History of Christianity

==Revolution and modernity (1750–1945) ==
{{Further|Abolitionism|Late modern period|Christianity in the 18th century|Christianity in the 19th century|Christianity in the 20th century|Restorationism|Restoration Movement}}
After 1750, secularization at every level of European society can be observed.{{sfn|Jacob|2006|pp=272–273; 279}} Enlightenment had shifted the paradigm, and various ground-breaking discoveries such as [[Galileo Galilei|Galileo's]], led to the [[Scientific revolution]] (1600–1750) and an upsurge in skepticism. Virtually everything in western culture was subjected to systematic doubt including religious beliefs.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=398}} [[Biblical criticism]] emerged using scientific historical and literary criteria, and human reason, to understand the Bible.{{sfn|Law|2012|p=8,224}} This new approach made study of the Bible secularized and scholarly, and more democratic, as scholars began writing in their native languages making their works available to a larger public.{{sfn|Baird|1992|pp=201,118}} During the [[Age of Revolution]], the cultural center of Christianity shifted to the [[New World]].{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=431}}{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=432-433; 437}}{{sfn|Noll|2001|p=ix}} The [[American Revolution]] and its aftermath included legal assurances of religious freedom and a general turn to religious plurality in the new country.{{sfn|Marty|2006|p=524}} 

In the decades following the American revolution, [[French Revolution|France also experienced revolution]], and by 1794, radical revolutionaries had attempted to violently ‘de-Christianize’ France. For the next twenty years, French leaders pursued anticlerical or de-Christianizing policies. When Napoleon came to power, he re-established Catholicism as the majority view, and tried to make it dependent upon the state. ''The Cambridge History of Christianity'' has that Napoleon also practiced and exported the policies of "appropriating church lands, streamlining worship, increasing state surveillance of religion, and instituting religious toleration."{{sfn|Desan|2006|p=556}}

=== Awakenings (1730s–1850s) ===
Revival, known as the [[First Great Awakening]], swept through the American colonies between the 1730s and the 1770s. Both religious and political in nature, it had roots in German [[Pietism]] and British Evangelicalism, and was a response to the extreme rationalism of [[biblical criticism]], the anti-Christian tenets of the Enlightenment, and its threat of assimilation by the modern state.{{sfn|Ward|2006|pp=329; 347}}{{sfn|Heyrman|n.d.}}{{sfn|Smith|2014|p=19}}{{sfn|Valkenburgh|1994|p=172}}

Beginning among the [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]], revival quickly spread to [[Congregational church|Congregationalists]] (Puritans) and [[Baptist]]s, creating [[Evangelicalism in the United States|American Evangelicalism]] and [[Wesleyan theology|Wesleyan Methodism]].{{sfn|Jones|White|2012|p=xi; xv}} Battles over the movement and its dramatic style raged at both the congregational and denominational levels. This caused the division of American Protestantism into political 'Parties', for the first time, which eventually led to critical support for the American Revolution.{{sfn|Heimert|2006|p=2}}

In places like Connecticut and Massachusetts, where one denomination received state funding, churches now began to lobby local legislatures to end that inequity by applying the Reformation principle [[Separation of church and state in the United States|separating church and state]].{{sfn|Heyrman|n.d.}} Theological pluralism became the new norm.{{sfn|Ward|2006|p=347}}

The [[Second Great Awakening]] (1800–1830s) extolled moral reform as the Christian alternative to armed revolution. They established societies, separate from any church, to begin social reform movements concerning [[Abolitionism|abolition]], [[women's rights]], [[Temperance movement|temperance]] and to "teach the poor to read".{{sfn|Masters|Young|2022|loc=abstract}} These were pioneers in developing nationally integrated forms of organization, a practice which businesses adopted that led to the consolidations and mergers that reshaped the American economy.{{sfn|Mintz|1995|pp=51–53}} Here lie the beginnings of the [[Latter Day Saint movement]], the [[Restoration Movement]] and the [[Holiness movement]]. The [[Third Great Awakening]] began from 1857 and was most notable for taking the movement throughout the world, especially in English speaking countries.{{sfn|Cairns|2015|p=26}}

