generations may have to pay dearly.”
Unregulated industrialism leads to the emergence of a mob in the place of a society. Eliot notes that the modern material complication has created a world “in which Christian social forms are imperfectly adopted”. Eliot is thus criticizing liberalism and democracy because the symptoms of social ailments are best indicated by the decay of culture.
Eliot observes “the steady influence which operates silently in any mass society organized for profit, for the depression of standards of art and culture. The increasing organization of advertisement and propaganda— or the influencing of masses of men by any means except through their intelligence—is all against them.” With all this denunciation Eliot offers no positive proposal in The Idea of a Christian Society.
January 14, 2022
If T.S. Eliot's poetry proves to be enduringly ageless (as far as any human endeavour can) then the same can't be said for his essays. The Idea of a Christian Society does feel like something of a curiosity now, as I suspect that it may have done even when written. Even so at a time when we have the most pagan (using Eliot's term and definition) government for perhaps a century or more, it does have some resonances. His plea is not for a theocracy or a society in which every person is a Christian, but one in which the structure and foundations are discernibly Christian, and therefore to some extent so is the teleology. The essay has some nice phrases, sometimes prophetic ("it may turn out that the most intolerably thing for Christians is to be tolerated"). The remaining essays in the book are of little interest, except to the historian. His essay on Education in France has been included because of his attack on German anti-semitism, an attempt to undo some of chilling sentiments in his early poetry.
The opening essay by the excellent David Edwards is very well worth reading.
The opening essay by the excellent David Edwards is very well worth reading.
April 28, 2020
A princípio eu achei que se tratava de um elaborado para a implementação de uma sociedade cristã em todas as esferas. Mas a preocupação de Eliot é a educação. Sua ideai é de que os cristão sejam atuantes e exemplares na sua fé, de maneira que esse comportamento possa influenciar a sociedade como um todo. A ideia de uma sociedade cristã é de que a classe social se comporte como cristão no que diz respeito a moralidade e bem estar mútuo, deixando a beatitude e eternidade para os cristão em si.
June 2, 2022
Interesting book. Eliot argues that the west needs a Christian society with a state church for each nation. He divides the Christian Society into three categories, and argues that a Christian Society will bring stability, and guard against Tyranny.
May 2, 2020
Interesting thoughts about the relation between Church and State written in an reflective and witty prose. This is the first book I've read from Eliot, but it won't be the last.
July 19, 2023
Really makes you wonder what could have been, if our cultural/political elite were the spiritual descendants of Eliot rather than Shylock...
May 10, 2024
Appealing, not convincing
December 18, 2020
Though looking forward to reading this book by Eliot, in disappointment, I found it wordy and generally unhelpful. I kept looking for even one valued nugget of insight to take away from the book and was never fully satisfied. The book was based on a series of lectures in the early days of the rise of Hitler and Nazism so I think this was the cloak that dampened the salient points of his treatise. The main value gained from this reading was found in touch-points of similarity to our current situation with an unholy affair between the Bride of Christ and political extremism.
March 25, 2023
Initially published in 1940, this essay is surprisingly relevant to today's society. Today there is not a day that goes by without some mention of religion by our leaders. Eliot discusses how Christian principles can affect public policy or even if it should. He offers examples of how a Christian theocracy would affect society. For an essay, a reader will find plenty of material on this subject.
August 21, 2022
I actually have a pdf version of this book, which means I downloaded it once upon a time although I have no recollection of having done so. TSE delivered the 3 lectures that are the core of this book in 1939, which I think is important when considering the context in which TSE formulated in a logical argument his point of view about the relationship between church and state and the necessity of a Christian framework. Nonetheless I disagree with him. No Church, no religion, no theology is infallible and immune from human frailty despite their claims. And Christianity, in my opinion, has not only not earned the right of primacy among the world’s religious dogmas but has forfeited any claim to that position.
May 3, 2013
Very interesting essay. I quite enjoyed the unique view on how a all christian society might function as well as the challenges it would face.
February 23, 2015
Very well presented essays on what a society should be like and more importantly points out why capitalism is the death of art.
March 4, 2016
I love Eliot, and I love some of the points that he made. I found many of the arguments and his prose style to be difficult to follow and understand. Maybe I'll revisit the book in a few years.
December 30, 2024
Moramo iznova razviti osjećaj religioznog straha kako bismo ga mogli prevladati religioznom nadom.
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