5. Bernhard Stern and Leslie A. White on the Church and Religion

Abstract

5. Bernhard Stern and Leslie A. White on the Church and Religion William J. Peace (bio) and David H. Price It is necessary to link the fight against the church and religion with the fight against capitalism and imperialism. As long as capitalism exists religion and the churches will be used for the ends of the capitalist class. Bernhard Stern, The Church and the Workers Spurred by the appalling social and economic conditions of the Great Depression, radical politics experienced a florescence in America in the 1930s. The belief that a revolution could take place in the United States did not seem far fetched, and many Americans believed capitalism was doomed to collapse. Evidence that capitalism in general and American society in particular were breaking apart was impossible to miss as poverty abounded, strikes occurred frequently and were violently suppressed, and unprecedented unemployment spread unrest. By the end of the 1930s, the American Federation of Labor claimed to have 4,250,000 members and an estimated 2 million other workers were in independent unions. While the American economy eventually recovered, thanks in large part to the New Deal and World War II, the decade produced lasting institutions and ongoing problems, foremost among them a welfare state, a Red scare, a multitude of state and federal regulations, and unprecedented expenditures for a vast military industrial complex. The collapse of the capitalist economy gave American radical politics central importance and gave voice to Marxist and socialist alternatives for the future. It was painfully clear change was in order—people were starving, and many were convinced that capitalism and the large corporate institutions they spawned could not be trusted. A premium was placed on analyses that sought to explain why a few wealthy industrialists were rich beyond comprehension, while the people they employed were starving and living in squalid tenements. Why was it, William Z. Foster questioned, that in the land of plenty, workers went hungry and could not afford to heat their homes despite the fact clothes were readily available [End Page 114] and an abundance of food was produced? Anthropologists and sociologists naturally sought to explain not only why conditions were so bad in the United States but also actively tried to change the way people thought and acted. They were drawn to Marxist and socialist organizations because "they were the only ones in America speaking out against abuses of Nazism; as such they enlisted considerable support especially from Jewish intellectuals in the New York area. Anthropologists at Columbia, at City College of New York, and the New School for Social Research—even including the great Boas—lent their support to Marxist causes" (Adams 1998:344). Of those scholars politically and academically active during the 1930s, two are of particular interest: Leslie A. White and Bernhard Stern.1 Whereas other scholars refrained from incorporating Marxist theory into their anthropological writings, Stern and White did so openly. Both men were closely associated with radical politics and activism—Stern was a member of the Communist Party (CP), while White was a member of the Socialist Labor Party (SLP). Each wrote under a pseudonym, Stern as Bennett Stevens and White as John Steel. They were also persecuted by the universities that employed them and were investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Given their respective interest in radical politics and even similarities in their argumentative writing styles, one would expect Stern and White to be academic and political allies. This was not the case. Quite the contrary, they disliked each other and scoffed at each other's work. This is ironic in that they shared similar political views and their research interests were strikingly similar. Each man was drawn to evolutionary theory and interested in the career and work of Lewis Henry Morgan. They were also extremely critical of organized religion and severely critiqued the Catholic Church. Stern's and White's most radical writings about religion and the Catholic Church were produced during the 1930s under their respective pseudonyms and are largely unknown. Their work will form the corpus of our essay and will be divided into the following sections: a discussion of how Stern and White came to be associated with the...