[[Restorationism|Restorationists]] were prevalent in America, but they have not described themselves as a reform movement but have, instead, described themselves as ''restoring'' the Church to its original form as found in the book of Acts. It gave rise to the [[Restoration Movement|Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement]], [[Adventism]], and the [[Jehovah's Witnesses]].{{sfn|Hughes|2004|p=635}}{{sfn|Mannion|Mudge|2008|p=217}} 
[[File:Slavery19.jpg|thumb|left|An example of an anti-slavery tract|alt=example of an anti-slavery tract concerning the separation of black families]]
[[File:Sojourner Truth, 1870 (cropped, restored).jpg|thumb|Born into slavery, [[Sojourner Truth]] escaped with her infant daughter in 1826, became an abolitionist and activist for African-American civil rights, women's rights, and alcohol temperance. This photograph was taken in Swartekill, New York, 1870 (cropped, restored)|alt=this is a restored photo of Sojourner Truth who escaped slavery and became an abolitionist]]
For over 300 years, Christians in Europe and North America participated in the [[Atlantic slave trade|Trans-Atlantic slave trade]].{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=517–518}} Moral objections had surfaced very soon after the establishment of the trade.{{refn|group=note|Thereafter, missions to the slaves attempted, Brown says, to "make slaveholding conform with the ideal of Christian servitude, and to render the institution more humane and more just."{{sfn|Brown|2006|p=521}} However, for many owners, missionary work among the slaves was a threat that would blur social boundaries and encourage slaves to see themselves as a Christian community equal to those who held them in bondage. Masters often held religion in contempt, and typically harassed converts and forbade access to other Christians.{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=521–523; 524}}}} The Religious Society of Friends ([[Quakers]]), followed by [[Methodism|Methodists]], [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]] and [[Baptists]], campaigned, wrote, and spread pamphlets against the Atlantic slave trade and organized the first [[American Anti-Slavery Society|anti-slavery societies]].{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=519,520,528}} Those impacted by the Second Great Awakening continued this.{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=525–528}}{{sfn|Morgan|2022}} In the years after the American Revolution, black congregations led by black preachers brought revival, promoted communal and cultural autonomy, and provided the institutional base for keeping abolitionism alive.{{sfn|Brown|2006|p=530}}

Abolitionism did not flourish in absolutist states, and slavery and human-trafficking remain common in twenty-first century Islamic states.{{sfn|Brown|2006|p=533}}{{sfn|Ibrahim|2023|p=449}} It was the Protestant revivalists in both England and America, the Quaker example, African Americans themselves, and the new American republic that produced the "gradual but comprehensive abolition of slavery" in the West.{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=525–526}}

===Church, state and society===
Revolution broke the power of the Old World aristocracy, offered hope to the disenfranchised, and enabled the middle class to reap the economic benefits of the [[Industrial Revolution]].{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=461}} 
Scholars have since identified a positive correlation between the rise of Protestantism and [[human capital]] formation,{{sfn|Boppart|Falkinger|Grossmann|2014|pp=874–895}} [[Protestant work ethic|work ethic]],{{sfn|Schaltegger|Torgler|2010|pp=99–101}} [[economic development]],{{sfn|Spater|Tranvik|2019|pp=1963–1994}} and the development of the state system.{{sfn|Becker|Pfaff|Rubin|2016}} Weber says this contributed to economic growth and the development of banking across Northern Europe.{{sfn|Lloyd|2013|p=106}}{{sfn|McKinnon |2010|pp=108–126}}{{refn|group=note|[[Max Weber]] in his book ''[[The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism]]'' (1904–1905) asserted that Protestant ethics and values along with the Calvinist doctrine of [[asceticism]] and [[predestination]] gave birth to [[Capitalism]].{{sfn|Weber|Kalberg|2012|pp=xi, xxviii, xxxiv–xxxvi, xl, 3–5, 103–126}}{{sfn|tutor2u|2018}} It is one of the most influential and cited books in sociology, yet its thesis has been controversial since its release. In opposition to Weber, historians such as [[Fernand Braudel]] and [[Hugh Trevor-Roper]] assert that capitalism developed in pre-Reformation Catholic communities. [[Joseph Schumpeter]], an economist of the twentieth century, has referred to the [[Scholasticism|Scholastics]] as "they who come nearer than does any other group to having been the 'founders' of scientific economics".{{sfn|Schumpeter|1954|p=93}}}}

