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:
“We must choose. Be a child of the past with all its crudities and imperfections, its failures and defeats, or a child of the future, the future of symmetry and ultimate success.”
—Frances E. Willard 1839–1898, U.S. president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1879-1891, author, activist. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 137-40 (January 1887)
“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)
“... contemporary black women felt they were asked to choose between a black movement that primarily served the interests of black male patriarchs and a women’s movement which primarily served the interests of racist white women.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)