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Capitalism has corrupted the Easter egg Britain's Christian chocolatiers are losing faith

Neither the chicken nor the egg (PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Neither the chicken nor the egg (PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)


April 7, 2023   6 mins

Britain’s first chocolate Easter egg was sold 150 years ago this year, by the chocolatier, Joseph Fry. It was hollow and filled with sweets. Whether Fry’s primary interest was in the egg as a Christian symbol, or whether the creation of a hollow egg was a means of showing off the new technique he had developed for moulding chocolate is, well, a chicken and egg question.

But Fry was undoubtedly a devout Christian of the Quaker variety, as were the other two of the big three British chocolatiers, the Cadburys and the Rowntrees, all of whom were directed towards manufacturing through being barred from most professions. They were drawn to chocolate in particular because they regarded it as a more moral treat, and that was how it was widely perceived: an innocent indulgence, supplied by men whose Quaker conscience dictated that they combine its manufacture with good works. In a wider sense, we might see that Fry’s egg as symbolising a strain of particularly moral — indeed, overtly Christian — capitalism, operating paternalistically both in its own workplaces and the surrounding community. The story of these eggs, and the companies that made them, therefore forms a simulacrum for the narrative of Britain since the Industrial Revolution, and the transition from local, civic-minded commerce toward globalised, faceless big business.   

I grew up in Seventies York, upon which the Rowntrees had been showering gifts for nearly a century. The primary benefactor had been Joseph Rowntree II, heir to the first Joseph Rowntree, who’d established the business in 1822. In 1893, JR II established Rowntree’s garden factory in York, whose 4,000 employees benefited from a female welfare worker, a doctor’s surgery, sick and provident funds, savings and pensions schemes. Nearby was — and is — New Earwsick, a model village for employees with pretty Arts and Crafts houses, each with a fruit tree in the front garden, and no two successive trees bore the same fruit, to promote crop-swapping and neighbourliness. There was a toytown air about the signs indicating “Butcher”, “Greengrocer”, ”Chemist”. No sign indicated “pub” of course.

Several members of my extended family worked for Rowntree’s, and they were entitled to heavily discounted chocolate, some of which came my way, and my mother always included a Kit-Kat in my packed lunch, a token of love from her, and (it seemed) the Rowntrees themselves. One could still almost believe that their primary concern was philanthropy and the creation of charitable trusts, while they left the chocolate making to secular subordinates.

I benefited in many ways from Rowntree largesse, playing tennis and swimming in Rowntree Park, acting in plays at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre and swotting for exams in York Library, which they’d funded. I never went inside the factory but did once visit its equivalent in the Midlands: Cadbury’s Bournville complex. This too is a garden factory, with a similarly relaxed spaciousness between the buildings, like pieces on a chess board towards the end of a game. I recall seeing, among many other tokens of paternalism, the factory dentist’s surgery, indicated by a sign in Cadbury’s purple. At the time (early 2000s) Cadbury’s seemed to have retained the “purity” (a word much employed in their advertising) we appeared to have lost in York.

Rowntree’s was acquired by Nestlé in 1988, and I remember being shocked at seeing the Swiss flag flying from the factory roof. Nestlé have since invested heavily in the York factory, but they admit that they don’t continue the Rowntree tradition of York benefactions, and the extent of their wider philanthropy is mysterious to me. A spokesperson for the firm said: “We don’t necessarily PR our charitable work.”

In 2010, Cadbury’s, which does still support the charitable Cadbury Foundation, was sold to the America-based multinational, Kraft, and is now owned by Mondelez, a company hived off from Kraft in 2012. In York, we knew all about Kraft. It had acquired the other York chocolatier, Terry’s, who were not Quakers, but whose factory — closed by Kraft in 1993 — nonetheless had a fishpond, bowling green and sports fields, and whose female hockey team played in the colours of one of their best-known brands: All Gold.