=== Protestant Missions (1800s–1945) ===
While the sixteenth century is generally seen as the "great age of Catholic expansion", the nineteenth century was that for Protestantism.{{sfn|Gonzalez|2010b|p=302}} Missionaries had a significant role in shaping multiple nations, cultures and societies.{{sfn|Robert|2009|p=1}} A missionary's first job was to get to know the indigenous people and work with them to translate the Bible into their local language. Approximately 90% were completed, and the process also generated a written [[grammar]], a [[lexicon]] of native traditions, and a [[dictionary]] of the local language. This was used to teach in missionary schools resulting in the spread of literacy.{{sfn|Táíwò|2010|pp=68–70}}{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|p=xx}}{{sfn|Isichei|1995|p=9}}

[[Lamin Sanneh]] writes that native cultures responded with "movements of [[indigenization]] and cultural liberation" that developed national literatures, mass printing, and voluntary organizations which have been instrumental in generating a democratic legacy.{{sfn|Táíwò|2010|pp=68–70}}{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|pp=xx; 265}} On the one hand, the political legacies of colonialism include political instability, violence and ethnic exclusion, which is also linked to civil strife and civil war.{{sfn|de Juan|Pierskalla|2017|pp=161–162}} On the other hand, the legacy of Protestant missions is one of beneficial long-term effects on [[human capital]], political participation, and [[democratization]].{{sfn|de Juan|Pierskalla|2017|p=161}}
 
In America, missionaries played a crucial role in the acculturation of the American Indians.{{sfn|McLoughlin|1984|p=abstract}}{{sfn|Eder|Reyhner|2017|p=3}}{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|pp=134–137}} The history of [[American Indian boarding schools|boarding schools]] for the indigenous populations in Canada and the US shows a continuum of experiences ranging from happiness and refuge to suffering, forced assimilation, and abuse. The majority of native children did not attend boarding school at all. Of those that did, many did so in response to requests sent by native families to the Federal government, while many others were forcibly taken from their homes.{{sfn|Eder|Reyhner|2017|pp=6; 190}} Over time, missionaries came to respect the virtues of native culture, and spoke against national policies.{{sfn|McLoughlin|1984|p=abstract}}

===Twentieth century===
[[Liberal Christianity]], sometimes called liberal theology, is an umbrella term for religious movements within late 18th, 19th and 20th-century Christianity. According to theologian [[Theo Hobson]], liberal Christianity has two traditions. Before the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, liberalism was synonymous with [[Idealism (Christian eschatology)|Christian Idealism]] in that it imagined a liberal State with political and cultural liberty.{{sfn|Hobson|2013|pp=1, 3, 4}}

The second tradition was from seventeenth century rationalism's efforts to wean Christianity from its "irrational cultic" roots.{{sfn|Hobson|2013|p=3}} Lacking any grounding in Christian "practice, ritual, sacramentalism, church and worship", liberal Christianity lost touch with the fundamental necessity of faith and ritual in maintaining Christianity.{{sfn|Hobson|2013|p=4}} This led to the birth of fundamentalism and liberalism's decline.{{sfn|Hobson|2013|pp=1, 4}}

[[Christian fundamentalism|Fundamentalist Christianity]] is a movement that arose mainly within British and American Protestantism in the late 19th century and early 20th century in reaction to [[Modernist Christianity|modernism]].{{sfn|Gasper|2020|p=13}} Before 1919, fundamentalism was loosely organized and undisciplined. Its most significant early movements were the holiness movement and the millenarian movement with its premillennial expectations of the second coming.{{sfn|Harris|1998|p=22}}

