Sinclair's chief concern is social justice and his aim is to enlighten common people by training his critical intelligence on the many hypocrisies of established religion, which stand in the way of achieving a just society for all. He is particularly incensed by the collusion of religion with the power structure of capitalism in exploiting the poor to increase its own wealth while ignoring the obvious material needs of the less fortunate.
This work, written before Sinclair and others on the American Left became disillusioned with Soviet-style socialism, offers a fascinating glimpse into the intellectual currents prevalent on the left at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Sinclair loads up a cart of rotten eggs and begins hurling them. He scores some major hits. He takes on the Anglican church and their faults as they drove the country of England into lack of preparedness for World War I. The Catholic church, which Sinclair argues is the worst of the bunch, gets 50 pages of scathing attacks--everything from where money came from to buy their churches and how they duped soldiers into world war I with seemingly holy prayer books. He also gives case examples on how they patched the wounds of the striking workers but failed to address the inequalities which causes the workers to strike. The protestant churches get their fair share as well with their crooked ministers who Rockefeller used to pacify his unruly and striking workers.
Organized religion, Sinclair points out, has also undermined women's rights, the right of poor worker to strike or find something better, and brought in a breed of charlatans (some of which have grown tremendously and still exist today). Sinclair also uses history to point out obvious abuses and shows how in some cases the writings of saints with socialistic ideas have been suppressed and not taught (or conveniently ignored).
Sinclair, at the end of the book, does not condemn Christianity. He believes that when the Social Revolution occurs that a new Christianity will take place that will encourage and make equal everyone's rights. Some of the facts and information are a bit dated, but over all the some of the same problems that existed at the turn of the century are still around. In addition, some of the ideas were a bit complicated and probably required more knowledge of what the issues were of the day than what I was familiar with. This book is a definite reminder of the effects of religious corruption and abuses.