But even before British Big Chocolate entered a world you’d need a degree in business studies to comprehend, the companies had not been averse to capitalistic chess playing. In 1919, Cadbury’s had (gently and politely) acquired Fry’s, and in 1969, Cadbury’s merged with Schweppes, despite Schweppes mixers being used in alcoholic drinks. In his history of 20th-century confectionery, Sweet Talk, Nicholas Whittaker refutes the sentimental version of the Rowntree’s takeover, whereby Nestlé was seen as a bully spoiling for a fight: “Who should it be? Cadbury’s looked a bit too muscular, and that Mars was a Yankee smartarse. How about that Rowntree’s wimp in the corner, happily counting his Smarties? He’d do.” On the contrary, as Whittaker writes, it was “all about percentages, shareholdings and wheeler-dealing”.

The Quakers had also been worldly enough to embrace advertising even though, as Deborah Cadbury writes in her 2010 book, Chocolate Wars: “Advertising one’s goods was like advertising oneself; abhorrent to a man of God.” The heyday of chocolate advertising was in the Sixties and Seventies, and some of it was particularly un-Quaker like (the way those fashion models ate a Cadbury’s Flake, for instance). And whereas Cadbury and Rowntree’s benignity on the home front was unquestionable, they took their eye off the ball when it came to the cocoa-producing regions.

In 2021, in light of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Barrow Cadbury Trust — created in 1920, and now an independent charitable trust “inspired by Quaker beliefs” — apologised for the fact that their endowment was “not free from labour exploitation”. In the early 19th Century, Cadbury’s had acquired cocoa from plantations where slave labour had been used. The company eventually organised a boycott of those plantations by British cocoa manufacturers, but they had benefited from slave labour for eight years. Also in 2021, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust — established in 1904, and now “an independent Quaker charitable trust” — apologised for the “Rowntree company having purchased cocoa and other goods produced by enslaved people”.

Cocoa production is still bedevilled by labour exploitation, which is one reason why the Fairtrade label (imprimatur of the Fairtrade movement) was established in 1997. It is applied to goods produced ethically, for which a fair price had been paid. Neither Mondelez nor Nestlé are currently signed up to Fairtrade, although both have their own schemes of certification: Cocoa Life and Rainforest Alliance respectively. Cocoa Life operates in partnership with Fairtrade but neither it nor Rainforest Alliance guarantees a minimum price to cocoa farmers, which Fairtrade does. In 2009, Nestle’s Kit-Kat did become Fairtrade-registered, a momentous event, given the scale of Kit-Kat sales, but in 2020, Nestlé moved Kit-Kat into its Rainforest Alliance scheme. (Nestlé insisted this was about unifying all their products under one umbrella and not a moneysaving measure. But Joanna Pollard, a co-ordinator of Fairtrade Yorkshire contended that cocoa farmers would lose out heavily, and she presented a petition of protest with 300,000 signatures at their York factory.)

It tends to be only the smaller players who can now claim the moral high ground, a reversal of the previous situation. Tony’s Chocolonely (“crazy about chocolate, serious about people”) was founded in 2005 by a Dutch TV producer, Tuen van de Keuken, whose chocolate bars have irregular divisions, like crazy paving, to reflect the inequalities of the chocolate industry. The “lonely” tag is because van de Keuken felt as if he alone were addressing exploitation in chocolate farming, but the company’s moral claims go only so far. Chocolonely has never claimed there is no child labour in its supply chain, which is just as well, since, in 2022, the company reported that 1,701 instances of it had been found in the previous year — a situation it has undertaken to correct.

So there remains a moral dimension to the chocolate industry, albeit now a globalised one, and there is a new moral fraughtness, concerning our view of both its past and its social effects today. To the question of modern slavery, we might add the British obesity crisis that has come along to embarrass the chocolatiers. And in the modern age, there is even an anxiety about the nomenclature of their seasonal eggs. In one sense the creation of the chocolate egg pushed Easter in the child-oriented, secularised direction that Christmas had already begun to take in the Victorian period. (Decorated hard-boiled eggs had previously been given to the local poor rather than one’s own offspring.) While the Easter chocolate can be viewed as a Christian symbol, it is increasingly not so perceived.

