History of Christianity

=== 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}}
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