William Temple on good deeds

"Only a perfect Christian can follow the purely Christian way of life; and so far as an imperfect Christian—i.e. any Christian who actually exists—forces himself to a line of conduct which his own character does not support, it will have bad effects on both him and his neighbours: . . . CONTINUE on him, because it will be an assertion of self-will and must root him more firmly than ever in his own self as centre of his life, that is in his Original Sin; and on others, because he will appear as a Pharisee and a prig, and will alienate people from the standard by which he is self-righteously guiding this part of his conduct."

    —Christianity and Social Order, SCM Press, 1950

(It seems strange, then, that Temple spends much of the rest of this book advocating a far-reaching welfare state as the Christian mode of social organization. He is apparently oblivious of the fact that this must rest on massive taxation, paying which is not merely a self-imposed "line of conduct which [the taxpayer's] character does not support", but which is actually externally enforced with the threat of jail sentences. At the beginning of the book he strongly opposes involuntary community of property, while seeing freely chosen communism, practiced within voluntary associations, as the Christian ideal. Yet what is a fully-developed welfare state but a coerced, bureaucratically controlled type of community of property? Reading a book such as this, one wonders whether the present Western cultural crisis is not due to modern Christianity as much as to left-wing atheism.

Another possible interpretation of Temple's position is that externally coerced good behaviour, for example giving up most of one's income for the community's benefit, is preferable to internally imposed discipline, because it does not foster "self-will" but rather resigned humility. But is it likely that anyone in the Anglican tradition of personal freedom would hold such a view?)

See also:

• C.S. Lewis on good deeds