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The history of Christianity. The sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth centuries
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
The greatest Renaissance scholar and the greatest humanist of all time is the Dutchman Erasmus (1469-1536). Just like Luther he was an Augustinian monk. In many publications he mocked at all kinds of abuses in the Church and the disgraceful behavior of both worldly and ecclesiastical dignitaries. He dared to ridicule situations and persons that nobody before him had dared to attack so openly. He wanted the Bible to be available in the modern European languages for everybody. With his powerful argument for intellectual freedom he paved the way for reforms in Church and in society.
---The real reforms came through another Augustinian monk: Martin Luther (1483-1546). On 31 October 1517 he posted a document with 95 theses protesting the sale of indulgences on the front door of his parish-church in Wittenburg, Germany. This simple act triggered a chain-reaction of resistance against all the abuses within the Catholic Church of those days and a lasting falling apart of supporters and opponents of Luther and his followers. Christianity split up in a Roman Catholic branch and an anti-Roman Protestant branch. Luther and his followers rejected the authority of the Catholic Church in matters of faith and were only prepared to accept things as true which were supported by the Bible. They also rejected the role of priests as intermediaries in religious life and the effectiveness of the sacraments. Within their vision the only thing that really counted was faith based on the Bible. The Lutheran Church spread very fast over Germany, Scandinavia and Switzerland. In 1530 Luther’s friend Melanchton wrote a summary of Lutheran teachings: the Augsburg Confession, up to the present day the generally accepted creed of the Lutheran Church. In 1526 the Frenchman Calvin took the lead of the French speaking Protestants in Switzerland. From Geneva he founded the Calvinistic branch within Protestantism. Compared with Lutheranism Calvinism is much more radical and rigorous in accepting only the Bible as the source of all truth. It soon became highly dominant in France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Great Britain. Later on also in America. In France the followers of Calvin were called Huguenots. In the sixteenth century they were cruelly persecuted by the Catholics. This persecution reached its lowest point in the night of 22 to 23 August 1572, St. Bartholomew’s Eve, a massacre in which some 20,000 Huguenots were killed. Also in the Netherlands the transition to Protestantism was attended with extreme violence and thousands of dead. Here the struggle for religious freedom coincided with the war of liberation against Spain: the eighty years’ war between 1568 and 1648. In 1534 the English King Henry the Eighth established himself as the supreme head of independent English, also called Anglican, state-Church. At first their doctrines remained Catholic. Later on part of them split up and formed the more Calvinist Low Church group within the Anglican Church.
---Some European princes used all the force they had, including force of arms, to compel their subjects to remain Catholic, others tried to force their people to become Protestant. As a result massive, extremely violent, civil wars or religious wars broke out which caused the death of tens of thousands of Europeans between 1550 and 1650. Between 1540 and 1555 the forces of the Catholic emperor fought the forces of the Lutheran princes. At the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 it was decided that all princes of federal states were free to choose for Catholicism or for Protestantism. Their subjects were obliged to become members of the church of their prince. In France the wars of religion (Catholics versus Huguenots) ended in 1598 with religious freedom.
---The Catholic Church completely underestimated the danger of the Reformation until about 1535. In the first instance Rome trusted in its position of power and the Inquisition. Pope Paul the Second (1534-1544) was the first to realize the danger and started the Catholic Reformation or Counter-Reformation, a movement within Roman Catholicism which tried to do something about the worst abuses within the Church. At times successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. In 1540 the Spanish priest Ignatius of Loyola founded the order of the Jesuits. The purpose of the order was to stop the advance of Protestantism and to spread the Catholic faith wherever they could. The order succeeding in winning back France, Southern Germany and Eastern Europe for Catholicism. In the end the pope decided to convoke a council: the Council of Trent from 1545 to 1563. At this council the Roman Catholic Church determined, more explicitly than ever before, that it considered its own tradition just as important as the Bible. In addition all the traditional Roman Catholic doctrines were formulated more clearly than ever before.
--- The Protestants considered it of the greatest importance that all believers could check in their own Bibles whether what their Churches taught was correct or not. As a result of this fact the complete Bible had been translated into all the European languages by the year 1535. Only the Spanish translation appeared later.
--- In this century Spain and Portugal became unequalled superpowers by conquering and occupying large parts of Africa, Asia and America. In their colonies they introduced Christianity. Between 1550 and 1650 the Jesuits played an important role in this.