In 2010, David Marshall crowdfunded the launch of the Meaningful Chocolate Company, having been given an Easter egg whose packaging proclaimed, “Easter is the festival of chocolate and loveliness.” Surveying the 80 million eggs on sale, he concluded that not a single manufacturer mentioned the religious aspect of the festival, hence his “Real Easter Egg”, which comes with a copy of the Easter story, is Fairtrade certified, and from the profits of which a donation is made to charity. By Easter 2023, 1.8 million of these eggs will have been sold, and without the aid of the supermarkets, who won’t stock an explicitly religious egg. Having spoken to Mr Marshall, I visited my local Sainsbury’s. About half the chocolate eggs on display were described as “Easter eggs”, but the E-word tended to be on the back of the package in small print rather than blazoned the front.

The Quaker capitalism behind Fry’s Easter egg has become shareholder capitalism. In a globalised world, the chocolate industry grew too big for a connection to any one place or system of belief, unless it be the belief in profit. In decades past, guided tours of the Rowntree factory were regularly offered to the general public. But, a few years ago, when I applied to Nestlé for a tour, they turned me down on the grounds that if they let me in, they’d be overwhelmed with other applicants.

And Quakerism itself is a faith in decline. As Deborah Cadbury writes “there was a time when one in 10 people in Britain were Quakers”, but when she visited Quaker HQ, the Society of Friends on Euston Road, she discovered that membership was down to 15,000. As Quakerism and Christianity has faded from the world of British chocolate, a very familiar modern landscape has replaced it: a transition from the solidity and faith of the past towards a liquid, rootless, profit-maximising present.


Andrew Martin is a journalist and novelist. His latest book is Yorkshire: There and Back.


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Russell Hamilton
Russell Hamilton
1 year ago

Worth reading for this alone: “without the aid of the supermarkets, who won’t stock an explicitly religious egg”

Dr Anne Kelley
Dr Anne Kelley
1 year ago

Agreed. I didn’t know that. I wonder why? They certainly are not shy when it comes to all the commercial paraphernalia around Christmas.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  Dr Anne Kelley

Increasingly, they can’t say “Christmas” either. Seasons greetings etc

miss pink
miss pink
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Yes, as with Easter, Christ doesn’t get a mention in supermarkets and shops among the whole madness of buy, buy buy! It’s also becoming increasingly difficult to buy anything associated with the Christmas story such as cribs or religious Christmas (or Easter) greeting cards.

miss pink
miss pink
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Yes, as with Easter, Christ doesn’t get a mention in supermarkets and shops among the whole madness of buy, buy buy! It’s also becoming increasingly difficult to buy anything associated with the Christmas story such as cribs or religious Christmas (or Easter) greeting cards.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  Dr Anne Kelley

Increasingly, they can’t say “Christmas” either. Seasons greetings etc

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
1 year ago

They should try selling to Americans or opening a division in the Bible Belt. Organized religion is alive and well over here. There are plenty of supermarkets who would stock such an item here.

Dr Anne Kelley
Dr Anne Kelley
1 year ago

Agreed. I didn’t know that. I wonder why? They certainly are not shy when it comes to all the commercial paraphernalia around Christmas.

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
1 year ago

They should try selling to Americans or opening a division in the Bible Belt. Organized religion is alive and well over here. There are plenty of supermarkets who would stock such an item here.

Russell Hamilton
Russell Hamilton
1 year ago

Worth reading for this alone: “without the aid of the supermarkets, who won’t stock an explicitly religious egg”

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago

The author comments on the Easter Egg as “an innocent indulgence, supplied by men whose Quaker conscience dictated that they combine its manufacture with good works”.

The Easter Egg may have lost much of its Christian symbolism but it is less capitalism that has weakened the impulse to do good works as the Welfare State.

In providing so much of the infrastructure of life through compulsory taxation the welfare state has taken over much of the good works that Christian capitalists saw as their moral obligation. Christian charity is reduced to filling in the gaps that open up in the bureaucratic state’s largesse – to attempting to ameliorate the lives not simply of their fellow men and women but to grapple with more intractable and untypical areas of poverty. Inevitably in addition Christian Charity must be weakened when shareholders can’t be assumed to have Christian Quaker consciences.

