While studying Christian Socialism in England for my Master’s paper, I found an interesting devotion that was spoken of amidst the working class and the defenders of the worker. One Christian Socialist wrote during the First World War:
“Your scented and curled and comfortable little god on a nicely gilt crucifix is not the God of butchered soldiers and broken women and orphaned children. Tear it down and trample it to dust! …In the first days of the Movement we were all afraid of this plaster Christ. We knew what it meant for Lazarus when the humble Carpenter had found his way into the stained-glass windows of gorgeous churches… We of the old Movement could not reach Christ without touching something foul…” – Chris Massie “Religious Sentiment”. The Daily Herald (London), April 6, 1918. p.9
When preachers and priests tried to defend their Church or State, these writers would remind them that Christ only spent 3 years in ministry and the rest of his life was spent as a carpenter, as a working man like them. Josh McDowell once wrote a famous work called “More than a Carpenter”. The Christian Socialists would’ve probably titled theirs “Less than a Rabbi”.
In any case, I am not particularly invested in the disestablishmentarianism or political goals of the Christian Socialists, they are at best misguided, at worst heretical. But I do find it fascinating that Christ spent so many years working, and how even the sweat of His brow that he spent to help feed Himself and His family was in some way a part of his great suffering on our behalf. I think of St. Joseph the worker, who likewise protected the Blessed Virgin and Jesus through his daily labouring. Perhaps work is just another ‘white martyrdom’ like the Irish Monks of the perigrinatio?