In 1925, fundamentalists participated in the [[Scopes trial]], and by 1930, the movement appeared to be dying.{{sfn|Gasper|2020|pp=14, 18}} Then in the 1930s, [[Neo-orthodoxy]], a theology against liberalism combined with a reevaluation of Reformation teachings, began uniting moderates of both sides.{{sfn|Gasper|2020|p=19}} In the 1940s, "new-evangelicalism" established itself as separate from fundamentalism.{{sfn|Harris|1998|pp=42, 57}} Today, fundamentalism is less about doctrine than political activism.{{sfn|Harris|1998|p=325}}

====Christianity and Nazism====
[[File:Papst Pius XI. 1JS.jpg|thumb|right|180px|[[Pope Pius XI]]|alt=image of Pope Pius XI seated on a throne]]
{{See also|Persecution of Christians in Nazi Germany|Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust}}
{{Further|Catholic Church and Nazi Germany|Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany|Confessing Church|Kirchenkampf|German Christians (movement)|Positive Christianity}}

[[Pope Pius XI]] declared in ''[[Mit brennender Sorge]]'' (English: "With rising anxiety") that [[Fascism|fascist]] governments had hidden "pagan intentions" and expressed the irreconcilability of the Catholic position with [[totalitarian]] fascist state worship which placed the nation above God, fundamental [[human rights]], and dignity.{{sfn|Holmes|1981|p=116}}

In Poland, Catholic priests were arrested and Polish priests and nuns were executed en masse.{{sfn|Rossino|2003|p=72, 169, 185, 285}}

Most leaders and members of the largest Protestant church in Germany, the [[German Evangelical Church]], which had a long tradition of nationalism and support of the state, supported the Nazis when they came to power.{{sfn|United States Holocaust Memorial Museu|n.d.}} A smaller contingent, about a third of German Protestants, formed the [[Confessing Church]] which opposed Nazism. In a study of sermon content, William Skiles says "Confessing Church pastors opposed the Nazi regime on three fronts... first, they expressed harsh criticism of Nazi persecution of Christians and the German churches; second, they condemned National Socialism as a false ideology that worships false gods; and third, they challenged Nazi anti-Semitic ideology by supporting Jews as the chosen people of God and Judaism as a historic foundation of Christianity".{{sfn|Skiles|2017|p=4}}

Nazis interfered in The Confessing Church's affairs, harassed its members, executed mass arrests and targeted well known pastors like Martin Niemöller and [[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]].{{sfn|Skiles|2017|pp=4, 22–23}}{{sfn|Barnett|1992|pp=40, 59, 79–81}}{{refn|group=note|By October 1944, 45% of all pastors and 98% of non-ordained vicars and candidates had been drafted into military service; 117 German pastors of Jewish descent served at this time, and yet at least 43% fled Nazi Germany because it became impossible for them to continue in their ministries.{{sfn|Skiles|2017|pp=22–23}}}} Bonhoeffer, a pacifist, was arrested, found guilty in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler and executed.{{sfn|Green|2015|p=203}}

====Russian Orthodoxy====
{{Further|Religion in the Soviet Union}}The [[Russian Orthodox Church]] held a privileged position in the [[Russian Empire]], expressed in the motto of the late empire from 1833: [[Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Populism]]. Nevertheless, the [[Church reform of Peter I]] in the early 18th century had placed the Orthodox authorities under the control of the [[tsar]]. An ober-procurator appointed by the tsar ran the committee which governed the Church between 1721 and 1918: the [[Most Holy Synod]]. The Church became involved in the various campaigns of [[russification]] and contributed to antisemitism.{{sfn|Shlikhta|2004|pp=361–273}}{{sfn|Klier|Lambroza|2004|p=306}}

