HUXLEY’S VIEWS ON RELIGION

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29068, 3 December 1959, Page 28

HUXLEY’S VIEWS ON RELIGION

Statements Found Disturbing (New Zeatana Press Association) HASTINGS, December 2. Mr R. G. Webb, principal of Te Aute College, a Church of England school catering mainly for Maoris, yesterday afternoon challenged statements by Sir Julian Huxley suggesting that Christianity would become outmoded.

He was supported by the Prime Minister (Mr Nash). At the prize-giving Mr Webb referred to “two somewhat disturbing statements” in newspaper reports in the last year, both attributed to Sir Julian Huxley. Sir Julian Huxley had first been reported as saying that in 50 years no thinking person would believe in Christianity. That statement appeared at the time so incredible that he had taken it to be a case of misrepresentation, Mr Webb said. In the second statement, Sir Julian Huxley was reported as saying to a science congress that the world was in need of a new religion based on the principle of recognition of man’s intellect and its application to the welfare of the human race.

Mr Webb said he would pay respect to Sir Julian Huxley as a famous biologist, but he could not let such statements go unchallenged. In his address to the boys, the Prime Minister referred to the remarks of Mr Webb. He said he did not know, in his reading, thinking and praying, any example in the life of one being which brought out all the best in man as did the life of Jesus Christ as recorded in the New Testament. There was nothing comparable. From what he had read of other religions he did not know of any other coming up to the way of life of the founder of the Christian faith.