COMMUNISM AND CHRISTIANITY

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21886, 12 September 1936, Page 23

COMMUNISM AND CHRISTIANITY

* PHILOSOPHY OF H. G. WELLS CRITICISED That communist philosophy must result in Christianity if carried to its logical conclusion, and that Christianity if carried through must result in communism, was the opinion expressed by the Rev. A. M. Richards, of the West Coast, in an address entitled “Is Radicalism Radical Enough?” given to members of the Radical Club at Canterbury University College last evening. There were few people who did not want the world changed, Mr Richards said. Any movement insufficiently radical in its underlying philosophy would not be radical enough in its political action. The philosophy of H. G, Wells had this defect Wells had an exaggerated respect for mechanical science, believing that science which, in human hands, had resulted in our present “mess.” could bv increased doses get us out of it. Wells shared, too, the mechanical idea of a democracy in which society was a meaningless mass of individuals neither organically nor personally related. This idea, Mr Richards said, was proving its falsity to-day. “The more its exponents have given us political forms of freedom; the less free we become economically. Yet Wells’s belief that the present order of society is doomed is certainly sound.” Christianity offered the only solution, said Mr Richards.