[[File:Christ saviour explosion.jpg|thumb|Demolition of the [[Cathedral of Christ the Saviour]] in Moscow on the orders of [[Joseph Stalin]], 5 December 1931, consistent with the doctrine of [[state atheism]] in the USSR|alt=image of "Cathedral of Christ the Savior" in Moscow turning to dust as it collapses on the orders of Joseph Stalin in 1931.{{sfn|Rappaport|1999|p=201, 223}}]]
The [[Bolsheviks]] and other Russian revolutionaries saw the Church, like the tsarist state, as an [[enemy of the people]]. Criticism of atheism was strictly forbidden and sometimes led to imprisonment.{{sfn|Calciu-Dumitreasa|1983|pp=5–8}}{{sfn|Eidintas|2001|p= 23}} Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers included torture, being sent to [[gulags|prison camps]], [[sharashka|labour camps]] or [[Psikhushka|mental hospitals]], as well as execution.{{sfn|Bouteneff|1998|pp=vi–1}}{{sfn|Sullivan|2006}} Historian Scott Kenworthy describes the persecution of the church under communism as "unparalleled by any in Christian history".{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=178}} 

In the first five years after the [[October Revolution]], one journalist reported 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed.{{sfn|Ostling|2001}} This included former nobility like the [[Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna]], at this point a nun, the [[Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich]], the Princes [[Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia|Ioann Konstantinvich]], [[Prince Constantine Constantinovich of Russia|Konstantin Konstantinovich]], [[Igor Konstantinovich of Russia|Igor Konstantinovich]] and [[Vladimir Paley|Vladimir Pavlovich Paley]], Grand Duke Sergei's secretary, Fyodor Remez; and [[Varvara Yakovleva]], a sister from the Grand Duchess Elizabeth's convent. Other scholarship reports that 8,000 were killed in 1922 during the conflict over church valuables.{{sfn|Pipes|1995|p=356}} Under the [[state atheism]] of the [[Soviet Union]] and the [[Eastern Bloc]], the [[League of Militant Atheists]] aided in the persecution of many Christian denominations, with many churches and monasteries being destroyed, as well as clergy being executed.{{refn|group=note|"One of the first assignments of state atheism was the eradication of religion. In their attempt to destroy faith in God, Soviet authorities used all means of persecution, arrests and trials, imprisonment in psychiatric hospitals, house raids and searches, confiscations of Bibles and New Testaments and other Christian literature, disruption of worship services by the militia and KGB, slander campaigns against Christians in magazines and newspapers, on TV and radio. Persecution of Evangelical Baptists was intensified in the early 1960s and continues to the present".{{sfn|United States Congress|1985|p=129}}{{paragraph break}}"In the Soviet Union the Russian Orthodox Church was suffering unprecedented persecution. The closing and destruction of churches and monasteries, the sate atheism imposed on all aspects of life, the arrest, imprisonment, exile and execution of bishops, clergy, monastics, theologians and tens of thousands of active members had brought the Church to prostration. The voice of the Church in society as silenced, its teaching mocked, its extinction predicted".{{sfn|Cunningham|Theokritoff|2008|p=261}}{{paragraph break}}"One of the main activities of the League of Militant Atheists was the publication of massive quantities of anti-religious literature, comprising regular journals and newspapers as well as books and pamphlets. The number of printed pages rose from 12 million in 1927 to 800 million in 1930. All these legislative and publicistic efforts were, however, only incidental to the events of the 1930s. During this period religion, was quite simply, to be eliminated by means of violence. With the end of NEP came the start of forced collectivisation in 1929, and with it the terror, which encompassed ''kulaks'' and class enemies of all kinds, including bishops, priests, and lay believers, who were arrested, shot and sent to labour camps. Churches were closed down, destroyed, converted to other uses. The League of Militant Atheists apparently adopted a five-year plan in 1932 aimed at the total eradication of religion by 1937".{{sfn|Walters|2005|pp=14–15}}}}

Despite centuries of oppression and martyrdom under hostile rule, the Orthodox churches of the twentieth century have continued to contribute to theology, spirituality, liturgy, music, and art.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=178}}  <blockquote>Important movements within the church have been the revival of a Eucharistic ecclesiology, of traditional iconography, of monastic life and spiritual traditions such as [[Hesychasm]], and the rediscovery of the Greek Church Fathers.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=177}}</blockquote>