I Believe...
It saddens me to report the passing of one of our oldest and best Douglas Social Credit soldiers, Charles Pinwill.
To me Chas was a friend and mentor.
Chas spent his life thinking, speaking and writing about Douglas Social Credit. The last twenty or so years of his life was given almost exclusively to the cause of ensuring the preservation of the the Douglas Social Credit message and spreading awareness of it. My own modest contributions are the fruit of his efforts.
A sometimes thankless task, I once asked him what kept him at the Social Credit grindstone. Referring to our financial arrangements he simply replied “some things are just not ok.” I think the following, written in his early years, provides the details as to what he meant. It is taken from one of his two books of essays, Different Essays.1
I Believe: A Creed for the Practical Christian By Charles Pinwill
I believe that God the creator, Lord and Giver of life, author of all things visible and invisible, has provided a world wherein His truths transcend human thinking, and that God has given men free will to seek those truths, either obeying or disobeying them.
I believe that, to the extent that man discovers and bases all his actions on those truths, he will achieve peace and harmony in human affairs, and that if he rejects those truths, he will bring retribution on himself.
I believe that God’s law is above the laws of all nations and societies binding at all times and in all places; that governments belong to individuals, not individuals to governments; and that all governmental policies must conform to God’s law.
I believe that when Christ Jesus, the Son of God, taught that man should pray that God’s will “be done on earth as it is in heaven,” He was teaching that individuals should strive to create a world in which God’s laws are expressed in all spheres —social and personal.
I believe that faith without works is dead, that by works is man’s faith made alive and justified, that those who sayeth buy doeth not are engaged in sin, and that those who would follow Christ must heed His advice to let their light so shine before their fellows that their good works might be seen as an example to be followed.
I believe that Christ holds every individual — irrespective of his or her status in life — to be a unique person in his or her own right, made in the image of God, and that, through Christ’s revelation, he or she can seek to know, and serve God; and that a Christ-oriented society is one wherein the Sabbath and all other institutions — political, economic, financial and social — exist to serve the individual person.
I believe that whereas man, who is by his God-given nature a social being, requires government for the peace and good order of his community affairs, Caesar must not be allowed to take so much from the individual that he has little or nothing to render unto God.
I believe that Christ came so that man may have life more abundant; that in teaching man to pray to the Father for his daily bread, Christ was drawing attention to a universe of immense abundance; and that, this being so, technological advance should be thankfully accepted as the manifestation of a heritage God has made available so that all may live in material security with expanding freedom.
I believe that, all monopoly violates God’s law, robbing the individual of the freedom to choose, and that if freedom of choice is removed from the individual, his faith in himself atrophies, together with his sense of personal responsibility.
I believe that whereas man cannot worship both God and Mammon, and whereas the love of money — a man-made system of symbols — is the root of all evil, it is a denial of Christ to tolerate a financial system that permits the creation of society’s money to be an exclusive private monopoly that only ever temporarily rents it to society, which elevates money as a commodity subject to speculation and usurious interest, created as an ever-increasing debt, producing in turn unjust taxation and a monetary inflation that is both immoral and socially destructive.
I believe that a Christian society is one in which all power is decentralized, with the meek inheriting the earth, and that a follower of Christ must — as Christ did on the high mountain in the wilderness — always resist the temptation of power, knowing that it corrupts both he who wields power over his fellows and those over whom power is wielded.
I believe that he who would follow Christ must accept personal responsibility for his actions in every sphere — not only in his relations with his fellows but also in the use of his material possessions, his money, and his political vote.
I believe that my first loyalty is to Him “Whose service is perfect freedom”2 and that, by humbly asking God for His support, I can at all times and in all places be His humble and obedient servant and aspire to His friendship. (See John 15:15)
The Kingdom come… On Earth as is its in Heaven
Thy will be done… On Earth as it is in Heaven
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Amen.
Pinwill, C. 2021. Different Essays, They’re Certainly Different. Balboa Press. Bloomington Indiana.
Quote probably first attributed to the prayer of St Augustine of Hippo who lived 354-430AD