Upton Sinclair, the novelist and social reformer (The Jungle) once read a paraphrase of James 5 to a group of ministers after attributed it to Emma Goldman, an anarchist agitator. The ministers were so enraged they declared she ought to be deported.
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R. Kent Hughes, commentary on James
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Original from Sinclair himself:
http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Profits-of-Religion5.html
“The Profits of Religion,” by Upton Sinclair, 1917
Nowadays we have the Socialist and Anarchist agitators, following the same tradition, possessed by the same dream as the ancient Hebrew prophets. I . . mention Emma Goldman; it may be that the reader is not familiar with her writings, and does not realize how very Biblical she is, both in point of view and style. Let me quote a few sentences from a recent issue of her paper, “Mother Earth”, on the subject of our ruling classes and their social responsibility:
Yes, you idle rich, you may howl about what we mean to do to you!
Your riches are rotten and your fine clothes are falling from
your backs. Your stocks and bonds are so tainted that the ink on
them should turn to acid and eat holes in your pockets and your
skins. You have piled up your dirty millions, but what wages
have you paid to the poor devils of farm hands you have robbed?
And do you imagine they won’t remember it when the revolution
comes? You loll on soft couches and amuse yourselves with your
mistresses; you think you are “it” and the world is yours. You
send militiamen and shoot down our organizers, and we are
helpless. But wait, comrades, our time is coming.
Doubtless the reader is well satisfied that the author of this tirade is now in jail, where she can no longer defy the laws of good taste. [. .]
I might go on citing such quotations for many pages; but I know that Emma Goldman [and others] may read this book, and I don’t want them to close it in the middle and throw it at me. Therefore let me hasten to explain my poor joke; the sentiments I have been quoting are not those of our modern agitators, but of another group of ancient ones. [It] is not from Emma Goldman, nor did I find it in “Mother Earth”. I found it in the Epistle of James, believed by orthodox authorities to have been James, the brother of Jesus. It is exactly what he wrote — save that I have put it into modern phrases, and changed the swing of the sentences, in order that those familiar with the Bible might read it without suspicion.
And if the reader objects to my having fooled him for a minute or two, what will he say to the Christian Church, which has been fooling him for sixteen hundred years?
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #20912]