The impulse to give to ameliorate the lives of others still exists but is increasingly shouldered aside by government using taxation to pump money into favoured Charities that have themselves in many cases become bureaucratised businesses. Many now turn to local genuinely voluntary charities to satisfy the need to help others.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jeremy Bray
William Edward Henry Appleby
William Edward Henry Appleby
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

I prefer the state, whose government can be booted out every 5 years, to some lady bountiful type. Although I will say, if I wasn’t an atheist, then Quakerism is the only religion I’d consider joining, except that they’re pacifists, and I’m not one.

Andrew D
Andrew D
1 year ago

I’m sorry that no religion or spirituality has managed to make itself worthy of you

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

While I’m slightly envious of those believe you’d see all you family and friends again after you die as it’s more comforting than thinking you’ll be tossed in a hole and eaten by worms, and I can appreciate how the church has shaped attitudes and morals in western societies and the influences it has had, I’m not going to spend my Sunday’s in a church listening to a vicar drone on about something I ultimately don’t believe to be true.

Iris Violet
Iris Violet
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Amen

Iris Violet
Iris Violet
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Amen

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

He didn’t mention spirituality. It’s a mistake religionists frequently make, to conflate the two. Religion actually gets in the way of true spirituality.

Alan Tonkyn
Alan Tonkyn
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

As I’ve asked elsewhere, Steve, I’d like to know what you mean by ‘spirituality’. Atheists often come up with remarks such as ‘I’m not religious, but I am spiritual’. What DO they mean? ‘Spirit’ implies something metaphysical, but they are strong believers in the purely material. I think such atheists are trying to have their cake and eat it. ‘I’m not religious, but I can also claim to have those loftier notions associated with religious belief; I’m a serious, thoughtful, good person.’

Alan Tonkyn
Alan Tonkyn
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

As I’ve asked elsewhere, Steve, I’d like to know what you mean by ‘spirituality’. Atheists often come up with remarks such as ‘I’m not religious, but I am spiritual’. What DO they mean? ‘Spirit’ implies something metaphysical, but they are strong believers in the purely material. I think such atheists are trying to have their cake and eat it. ‘I’m not religious, but I can also claim to have those loftier notions associated with religious belief; I’m a serious, thoughtful, good person.’

William Edward Henry Appleby
William Edward Henry Appleby
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

That’s ok thanks, I’m not too worried. Being an atheist pretty much rules out any religion for me, but I warmed to “Quakers” because of their thoughtful, friendly and less judgemental nature; its a shame their numbers are on the decline.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

While I’m slightly envious of those believe you’d see all you family and friends again after you die as it’s more comforting than thinking you’ll be tossed in a hole and eaten by worms, and I can appreciate how the church has shaped attitudes and morals in western societies and the influences it has had, I’m not going to spend my Sunday’s in a church listening to a vicar drone on about something I ultimately don’t believe to be true.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

He didn’t mention spirituality. It’s a mistake religionists frequently make, to conflate the two. Religion actually gets in the way of true spirituality.

William Edward Henry Appleby
William Edward Henry Appleby
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

That’s ok thanks, I’m not too worried. Being an atheist pretty much rules out any religion for me, but I warmed to “Quakers” because of their thoughtful, friendly and less judgemental nature; its a shame their numbers are on the decline.

Perry de Havilland
Perry de Havilland
1 year ago

On purely utilitarian grounds, state ‘charity’ (which isn’t charity at all) welfare statism is typically less effective & far more wasteful than private genuinely religious charities (I am also an atheist btw). That said, many NGO charities are pretty ghastly as well, it is usually the smaller more targeted ones that actually get vastly better bang-for-the-buck

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago

My comment was directed to the suggestion that it was capitalism that had weakened the Christian charitable contribution to welfare displayed by the Quaker Chocolate firms. I suspect that the sort of charity provided by the directors of explicitly Christian firms was better targeted and more effective than modern government intervention. The National Health service merely replaced a network of charitable and self-help organisations and I suspect pound for pound the pre-NHS was more effective but was piecemeal and patchy.

