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Sherwood Eddy was born in 1871 in Kansas. He graduated from Yale University in 1891 and then from Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1911 he was appointed national secretary of the Y.M.C.A. This book, Revolutionary Christianity, was published in 1939 in Chicago by Willett, Clark Publishers. Eddy died in 1963. .

Under the title, Revolutionary Christianity, Sherwood Eddy, noted Christian leader, declares that Marxism "Is an essentially correct theory and analysis of the economic realities of modern society," and "the only solution of today's problem is the abolition of economic classes by ending the private ownership of the process by which society is fed, clothed, housed and served" (pp. 149, 210).

"Higher Criticism" Accepted Mr. Eddy accepts the major findings of Biblical "higher criticism"; and he does not believe in the "Virgin birth" or the literal resurrection of Jesus, who, he declares, advocated the revolutionary "Kingdom of God" as a "classless community."

While this ideal has been upheld by certain heroic and saintly persons all through the centuries, according to Mr. Eddy, he cancels out, as contrary to the gospel and purpose of Jesus, the systems of dogma and worship in all branches of the Christian church down to our own times.

Economic Inconsistency

Karl Marx and Henry George are acclaimed by Eddy as prominent among those who, in modern times, have striven for a social order harmonious with the ideals of Jesus (pp. 210, 218). To this end, Eddy seeks a synthesis of Georgism and Marxism on the assumption that socialism (public ownership of productive capital) is consistent with taxation of land values. He sees no economic difference between unearned income arising from ground rent and income accruing from capital, and so, would tax all such income without distinction as to source.

Eddy regards private ownership of productive equipment (capital) as an economic evil without analysis of the prevailing situation which compels capital to liquidate ground rent and taxes prior to wages. In his view, therefore, the Georgist proposal is only a minor item without basic significance in comparison with public expropriation of capital.

With all Marxists, Eddy assumes that if taxes were shifted from capital to the ground rent of occupied sites, as well as to the market price of unused locations, there would still inhere in privately-owned capital an unchanged oppressive power which could be ended only by public ownership; whereas, in fact, the REVERSAL of tax methods would abolish the existing: ban on productive industry, throw monopolized sites onto the market, stimulate the flow of bank credit into -business enterprise, promote employment of labor, and the creation of mass buying power.

Nature of State Unrecognized In common with all Marxists, Eddy fails to grasp the emergence of the modern State as a political compromise between the prestige of ground landlordism and the energy of bourgeois capital. By this means, the middle and laboring classes have acquired a voice in government upon condition of assuming the chief burden of taxation; while ground rent is protected as a form, of special private privilege, and unused land is held at a level of assessment below that of productive industry. The growing fiscal pressure of today will concentrate public attention upon this issue, and compel socialists to analyze economic problems more clearly. Mr. Eddy is completely sincere, and is impelled by a spirit of loving humanitarianism. He believes that Marxism comes within the terms of the brotherhood of man and fatherhood of God. But he is merely expressing the current uncritical ideas of socialism; whereas, formerly, he advocated the uncritical individualism of religious "orthodoxy."