History of Christianity

===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>