Unfortunately, we can’t boot out our effective rulers every 5 years they remain very much in place whatever the complexion of the party whose Ministers circle ineffectually and briefly as heads of various departments.

Andrew D
Andrew D
1 year ago

I’m sorry that no religion or spirituality has managed to make itself worthy of you

Perry de Havilland
Perry de Havilland
1 year ago

On purely utilitarian grounds, state ‘charity’ (which isn’t charity at all) welfare statism is typically less effective & far more wasteful than private genuinely religious charities (I am also an atheist btw). That said, many NGO charities are pretty ghastly as well, it is usually the smaller more targeted ones that actually get vastly better bang-for-the-buck

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago

My comment was directed to the suggestion that it was capitalism that had weakened the Christian charitable contribution to welfare displayed by the Quaker Chocolate firms. I suspect that the sort of charity provided by the directors of explicitly Christian firms was better targeted and more effective than modern government intervention. The National Health service merely replaced a network of charitable and self-help organisations and I suspect pound for pound the pre-NHS was more effective but was piecemeal and patchy.

Unfortunately, we can’t boot out our effective rulers every 5 years they remain very much in place whatever the complexion of the party whose Ministers circle ineffectually and briefly as heads of various departments.

Tony Price
Tony Price
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

“Charity is a cold, grey, loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.” Clement Attlee, in The Social Worker, 1920

miss pink
miss pink
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Price

Hands up anyone who LOVES to pay their taxes and is happy knowing how well the government uses it.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  miss pink

Hands up who would be happy to give the equivalent amount to the church to spend as they see fit

William Edward Henry Appleby
William Edward Henry Appleby
1 year ago
Reply to  miss pink

Yes, but what are you going to replace it with? I have some anarcho-capitalist sympathies, but some semblance of state is necessary and usually has the economies of scale to solve big problems. My membership of a civilised society demands a membership fee, and that’s what I see my taxes as.

Last edited 1 year ago by William Edward Henry Appleby
Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  miss pink

Hands up who would be happy to give the equivalent amount to the church to spend as they see fit

William Edward Henry Appleby
William Edward Henry Appleby
1 year ago
Reply to  miss pink

Yes, but what are you going to replace it with? I have some anarcho-capitalist sympathies, but some semblance of state is necessary and usually has the economies of scale to solve big problems. My membership of a civilised society demands a membership fee, and that’s what I see my taxes as.

Last edited 1 year ago by William Edward Henry Appleby
Bill Ellson
Bill Ellson
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Price

cold, grey, loveless..” not Attlee, but Francis Beckett 1997 (Beckett tweaked it from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1888 essay Beggars)

Iris Violet
Iris Violet
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Price

The government is the very last organisation I’d trust my money too and paying taxes has never felt so awful to us before as it has over the last few years. There was peace in thinking it was to support those at the less fortunate end of our (local) societal system. Now most of us know better and – mostly due to mass immigration- it’s much like chucking it into a black hole. After the lockdowns Etc, recent talk of ‘investigation into royal slavery trade links and possible need to pay reparations’ likely from the public purse lately is another one of those things.

Tony Price
Tony Price
1 year ago
Reply to  Iris Violet

I’m sure that there are many, many organisations below the government in even your pecking order for entrusting your money but hyperbole aside what is your alternative?

Tony Price
Tony Price
1 year ago
Reply to  Iris Violet

I’m sure that there are many, many organisations below the government in even your pecking order for entrusting your money but hyperbole aside what is your alternative?

miss pink
miss pink
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Price

Hands up anyone who LOVES to pay their taxes and is happy knowing how well the government uses it.

