History of Christianity Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Christianity since 1945== {{Main|History of Christianity of the Late Modern era|World Christianity}} {{See also|Christianity in the 20th century|Christianity in the 21st century}} In its second millennia, Western Christianity had expanded, colonized, reformed, and embraced aspects of secularism. At the same time, Eastern Christianity faced the huge challenges (from both Islam and Western Christianity) of being conquered and oppressed, enduring, then reviving.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=178}} By the twentieth century, the nineteenth-century revolutions that had established the Serbian, Greek, Romanian, and Bulgarian nations had changed Orthodoxy from a universal church into a series of national churches that became subordinate to nationalism and the state.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=175}} Coptic Christianity went from survival as a small minority church to revival in the twentieth century.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=178}} Beginning in the late twentieth century, the traditional [[Church (congregation)|church]] has been declining in the West.{{sfn|Houtman|Aupers|2007|p=305}} Characterized by Roman Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism, a church functions within society, engaging it directly through preaching, teaching ministries and service programs like local food banks. Theologically, churches seek to embrace secular method and rationality while refusing the secular worldview.{{sfn|Meyer|2010|p=2}} Christian [[sect]]s, such as the [[Amish]] and [[Mennonites]], traditionally withdraw from, and minimize interaction with, society at large; however, the Old Order Amish have become the fastest growing subpopulation in the U.S.{{sfn|Conlin|2021|p=419}} The 1960s saw the rise of [[Pentecostalism]] and [[charismatic Christianity]], emphasizing the inward experience of personal piety and spirituality.{{sfn|Meyer|2010|p=465}}{{sfn|Anderson|2006|p=101}} In 2000, approximately one quarter of all Christians worldwide were part of Pentecostalism and its associated movements.{{sfn|Burgess|2006|p=xiii}} By 2025, Pentecostals are expected to constitute one-third of the nearly three billion Christians worldwide.{{sfn|Deininger|2014|p=5}} Deininger writes that Pentecostalism is the fastest growing religious movement in global Christianity.{{sfn|Deininger|2014|pp=1–2, 5}} Christianity has been challenged in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by modern secularism.{{sfn|Palmer-Fernandes|1991|p=463}}{{sfn|Meyer|2010|p=5}} New forms of religion which embrace the sacred as a deeper understanding of the self have begun.{{sfn|Houtman|Aupers|2007|p=305}}{{sfn|Houtman|Aupers|2007|p=315}} This spirituality is private and individualistic, and differs radically from Christian tradition, dogma and ritual, taking various separate directions in its implementation.{{sfn|Houtman|Aupers|2007|p=317}}{{sfn|Palmer-Fernandes|1991|pp=511–512}} === New forms === [[File:Laying on of hands, Dr. Ebenezer Markwei.jpg|thumb|Laying on of hands during a service in a [[Neo-charismatic movement|neo-charismatic church]] in [[Ghana]]|alt=image of modern-day African service in Ghana with laying on of hands]] In the early twentieth century, the study of two highly influential religious movements, the [[Social gospel|social gospel movement]] (1870s–1920s) and [[Ecumenism|the global ecumenical movement]] (beginning in 1910), provided the context for the rise of American [[sociology]] as an academic discipline.{{sfn|Zurlo|2015|p=177}} Later, the [[Social Gospel]] and [[liberation theology]], which tend to be highly critical of traditional Christian ethics, made the [[Kingdom of God (Christianity)|"kingdom ideals"]] of Jesus their goal. First focusing on the community's sins, rather than the individual's failings, they sought to foster [[social justice]], expose institutionalized sin, and redeem the institutions of society.{{sfn|Wilkins|2017|pp=24–28}}{{sfn|Rauschenbusch|1917|p=5}} Ethicist [[J. Philip Wogaman|Philip Wogaman]] says the social gospel and liberation theology redefined justice in the process.{{sfn|Wogaman|2011|p=325}} Originating in America in 1966, [[Black theology]] developed a combined social gospel and liberation theology that mixes Christianity with questions of civil rights, aspects of the Black Power movement, and responses to black Muslims claiming Christianity was a "White man's" religion.