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
The most devastating of all religious wars between Catholics and Protestants raged in Germany between 1618 and 1648: the thirty years’ war. This war, fought on both sides with great fanaticism, cost the lives of thousands of people, caused a terrible amount of misery and weakened the position of Germany. The only positive result it produced was the fact that at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 there came freedom of religion for the whole of Germany, also for the Calvinists.
---In this century English, Dutch and German Protestants who were persecuted for their radical Calvinist ideas, in large numbers, resorted to emigration to North America, where they were free to practice the religion of their choice. Well-known within this context are the Pilgrim Fathers: English Puritans who first fled to the Netherlands, got asylum there, and crossed the ocean to reach America about the year 1620.
---In this period the Catholic Counter-Reformation began to produce good results. Within the Roman Catholic Church true piety strongly increased and a large number of missionaries achieved tremendous successes in Africa and America. Another result of the Counter Reformation was the fact the countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and Poland were wholly saved for Catholicism and countries like Holland and Germany partly. A negative development was that between 1600 and 1640 many witch-trials took place and quite a few women who were suspected of possessing supernatural powers through sexual intercourse with the devil were burned. By the end of the century Gallicanism became strong in France: a movement within the French Roman Catholic Church which wanted to subordinate the power of the pope to the power of the French bishops and the French king.
---The Spanish and Portuguese colonists who occupied large areas in Africa, Asia and America were in the first place bent on profits and only in the second place interested in converting the people. With both activities they often acted very violently and tyrannically. In addition both the tradesmen and the missionaries had no respect at all for local culture and local habits and customs. To do something about this deplorable situation, and also to break the monopoly of Spain and Portugal, the pope established The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (the Propaganda Fide) in Rome in 1622. This institute also sent missionaries of different nationalities to Africa, Asia and America. It also opposed the use of violence for the purpose of converting people and from the start it did its best to educate native priests.
--- Colonialism also led to the slave trade, in which over 13 million African men and women were transported to America and sold as slaves.
--- In this century the French philosopher Descartes (1596-1650) laid the basis for a view of life which up to the present day has occupied a central position in Western thinking: rationalism. Rationalism teaches that humans cannot acquire knowledge of the truth by trusting in what the Bible or the Church reveals to them. True knowledge is based on freedom of thought and a situation in which each individual defines his own point of view and in defining his point of view starts from the principle that it is good to doubt everything and everybody. Humans can only trust in their ratio (Latin for reason), which intelligently interprets what their senses perceive. In the course of the centuries rationalism has become very dominant in the Western world and it has strongly undermined the position of Christianity.
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
For the Roman Catholic Church this was a period of decline. The cause was the increasing influence of rationalism and skepticism. In addition the bishops of many European nations thought that not the pope but they should have supreme authority in their country.
---Also the Protestant Churches were not doing well about the year 1700. The original enthusiasm had disappeared. Unbelief and indifference predominated. As a reaction there were some counter-movements at the beginning of the century, like Pietism and the Bohemian Brethren, which stirred people up to develop a deeply felt personal faith which was intensely felt. But the real revival was effected in England and in America about the year 1740. In those days John Wesley started a great evangelical movement. He traveled all over the country, preached everywhere and succeeded in converting hundreds of thousands of people to a deeply felt, very personal and strictly Protestant faith. Everywhere he founded local congregations, which united by the end of the century and became an independent Church: Methodism. About the same time a similar revival movement, with equal success, took place in North America, where about the year 1700 religious life did not mean very much either and where people became more and more materialistic: the Great Awakening. The effects of these movements for Protestantism have been tremendous. Among other things they led to the establishing of the first Protestant missionary societies by the end of the century. These sent Protestant missionaries from America and Europe to the colonies for the purpose of converting the local people. The revival movements also made everybody more aware of social problems like poverty and slavery.
