Karl Barth, speaking to a trade union in Safenwil, December 17th, 1911:
Everything now seems to be crystal clear, yet perhaps nowhere else has Christianity fallen farther away from the spirit of her Lord and Master than precisely in this estimation of the relation between spirit and matter, inner and outer, heaven and earth. One might well say that for eighteen hundred years the Christian church, when confronted by social misery, has always referred to the Spirit, to the inner life, to heaven. The church has preached, instructed, and consoled, but she has not helped. Indeed, in the face of social misery she has always commended help as a good work of Christian love, but she has not dared to say that help is the good work. She has not said that social misery ought not to be in order then to summon all her power for the sake of this conviction that it ought not to be. She has entrenched herself behind a falsely understood saying of Jesus, taken out of context, which says that “the poor you always have with you” (John 12:8). She has accepted social misery as an accomplished fact in order to talk about the Spirit, to cultivate the inner life, and to prepare candidates for the kingdom of heaven. That is the great, momentous apostasy of the Christian church, her apostasy from Christ. When social democracy then appeared with its gospel of heaven on earth, this very church dared to stand in judgment over it, because it had denied the Spirit. She referred with smug horror to the little verse about angels and sparrows, and to similar expressions. She accused social democracy of vulgar materialism, and beat upon her breast: “Lord, we thank you that we are not as they are, that we are still idealists who regard spirit as the highest value and believe in heaven.” Thus spoke and wrote the pastors—who would then sit down and eat a hearty midday meal!