Kindness, in moral philosophy, is a behaviour marked by the ethical characteristics of concern and consideration for others. Aristotle, in Book II of Rhetoric, defines kindness as:
“helpfulness towards someone in need, not in return for anything, nor for the advantage of the helper himself, but for that of the person helped.”
The parable of the Good Samaritan is told by Jesus in Luke chapter 10. It is about a traveller who is stripped of clothing, beaten, and left half dead by the roadside. First, a priest and then a Levite comes by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a Samaritan happens upon the traveller. Despite the fact that Samaritans and Jews despised each other, the Samaritan helps the injured man.
The parable is introduced by a question and an answer known as The Great Commandment. A man asks Jesus:
Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
[Jesus] said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?
And [the man] answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.
And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
Love in this context (referred to in the King James Version as “charity”) is in its highest possible form: the love of God for man, and of man for God. But the words “love” and “charity” are too broad in meaning to adequately describe the concept in translation. Agape is the better, Greco-Christian term, deriving from the Ancient Greek.
Agape is not to be confused with philia, brotherly love, or philautia, self-love. Going much beyond these things it embraces a universal, unconditional love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance. It necessarily extends to the love of one’s fellow man.
In 1 Corinthians 13:4 the apostle Paul states, “Charity suffereth long, and is kind.” In Galatians 5:22 he lists kindness as one of the nine traits considered to be “fruit of the Spirit”. To be as one with Christ is to be filled with agape and from this love flows kindness.
These principles will be very familiar to old-time Labour supporters. The Labour Party, borne out of the Labour Movement, was solidly Christian in origin. Its nineteenth- and early twentieth-century proponents were not only church-goers; their working-class lives were centred around the traditional Christian values of the family, fair reward for a day’s work, unity expressed through social conformity and personal restraint.
Old Labour principles found their home, amongst other places, within the Anglo-Catholic movement, and if you are fortunate enough to discover an Anglo-Catholic church today (you could try the inner suburbs of Melbourne) you won’t find it full of Labour supporters, because no Anglican church is physically full, but the elderly parishioners who are in attendance are likely to be Labour people.
This reflects the fact that the national life in Anglosphere countries prior to World War II was Judeo-Christian in nature. The concept of income re-distribution, in this context, was Christian. In the book of Acts, those who were with the apostles spontaneously sold their land and possessions, laying the returns at the apostles’ feet.
And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
Acts 4:32
Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Fabian socialists appeared to believe that the same might happen democratically within our own societies. The unofficial anthem of England, Jerusalem, of 1916 (music by Parry, orchestration by Elgar, to 1804 lyrics by Blake) describes an indivisible people, minded to build a “new Jerusalem”- by which is meant God’s kingdom – on England’s shores.
To be continued…
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