Bill Ellson
Bill Ellson
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Price

cold, grey, loveless..” not Attlee, but Francis Beckett 1997 (Beckett tweaked it from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1888 essay Beggars)

Iris Violet
Iris Violet
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Price

The government is the very last organisation I’d trust my money too and paying taxes has never felt so awful to us before as it has over the last few years. There was peace in thinking it was to support those at the less fortunate end of our (local) societal system. Now most of us know better and – mostly due to mass immigration- it’s much like chucking it into a black hole. After the lockdowns Etc, recent talk of ‘investigation into royal slavery trade links and possible need to pay reparations’ likely from the public purse lately is another one of those things.

William Edward Henry Appleby
William Edward Henry Appleby
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

I prefer the state, whose government can be booted out every 5 years, to some lady bountiful type. Although I will say, if I wasn’t an atheist, then Quakerism is the only religion I’d consider joining, except that they’re pacifists, and I’m not one.

Tony Price
Tony Price
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

“Charity is a cold, grey, loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.” Clement Attlee, in The Social Worker, 1920

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago

The author comments on the Easter Egg as “an innocent indulgence, supplied by men whose Quaker conscience dictated that they combine its manufacture with good works”.

The Easter Egg may have lost much of its Christian symbolism but it is less capitalism that has weakened the impulse to do good works as the Welfare State.

In providing so much of the infrastructure of life through compulsory taxation the welfare state has taken over much of the good works that Christian capitalists saw as their moral obligation. Christian charity is reduced to filling in the gaps that open up in the bureaucratic state’s largesse – to attempting to ameliorate the lives not simply of their fellow men and women but to grapple with more intractable and untypical areas of poverty. Inevitably in addition Christian Charity must be weakened when shareholders can’t be assumed to have Christian Quaker consciences.

The impulse to give to ameliorate the lives of others still exists but is increasingly shouldered aside by government using taxation to pump money into favoured Charities that have themselves in many cases become bureaucratised businesses. Many now turn to local genuinely voluntary charities to satisfy the need to help others.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jeremy Bray
Kirk Susong
Kirk Susong
1 year ago

It is interesting that the author sees the decline of Quakerism in the UK as an example of the decline of public Christianity more broadly, as if Quakerism were just another Christian denomination. I think the connection is more complicated there.
Quakerism was one of the first Protestant sects to embrace the ‘just do good’ Social Gospel message that overwhelmed the larger denominations in the 20th century. And once you had replaced the Gospel with the Social Gospel (turning the message of Christianity on its head, from ‘you can’t do good’ to ‘you must do good’), you were left with just another good works club which asked little, which gave little, and which ultimately had little reason to exist. So now people that were Quakers 150 years ago are more likely to be passionately involved with secular charities.
As an American living in the UK, I remember the first time I saw a TV commercial here for a donkey charity, something which has no public profile in the US. I thought, in this country people send money to international charities to make old donkeys feel better in remote places… but you can’t pray on the street corner outside an abortion clinic lest you make a pregnant woman reflect on the weight of her decisions.
Is there any better example of the fundamental, underlying religious instinct of all humans, now squeezed through the narrow ideological limits of Modern Western Liberalism (you know: self-expression, authenticity, freedom, pleasure, “the pursuit of happiness”)?

Paul Nathanson
Paul Nathanson
1 year ago
Reply to  Kirk Susong

Yes, that’s exactly correct. Easter is not about morality, and Christianity is not, or was not, (directly) about “charity.” St. Paul did say that the three primary Christian virtues were faith, hope and “charity,” it’s true, but the latter is an English derivation of the Latin word caritas, which had a meaning (love) that went far beyond personal or institutional generosity. So it isn’t capitalism, per se, that has corrupted Easter but every attempt to translate religion into secular terms.
As for the egg, that’s a widespread symbol of fertility and springtime (and therefore appears, at one level of meaning, among other agrarian symbols on the seder table at Passover, another spring festival). I don’t see why producing, selling or eating candy eggs is a major threat to Christianity or any other religion.

