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The precise definition of what constitutes a Christian, though intrinsic to these distinctions, often remains a matter for dispute. Historian Arnold J. Toynbee , in the seventh volume of his 1961 '' A Study Of History '', discoursed at length on both the creation of universal churches by the internal Proletariats of failing Civilizations and their important role as a " Chrysalis " in the formation and nascent health of succeeding apparented civilizations. (For example, the Roman Catholic Church was formed by the disaffected subjects of the decaying Hellenic Civilization under the oppressive universal state of the Roman Empire , and served as the foundation for the subsequent Western Civilization .) Toynbee noted that the failure of the creative elite of a civilization to meet present challenges leads to the breakdown of universal Mimesis by which a society remains coherent and cooperative. This then presages the division of a civilization into a dominant but uncreative minority increasingly obsessed by power, technique and management; and both internal and external proletariats of the disaffected. The conflict between these parties can if unresolved lead to civilizational collapse and dissolution -- with the dominant minority creating a universal state or empire; the external proletariat creating barbarian war-bands in response; and the internal proletariat creating a universal church. SEE ALSO |
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