I have had cause to criticise the academic output of Alan Smith – the learned Bishop of St Albans – on more than one occasion. Whilst the British government deployed 57,000 troops to fight the Red Army in Revolutionary Russia between 1918-1921 (committing a War Crime in Baku and killing 10.5 million Russians) – the shock of VI Lenin granting Universal Suffrage to ALL people in what would become the “USSR” (including Women) swept across the globe! The Centralised Democracy of the USSR granted far more freedom (and say) to all Soviet citizens than the liberal democratic version did at that time. Fear of a working-class uprising in the UK (in sympathy with Russia) led to the UK government beginning the reform of the voting laws in 1918.
The Church of England, or so it would seem, produced die-hard reactionaries such as Mary Augusta Ward – whose thoroughly primitive and reactionary (anti-woman) attitudes are viewed as absolutely fine providing other aspects of apparent Christian charity are put into practice. People like Ward exercise their wealth and status in the staged act of “relieving” poverty (temporarily) – whilst never permanently removing or even confronting the root-cause of the poverty (predatory capitalism). I have not read the novels of Ward – but I suspect she adopts an obvious anti-Socialist position typical of the upper-class snobbery of her time.
It is incredible that someone such as Bishop Smith thinks that Mary Ward – the co-founder of the “National Women’s Anti-Suffrage League” – is a person worthy of remembering when she dedicated her life to preventing society from developing – a process which required the lifting of the religious ignorance that had dominated the West for over a thousand years. Furthermore, the White, middle-class and thoroughly “male” interpretation of Christianity Bishop Smith and Ward seem to be peddling has virtually nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ – and has more in common with the ramblings of St Paul – a fantasist who never met Jesus. The situation is probably more confusing than even this – as many of the letters ascribed to Paul – particularly the misogynistic editions – are thought to be forgeries.
These were written at a later time to steer the Church in the direction of the male-dominated Roman Empire (hence the Pope being male, etc). Jesus Christ was not anti-woman and such attitudes cannot be truly justified by an appeal to the gospels. What you see above is the corruption and redundancy of a modern Church that seeks to acquire private property, wealth, status, and political power (all things “rejected” in the monastic Rule oof St Benedict). This evilness masquerading as theology obscures a politicised Church moving away from the need to practice contemplation in solitude, and instead becoming a thoroughly material entity that assumes a false air of moral superiority whilst – plunging all and sundry into the pits of hell. There is only one true Christianity and that is the highly Socialistic monasticism of the Desert Fathers of Egypt – which itself grew-out of the Jewish monasticism that developed at Qumran (this originally spread to Ireland and England as “Celtic Christianity” – which pre-existed the arrival of Catholicism – and was wiped-out by the latter during the 12th century CE. Celtic Christianity was monastic-based and maintained good relations with non-Christians – it was this latter tolerance that the Catholics would not allow).
As to whether any of this egalitarian spirituality had anything to do with Buddhism is open to debate (with exploring Greeks bringing Buddhism back from India to their colonies) – but one thing is certain – thousands of years ago a movement began within Judaism to transcend narrow (racist) views of belonging whilst uplifting the community by bringing a sense of equality to proceedings. Women could sit in a cave, contemplate the silence and eat and drink very little if they felt the urge to do so. This is the equality of the right to choose to suffer – for a higher cause. Ward, by preventing such growth within modern British society was two-thousand years behind the times (as any woman will tell you – women already know “how to suffer”) – and goodness knows why Bishop Smith thought it opportune to remember this stupid woman as if the example she set was worthwhile and should act to inspire the lives of all women and girls!
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 