The Christian Socialist Movement, or CSM, is a socialist society affiliated to the British Labour Party.
The CSM was an amalgamation of the Society of Socialist Clergy and Ministers and the Socialist Christian League. R. H. Tawney made one of his last public appearances at the Movement's inaugural meeting on 22 January 1960. Donald Soper chaired the Movement until becoming its President in 1975.
The movement fulfilled a need among political activists on Christian left in Britain for an organisation that would be politically engaged and theologically reflective at the same time. It affiliated to the Labour Party in 1988.
The CSM was a volunteer organisation until 1994 when it appointed a co-ordinator, followed by an administrator. This followed interest in the movement following the disclosure that the then Labour Leader John Smith was a member.
Today the CSM has over 40 members in the House of Commons and House of Lords and the former prime minister Gordon Brown. As of April 2009, its Director is Andy Flannagan; its Executive Committee Chair is Alun Michael; its Vice Chair is Helen Dennis.
CSM is a member organisation of the International League of Religious Socialists.
Famous quotes containing the words christian, socialist and/or movement:
“Nothing does more to activate Christian divisions than talk about Christian unity.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
“One is a socialist because one used to be one, no longer going to demonstrations, attending meetings, sending in one’s dues, in short, without paying.”
—Michel de Certeau (1925–1986)
“I have been photographing our toilet, that glossy enameled receptacle of extraordinary beauty.... Here was every sensuous curve of the “human figure divine” but minus the imperfections. Never did the Greeks reach a more significant consummation to their culture, and it somehow reminded me, in the glory of its chaste convulsions and in its swelling, sweeping, forward movement of finely progressing contours, of the Victory of Samothrace.”
—Edward Weston (1886–1958)