{{sfn|Akanji|2010|pp=177–178}} Spreading to the United Kingdom, then parts of Africa, confronting apartheid in South Africa, Black theology explains Christianity as liberation for this life not just the next.{{sfn|Akanji|2010|pp=177–178}} Racial violence around the world over the last several decades demonstrates how troubled issues of race remain in the twenty-first century.{{sfn|Harvey|2016|p=186}} The historian of race and religion, Paul Harvey, says that, in 1960s America, "The religious power of the [[civil rights movement]] transformed the American conception of race."{{sfn|Harvey|2016|p=189}} Then the social power of the [[Christian right|religious right]] responded in the 1970s by recasting evangelical concepts in political terms that included racial separation.{{sfn|Harvey|2016|p=189}} The [[prosperity theology|Prosperity Gospel]] promotes racial reconciliation and has become a powerful force in American religious life.{{sfn|Harvey|2016|pp=196–197}} The Prosperity gospel is a flexible adaptation of the [[Neo-charismatic movement|‘Neo-Pentecostalism’]] that began in the twentieth century's last decades.{{sfn|Coleman|2016|pp=280; 287}} While globally, Prosperity discourse may represent a cultural invasion of American-ism, and may even muddy the waters between the religious, and the economic and political, it has still become a trans-national movement.{{sfn|Coleman|2016|p=290}} Prosperity ideas have diffused in countries such as [[Brazil]] and other parts of [[South America]], [[Nigeria]], [[South Africa]], [[Ghana]] and other parts of [[West Africa]], [[China]], [[India]], [[South Korea]], and the [[Philippines]].{{sfn|Coleman|2016|pp=281; 283; 286–287; 290}} It represents a shift from the Reformation view of biblical authority to the authority of [[Spiritual gift|charisma]]. It has suffered from accusations of financial fraud and sex scandals around the world, but it is critiqued most heavily by Christian evangelicals who question how genuinely Christian the Prosperity Gospel is.{{sfn|Coleman|2016|pp=277, 289–290}} [[Feminist theology]] began in 1960.{{sfn|Hilkert|1995|p=abstract}} In the last years of the twentieth century, the re-examination of old religious texts through diversity, otherness, and difference developed [[womanist theology]] of African-American women, the [[Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz|"mujerista" theology]] of Hispanic women, and insights from [[Asian feminist theology]].{{sfn|Hilkert|1995|p=327}} ====Post-colonial decolonization after 1945==== After World War II, Christian missionaries played a transformative role for many colonial societies moving them toward independence through the development of [[decolonization]].{{sfn|Fontaine|2016|pp=6–8}}{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|p=285}} In the mid to late 1990s, [[postcolonial theology]] emerged globally from multiple sources.{{sfn|Segovia|Moore|2007|pp=4–5}} Biblical scholars [[Fernando F. Segovia]] and Stephen D. Moore write that it analyzes structures of power and ideology in order to recover what colonialism erased or suppressed in indigenous cultures.{{sfn|Segovia|Moore|2007|pp=6, 11}} ====Missions==== The missionary movement of the twenty-first century has transformed into a multi-cultural, multi-faceted global network of [[Non-governmental organization|NGO's]], short term amateur volunteers, and traditional long-term bi-lingual, bi-cultural professionals who focus on evangelism and local development and not on 'civilizing' native people.{{sfn|Robert|2009|p=73}}{{sfn|Cooper|2005|pp=3–4}} === Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) === {{Main|Second Vatican Council}} [[File:Franciscus in 2015.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Pope Francis]]|alt=image of Pope Francis in 2015]] On 11 October 1962, [[Pope John XXIII]] opened the [[Second Vatican Council]], the 21st [[ecumenical council]] of the Catholic Church. The council is perhaps best known for its instructions that the Mass may be celebrated in the vernacular as well as in Latin.{{sfn|O'Collins|2014|pp=16–23}} ====Ecumenism (1964)==== {{Main|Ecumenism}} On 21 November 1964, the Second Vatican Council published ''[[Unitatis redintegratio|Unitatis Redintegratio]],'' stating that Roman Catholic ecumenical goals are to establish full communion amongst all the various Christian churches.