Last edited 1 year ago by Paul Nathanson
Paul Nathanson
Paul Nathanson
1 year ago
Reply to  Kirk Susong

Yes, that’s exactly correct. Easter is not about morality, and Christianity is not, or was not, (directly) about “charity.” St. Paul did say that the three primary Christian virtues were faith, hope and “charity,” it’s true, but the latter is an English derivation of the Latin word caritas, which had a meaning (love) that went far beyond personal or institutional generosity. So it isn’t capitalism, per se, that has corrupted Easter but every attempt to translate religion into secular terms.
As for the egg, that’s a widespread symbol of fertility and springtime (and therefore appears, at one level of meaning, among other agrarian symbols on the seder table at Passover, another spring festival). I don’t see why producing, selling or eating candy eggs is a major threat to Christianity or any other religion.

Last edited 1 year ago by Paul Nathanson
Kirk Susong
Kirk Susong
1 year ago

It is interesting that the author sees the decline of Quakerism in the UK as an example of the decline of public Christianity more broadly, as if Quakerism were just another Christian denomination. I think the connection is more complicated there.
Quakerism was one of the first Protestant sects to embrace the ‘just do good’ Social Gospel message that overwhelmed the larger denominations in the 20th century. And once you had replaced the Gospel with the Social Gospel (turning the message of Christianity on its head, from ‘you can’t do good’ to ‘you must do good’), you were left with just another good works club which asked little, which gave little, and which ultimately had little reason to exist. So now people that were Quakers 150 years ago are more likely to be passionately involved with secular charities.
As an American living in the UK, I remember the first time I saw a TV commercial here for a donkey charity, something which has no public profile in the US. I thought, in this country people send money to international charities to make old donkeys feel better in remote places… but you can’t pray on the street corner outside an abortion clinic lest you make a pregnant woman reflect on the weight of her decisions.
Is there any better example of the fundamental, underlying religious instinct of all humans, now squeezed through the narrow ideological limits of Modern Western Liberalism (you know: self-expression, authenticity, freedom, pleasure, “the pursuit of happiness”)?

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
1 year ago

Though the author doesn’t present it as such, I’ve rarely seen a more succinct summation of how globalism is destroying our civilization, a little bit at a time. Small to medium sized companies still owned by a single family, companies with their own traditions and histories are gobbled up by faceless, nameless, and soulless international conglomerates, thereby permanently uprooting them from the culture they originally sprung from, and placing them into a one-size-fits-all cost minimized flower pot. Even Easter candy has been subjected to the scouring cloth of globalism that scrubs away culture, values, and meaning from everything it touches. It sickens me to think this is what our civilization has come to, the money changers in the temple, using God as a tool for profit and pretending righteousness through publicized self-glorifying forms of charity. Makes me want to overturn some tables.

Last edited 1 year ago by Steve Jolly
Peter Shaw
Peter Shaw
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Jolly

Great comment. I wholeheartedly agree.

Peter Shaw
Peter Shaw
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Jolly

Great comment. I wholeheartedly agree.

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
1 year ago

Though the author doesn’t present it as such, I’ve rarely seen a more succinct summation of how globalism is destroying our civilization, a little bit at a time. Small to medium sized companies still owned by a single family, companies with their own traditions and histories are gobbled up by faceless, nameless, and soulless international conglomerates, thereby permanently uprooting them from the culture they originally sprung from, and placing them into a one-size-fits-all cost minimized flower pot. Even Easter candy has been subjected to the scouring cloth of globalism that scrubs away culture, values, and meaning from everything it touches. It sickens me to think this is what our civilization has come to, the money changers in the temple, using God as a tool for profit and pretending righteousness through publicized self-glorifying forms of charity. Makes me want to overturn some tables.

Last edited 1 year ago by Steve Jolly
Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago

I did the old Law Society Finals in the College of Law in York in 1990-91. I had no ideas there was a chocolate factory there. On my first night, I borrowed my landlady’s lamp-less shopping bicycle and cycled around York. At one point, I thought I was going mad, as I could smell strawberry-flavoured chocolate.  I then read up about the Quakers and what they did in the York area. I’m not religious, in an organised sense, but always admired the Quakers.