---In the philosophical and ideological field this century was dominated by rationalism and the Enlightenment. Both emphasize what people can observe in nature with their senses and what they can understand with their reason. Both start from the principle that there is no such thing as absolute, revealed truth and therefore they advocate religious tolerance. Both have laid the foundation for the first intentionally anti-religious and anti-clerical books in European history. Books by authors like the French philosophers Rousseau and Voltaire, who argued for the liberating of all social institutions from the unreasonable tyranny of Churches and priests. They also pleaded for an attitude to life in which all forms of human behavior and social relationships are determined by reason. The ideas of the Enlightenment have been decisive for the constitutions of the United States, after the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and France, after the Revolution of 1789. Already by the end of the eighteenth century the two countries became secularized nations with complete freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Christianity adopted a negative attitude both towards rationalism and towards the Enlightenment. In fact Christianity found it very hard to find a proper response.
---Rationalism and the Enlightenment also led to a revolt of the impoverished masses in Europe who were exploited by the nobility and by the clergy. This revolt led to what we now call democracy: government by the people.
---By the end of the century the invention of the steam-engine gave the first impulse to the production of goods in factories: the industrial revolution. This led to great social injustice. On the one hand there was a small number of wealthy manufacturers and on the other hand a mass of impoverished and exploited factory-workers. During the nineteenth century Christianity was not able to find an adequate response to this situation and it alienated the proletariat.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
About the year 1840 it dawned on the Christian Churches that they were propagating a way of life which was not only based on the Bible, but also on the standards and values of the higher social classes. Christians began to realize that what they presented as Christian ethics was in the first place bourgeois/middle class ethics. In addition the spiritual leaders realized that the working class was in the process of getting completely lost for Christianity. From the middle of the century there arose movements, both inside and outside the Church, which sought to relieve the situation of the poor and tried to win the working people back for Christianity. In this effort the Salvation Army, founded by William Booth in England in 1865, was by far the most successful. In the nineteenth century it was the only Christian movement that could reach all strata of society.
---Early in the 19th century America made the acquaintance of a phenomenon which has become a permanent part of American culture: mass meetings in the open air meant to kindle people with enthusiasm for Christian Churches. In the course of the century the Methodists became the biggest Church in the U.S.A. and the Baptists the biggest but one.
--- In this period the Roman Catholic Church fully recovered from the decline it experienced in the 18th century. On the other hand it viewed all developments in the political, social and philosophical fields as matters which it had to oppose with all its strength. This resistance against things like rationalism, the separation of church and state and religious tolerance was inadequate to stop these developments. In accordance with the spirit of the time popular devotion was characterized by sentimentality, romanticism and interest in the supernatural, miraculous aspects of the Catholic religion. The strong worship of Mary, which had existed for centuries, reached its climax in this period: the month of May became the month of Mary, there were images of Mary everywhere, all Catholics regularly said the rosary and at many times and places there were appearances of Mary.
---At the first Vatican Council of 1869 the pope and the Vatican leaders strengthened their position of power within the Roman Catholic Church and made this Church a strongly hierarchical organization. It was this Council that accepted the dogma that in matters of faith the pope is infallible. Both before and after the Council this dogma was very controversial
---In 1870 the champions of one big united Italy conquered the papal state, which covered about one third of present day Italy. The pope was only allowed to keep the direct environs of St. Peter’s Basilica: present day Vatican City.
---Among Protestants in England and the United States the dislike of Roman Catholics grew and even led to violence against them. In the U.S.A. this was a result of the fact that large numbers of Irishmen and Italians came into the country and did little to integrate.
---This century was characterized by obedience to authority, but also by rebelliousness against the immense poverty and oppression of many people. In 1848 Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto in which he called on the proletariat of all countries to unite and to rise in revolt. He propagated class struggle and, in contrast with the Churches, he emphasized things like power, money and everything material.
--- Christianity was attacked on all sides and was constantly forced to defend itself. The theory of evolution, which was developed during this century, led to a view of life in which God and Christianity were no longer needed. Rationalism and skepticism got more and more followers. There also arose new interpretations of the Bible stories within certain Churches. In these interpretations Biblical persons were viewed as mythical figures and it was asserted that the Bible stories should not be taken literally. The people who believed in these new interpretations were also very skeptical of the supernatural elements in the Bible, such as the resurrection stories and the miracles of Jesus.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Already at the beginning of the century Christianity only played a modest role in the political affairs of Western nations. In the course of the century all sorts of new political, military and economic developments made the power of the Church even smaller. By the year 2000 Christianity could only play a role in the lives of persons who had individually chosen for it.