{{sfn|Chinnici|2012|p=22}}{{sfn|Cassidy|2005|p=106}} Amongst Evangelicals, there is no agreed upon definition, strategy or goal.{{sfn|Pintarić|2014|p=abstract}} Different [[ecclesiology|theologies on the nature of the Church]] have produced some hostility toward the formalism of the [[World Council of Churches]].{{sfn|Clifton|2012|p=544}}{{sfn|O'Connell|2006}} In the twenty-first century, sentiment is widespread that ecumenism has stalled.{{sfn|Asprey|2008|p=3}} ===Christianity in the Global South and East=== ==== Africa (19th–21st centuries) ==== [[File:Countries by percentage of Protestants 1938.svg|thumb|Countries by percentage of Protestants, 1938|alt=Map of Protestant Christianity in 1938]] [[File:Percent of Christians by Country–Pew Research 2011.svg|thumb|Christian distribution globally based on PEW research in 2011{{sfn|PEW Research Center|2022}}|alt=map of worldwide Christianity in 2011]] Western missionaries began the "largest, most diverse and most vigorous movement of cultural renewal in [the] history" of Africa writes historian Lammin Sanneh.{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|pp=xx–xxii}}{{sfn|Sanneh|2016|p=279; 285}} In 1900 under colonial rule there were just under 9 million Christians in Africa. By 1960, and the end of colonialism there were about 60 million. By 2005, African Christians had increased to 393 million, about half of the continent's total population at that time.{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|p=xx}} Population in Africa has continued to grow with the percentage of Christians remaining at about half in 2022.{{sfn|PEW Research Center|2022}} This expansion has been labeled a "fourth great age of Christian expansion".{{sfn|Isichei|1995|p=[https://archive.org/details/historyofchristi0000isic/page/n13/mode/2up 1]}} Examples include Simon Kimbangu's movement, the [[Kimbanguism|Kimbanguist church]], which had a radical reputation in its early days in the [[Democratic Republic of the Congo|Congo]], was suppressed for forty years, and has now become the largest independent church in Africa with upwards of 3 million members.{{sfn|Fernandez|1979|pp=284, 285}} In 2019, 65% of [[Melillans]] in Northern Africa across from Spain identify themselves as Roman Catholic.{{sfn|Ponce Herrero|Martí Ciriquián|2019|pp=101–124}} In the early twenty-first century, [[Kenya]] has the largest yearly meeting of [[Quakers]] outside the United States. In [[Uganda]], more [[Anglicans]] attend church than do so in [[England]]. Ahafo, [[Ghana]] is recognized as more vigorously Christian than any place in the United Kingdom.{{sfn|Isichei|1995|p=1}} There is revival in East Africa, and vigorous women's movements called ''Rukwadzano'' in [[Zimbabwe]] and ''Manyano'' in [[South Africa]]. [[Apostles of Johane Maranke|The Apostles of John Maranke]], which began in Rhodesia, now have branches in seven countries.{{sfn|Isichei|1995|p=2}} ====Asia==== Christianity is growing rapidly in China, Korea, and Southeast Asia.{{sfn|Jenkins|2011|pp=89–90}}{{sfn|Zurlo|2020|pp=3–9}} A rapid expansion of charismatic Christianity began in the 1980s, leading Asia to rival Latin America in the population of Charismatic and Pentecostal Christians.{{sfn|Singapore Management University|2017}}{{sfn|Anderson|Tang|2005|p=2}} Increasing numbers of young people in China are becoming Christians. [[Council on Foreign Relations]] data shows a 10% yearly growth in Chinese Christian populations since 1979.{{sfn|Albert|2018|p=n/a}}{{sfn|America magazine|2018|ps=: "A study of the religious lives of university students in Beijing published in a mainland Chinese academic journal ''Science and Atheism'' in 2013 showed Christianity to be the religion that interested students most and was the most active on campuses."}} According to a 2021 study by the Pew Research Center, Christianity has grown in India in recent years.{{sfn|Sahgal|Evans|Salazar|Starr|2021|p=n/a}}{{sfn|Frykenberg|Low|2003|p=228}} ===Persecution=== {{Main|Persecution of Christians in the post–Cold War era}}Anti-Christian persecution has become a consistent human rights concern.{{sfn|Allen Jr.|2016|pp=x–xi}} In 2013, 17 Middle Eastern Muslim majority states reported 28 of the 29 types of religious discrimination against 45 of the 47 religious minorities, including Christianity.{{sfn|Fox|2013|p=abstract}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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