A bit of Gollwitzer on May Day

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In celebration of International Workers' Day, I offer you this snippet from Helmut Gollwitzer. This is where I started with him; perhaps you will too. And if you find it hard to discern the rhetorical direction of his remark, I'll go ahead and let you know now that he anticipates a negative answer to the the first half and a positive answer to the second half of his closing rhetorical question.

Helmut Gollwitzer, "Why I am a Christian Socialist," §4.6.
The conversion to which the Christian community is called daily through God's word also includes turning away from its bond in the dominant system of privileges and active engagement for more just social structures no longer determined by social privilege. Therefore the important primary question today is the question about the relation of Christian existence and capitalism, not the question of the relation of Christianity and socialism. Can one as a Christian affirm and defend the present social system together with its underlying economic order or must this system be intolerable for a Christian?

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