"Unpleasant Christian"

"Between today--the day on which this manuscript is being smuggled out of here--and the day on which the book finally appears in print, many things . . . will have happened." Many things have indeed happened since that day in 1944 when tough, austere Bishop Eivind Berggrav, Primate of Norway, wrote those words in the small cottage where he was kept in solitary confinement by the Quisling government. But what has happened has only underlined the timeliness of the English translation of his book which is published this week, Man and State (Muhlenberg Press; $4).

For Lutheran Bishop Berggrav's subject, now even more than in the days of Hitler, is one of the most crucial and inescapable religious problems of the times: How does a Christian face a totalitarian state?

Insidious Flower. Bishop Berggrav first investigates the nature of the enemy--the diabolic state "which seeks to dominate the entire life of its citizens (perchance under the guise of democratic forms)." He quickly dismisses as superficial the view that modern dictatorship is a historical episode which has sprung up quickly and may as soon be overcome. It is the result of a development, he says, which has been going on for over 400 years. "Little by little, the distinctive mark of the state has come to be that of sheer force--force developed within its own boundaries and, wherever possible, outside those borders too."

There was a man behind it all, says Berggrav, and his name was Niccolo Machiavelli. Machiavelli (1469-1527) first boldly and systematically propounded the principle that the state is beyond morality. It is expedient, he held, for the state to be as moral as possible, because a flagrantly amoral state will engender amorality among its people--and that way lies decline and defeat. But in a pinch, said Machiavelli, the state must behave as a law unto itself.

Modern totalitarianism, according to Berggrav, is the flowering of this insidious line of thought. "There will be an awful day of judgment for us if all we do now is to put the label 'knave' on those of our contemporaries who are responsible for the present state of affairs, and refuse to recognize that there is a thread of continuity throughout."

The Greater Loyalty. Where can man look for a sword to cut the thread? Only, says Berggrav, in that which marks the difference between, a people and a mob--the conscience, where speaks the voice of God. Only insofar as Christians recognize a loyalty greater than their loyalty to the state "can law and freedom, realities which the state is supposed to protect, continue to exist . . .

"A sigh is not enough: a new spirit has to permeate the whole. The representatives of Christianity can no doubt assist in preparing the way for this inner renewal. This, however, will not depend on what they can claim, but on what they can contribute ...

"The issue will depend on whether or not enough either/or Christianity can be found in the next two decades. The more moderate forms [of Christianity] will have their function, but they will not be determinative ... It must also be taken for granted that the state will not become Christian. Spiritually speaking, therefore, it is the leaven principle which will determine the influence of the Christian attitude in politics."

And a potent enough leaven calls for an "unpleasant Christianity." The oldtime Puritans might not have been very jolly people to have around, Berggrav points out, but they did great things for political liberty.

"Natural rights, fundamental values, basic principles, etc., are all euphemisms which men use because they don't want to call things by their right names . . . There must be no watering down of the Holy. The humanizing of the state depends on the reality of God."

The Word & Suffering. Berggrav's book closes with a dramatic lecture which was illegally distributed in Norway during the Nazi occupation. Citing text after Lutheran text, it effectively scotches the theory that Luther enjoined obedience to all governments, whether good or bad. In the grip of a state he knows to be evil, there is only one thing Christians can do --speak out and suffer the consequences.

"The Christian . . . has two weapons--the Word and suffering. To fail the Word and to go into hiding in order to avoid unpleasantness is sin."

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