again and again by the Communists, in the first place because con-
Presuppositions for Encounter with Communism 163
responsibility of defending us, and work for spiritual encounters with Communists everywhere and with Christians in Communist nations.
6. The Christian finds his ethical presuppositions challenged again and again by the Communists, in the first place because contradictory interpretations are given to many old and familiar moral concepts. It is easy to repudiate the questionable means that Communists employ and justify because they serve the ends of revolution and a classless society. We do not as quickly admit that Communist regimes have effected some significant moral reforms: in
China, for example, they have eliminated commercial prostitution
and the gambling evil, and have elevated the status of women. We come to the encounter with firm belief in an "open society" which
the Marxist, intent upon forcing his doctrinaire views and new
system, does not share, and with a respect for the dignity and value
of individuals which has deep roots in the Hebrew—Christian philosophy of man. Because we find a kind of stern Puritanism and
group discipline among the Communists some may think it pos-
sible to harmonize our ethical principles with theirs. But we shall
be doomed to disappointment. It will be necessary to hold firmly -
to essential Christian principles of right and wrong and to apply
them the best we can in new and strange situations, resisting all
temptations to moral compromise.
My own experience in Communist China revealed what seemed to me four serious moral weaknesses in the Communist system: deceitful propaganda and false accusations; hatred and an almost demonic brutality toward those who are considered "enemies of socialism"; tyranny over the mind and spirit of men; and idolatry— not so much the official atheism as the worship of false, man-made = gods and the absolutizing of human power. We must avoid identifioe cation of Christian morals with the standards of our Western — an . middle-class society, without accepting at face value the distorted Communist picture of evil in the non-Communist world. Not merely in conversations but even more through demonstrations we need
to make clear the truth and the power of the whole Christian ethic, —
for the individual and for society, recognizing that in God's mys-—
terious purpose the Communist represents, as Emil Brunner says,
"a sreat ethical urge, a powerful idea, a new way of thinking and
willing," which we can only match with ers higher and
better.