---The development described above began about the year 1900 with the fast growth of things like nationalism and militarism. In the course of the decades these tendencies were strengthened by ideologies like fascism and communism, which promised their followers a heaven on earth if they were prepared to subject themselves completely to their leaders. All these things led to two disastrous world wars, in which tens of millions of Christians were killed by other Christians. During both world wars the leaders of the Christian Churches supported the governments and the armies of their own countries. In the thirties and forties the German Christian Churches, with the exception of some individual members, supported the Nazi party and the German army, which killed millions of people, including millions of fellow Christians.
---Also in the struggle against poverty, injustice and oppression Christianity could not play a major part. Most Churches had a conservative view of society and had a natural tendency to reject socialist ideas.
---In 1914 the civilized, Christian, European countries got involved in a massacre, which lasted four years and cost the lives of about ten million people: the First World War. The leaders of the Churches supported their national governments and armies. The war had a devastating effect on all aspects of social life in Europe.
---In 1917 the communists came to power in Russia. From the beginning communism was very hostile towards the Christian Churches because in the conflict between powerless poor people and powerful rich people they usually sided with the latter. The Russian Orthodox Church was consistently persecuted and its priests were imprisoned or killed. By 1940 Christianity in Russia had practically been extinguished.
---After 1920 the fascists came to power in a number of European countries. Fascism demanded from everybody complete subjection to the state and the leader of the state. In all the countries where fascism came to power also the Christian Churches and their leaders had to submit to the party. The vast majority thought that fascism could protect Christianity against communism and supported it.
---In 1933 the fascist party of Adolph Hitler came to power in Germany. This led to the Second World War, in which about 40 million people were killed. Among them about 6 million Jews, who died in concentration camps. Though German fascism and Hitler himself were very anti-religious millions of Christians fought in the fascist armies and killed other Christians. With the exception of a number of very brave individuals both the Protestant and the Catholics Church leaders adopted an extremely weak and submissive attitude towards the horrible crimes of the fascist regimes. The fact that Christianity as a religion and that the Christian leaders so completely failed to protect Christian and humanitarian values in those days has dealt their credibility a heavy blow. A blow from which Christianity has not recovered yet.
---Between 1900 and 1940 a more liberal theology got a large number of followers. This modern theology tried to strip Christianity of its supernatural aspects and pointed out that the Bible contains contradictions and errors.
---Since 1950 Christianity has strongly opposed the idea that it is naturally inclined to side with the powerful and the rich. Particularly in the third world Christianity wants to demonstrate solidarity with the poor and the oppressed.
---The last few decades Christianity as a world region appears to flourish better in Southern Africa, Middle America and South America than in Europe and the wealthy Western world.
--- In this century millions of Catholics in Latin America switched over to Protestantism, particularly the Pentecostal Movement. This movement arose at the beginning of the century and has grown to be by far the fastest growing movement within Christianity. Its followers experience a direct, personal relationship with the holy spirit and value a deeply felt, enthusiastic and spontaneously expressed faith.
---As an expression of resistance against the white, Western and colonial elements in the forms of Christianity that are practiced in Southern Africa by the big, official Churches, thousands of independent and truly African Churches were founded in this part of the world. The last few decades their number and the numbers of their followers have increased so fast that they are beginning to surpass the Churches that white people have brought to this continent. There is also the threat of too much diversity: dozens of new African Churches are founded each year.
--- After the war many priests in France began to work as ordinary laborers in factories to demonstrate their solidarity with the lower social classes. For the same purpose many priests in South America embraced the theology of liberation, which asserts that the gospels call on Christians to resist poverty, exploitation and injustice.
---From 1958 to 1963 John the Twenty-Third was pope. His encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (1968), in which he forbade all methods of birth control, was badly received. He achieved far greater success by convening the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). This council reversed a large number of the decisions that the First Vatican Council of 1870 had taken. The decision to decentralize the government and the power within the Church gave more qualifications to the laymen and called for more dialogue both among Roman Catholics themselves and between the Catholic Church and other Churches.
---The freedom that the Vatican now permitted and the diversity within the Roman Catholic Church as a worldwide organization soon led to uneasiness among those priests in Rome who were advocates of a strongly centralized world-Church. With the pope on their side they soon began to head for a return to the Church as it was before the council, especially as regards the centralization of power in the hands of the Roman Curia and the Pope himself.
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