Jon Barrow
Jon Barrow
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

I lived round the corner from Rowntrees. You could always smell the works, the most common smell was a malty tinge.

Jon Barrow
Jon Barrow
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

I lived round the corner from Rowntrees. You could always smell the works, the most common smell was a malty tinge.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago

I did the old Law Society Finals in the College of Law in York in 1990-91. I had no ideas there was a chocolate factory there. On my first night, I borrowed my landlady’s lamp-less shopping bicycle and cycled around York. At one point, I thought I was going mad, as I could smell strawberry-flavoured chocolate.  I then read up about the Quakers and what they did in the York area. I’m not religious, in an organised sense, but always admired the Quakers.

Rick Lawrence
Rick Lawrence
1 year ago

Most enjoyable read. My childhood in England was in the 50’s and early 60’s. At that time, and perhaps for several years after, I think it could be said that although the majority of English were not church-going Christians, we all knew and enjoyed the heritage,traditions, customs,and festivals that Christianity offered. The older generation still do. However, my parents and relatives never went to church except to get baptized, married and buried. Yet, at Easter we were all completely aware of why it was celebrated and what it represented. Therefore, the Easter Egg was seen much more as a symbol of something much much bigger than simply a chocolate treat. Today, when I look at my granddaughters, for example, they have zero clue as to the “meaning” of Easter. It’s just chocolate eggs and bunnies. Its a paradox that although I am not at all religious in the big R sense, I still feel a large regret of what Easter has become. The transition to a “liquid, rootless, profit-maximizing present”, as the author puts it, was inevitable. Everything else can be characterized in this way – why not chocolate eggs? What I regret is the loss of an opportunity for folks, especially the children, to have an opportunity to see the world as larger than themselves, if only for a day.

Last edited 1 year ago by Rick Lawrence
Jon Barrow
Jon Barrow
1 year ago
Reply to  Rick Lawrence

Yes modernity has stripped large chunks of the world of identity and meaning. If your primary concern is human fulfillment (something never mentioned by politicians but tangentially skirted by the ‘Wellness’ industry and the modern focus on personal choice etc.) rather than economic indicators (something constantly discussed) it’s been a long downward slide.

Jon Barrow
Jon Barrow
1 year ago
Reply to  Rick Lawrence

Yes modernity has stripped large chunks of the world of identity and meaning. If your primary concern is human fulfillment (something never mentioned by politicians but tangentially skirted by the ‘Wellness’ industry and the modern focus on personal choice etc.) rather than economic indicators (something constantly discussed) it’s been a long downward slide.

Rick Lawrence
Rick Lawrence
1 year ago

Most enjoyable read. My childhood in England was in the 50’s and early 60’s. At that time, and perhaps for several years after, I think it could be said that although the majority of English were not church-going Christians, we all knew and enjoyed the heritage,traditions, customs,and festivals that Christianity offered. The older generation still do. However, my parents and relatives never went to church except to get baptized, married and buried. Yet, at Easter we were all completely aware of why it was celebrated and what it represented. Therefore, the Easter Egg was seen much more as a symbol of something much much bigger than simply a chocolate treat. Today, when I look at my granddaughters, for example, they have zero clue as to the “meaning” of Easter. It’s just chocolate eggs and bunnies. Its a paradox that although I am not at all religious in the big R sense, I still feel a large regret of what Easter has become. The transition to a “liquid, rootless, profit-maximizing present”, as the author puts it, was inevitable. Everything else can be characterized in this way – why not chocolate eggs? What I regret is the loss of an opportunity for folks, especially the children, to have an opportunity to see the world as larger than themselves, if only for a day.

Last edited 1 year ago by Rick Lawrence
Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
1 year ago

Hmmm… If we’d stuck to marking the cycles of the sun and moon and venerating Mother Nature, I think the world would have turned out better. And we could have still celebrated the spring equinox with chocolate eggs.

Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
1 year ago

Hmmm… If we’d stuck to marking the cycles of the sun and moon and venerating Mother Nature, I think the world would have turned out better. And we could have still celebrated the spring equinox with chocolate eggs.