Toynbee Talks on Western Religion

"I can confidently predict Christianity will be a spiritual force long after our civilization has passed away," historian Arnold J. Toynbee said in the third of the Hewitt Lectures yesterday.

Explaining the relation of Christianity to Western Civilization, Toynbee said that Western civilization depended on the Christian Church. The Church was like a "midwife" in the birth of Western European culture, he said.

The non-Christian content of this culture includes war and politics. During history, "the Church condoned, tried to redeem, but had on the whole little effect" on the lovers of war, Toynbee elaborated.

The fall of the "Western Christian commonwealth" in the Middle Ages can be partly attributed to the Church's inability to "resist temptation to oppose force by force," according to Toynbee.

He described opposition to nationalism as the main task of all higher religions in the 20th century. Christianity should realize the threat presented to it and the West by these forms of "worship of collective power," he said.

Arnold Toynbee's last lecture on "Religions" will be competing with Andre Siegfried's initial talks about politics tonight. Both speakers are scheduled to appear at 8 p.m. Toynbee will speak in Sanders, while Slegfried will give his lecture at Longfellow.