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The war of 1914-18 broke Europe's waning self-confidence in the merits
of its own civilization. Since it was fought between Christian nations, it
weakened worldwide
Christianity. The seizure of power by a formally atheist government in Russia
in 1917 brought a new negative pressure into the world of Christendom and
sharpened the social and working class conflicts of western Europe and
America. During the following 40 years the Protestant churches suffered
inestimable losses. | |
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Germany
under Adolf Hitler (in power 1933-45) professed to save Europe from the
threat of Bolshevism; and the Nazi rule was at first welcomed by many German
churchmen. Disillusionment was not slow to follow. From September 1933 there
already existed a partial schism between churchmen willing to cooperate with
the government in church matters--especially over the Aryan clause that
demanded that no Jew should hold office in the church--and those, led by Martin
Niemöller, who were not willing to cooperate in church matters.
With the support of the state-aided Lutheran churches in the south (Bavaria
and Württemberg), Niemöller's group was able to form the
Confessing (or Confessional) Church, and the schism was made manifest when
the Confessing Church held the Synod
of Barmen in May-June 1934. For a time the Confessing
Church was strong throughout Germany; but when the German government
provided a less doctrinaire government under the minister of church affairs
Hanns Kerrl, the Confessing Church was itself divided--into those who were
willing to cooperate and Niemöller's men, who were not willing to
cooperate because it was a church government imposed by the Nazi government.
At the Synod of Bad Oeynhausen (February 1936) the Confessing Church broke
up and was never again so strong. In the later stages, especially during World
War II when the extreme Nazis
secured complete control of Hitler's government, the churches came under
increasing pressure and toward the end were struggling in some areas to
survive. Bishop Theophil Wurm of Württemberg was a leader in protesting
to the government against its inhumane activities, and Pastor Heinrich Grüber,
until his arrest, ran the Büro Grüber, which sought to evacuate
and protect Jews. Some church leaders, notably the theologian Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, paid with their lives for their associations with
resistance to the Nazi government. | |
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The end of the war saw Russian armies in control of eastern Europe and
Germany divided. All the churches in the area came under pressure. Most
Germans were evacuated or deported from the three Baltic states of
Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. Although Lutheran communities remained
there, they were subjected to persecution, especially under the rule of
Stalin. The Lutherans in Transylvania (Romania)
and the Reformed in Hungary
came under less severe pressure but were much diminished in numbers. The
Protestants of Czechoslovakia,
led by the theologian Joseph Hromadka, succeeded in maintaining more
dialogue with Marxist thinkers than did Protestants elsewhere in Europe.
From the viewpoint of Protestant strength, the greatest losses were suffered
through the division of Germany. The settlement between the victorious
powers gave large areas of former German-speaking (and largely Lutheran)
areas to Poland, and many (approximately 8,000,000) Germans were expelled;
most went to western Germany. The Soviet occupation zone of Germany in 1945
included Wittenberg and most of the original Protestant homeland. East
Germany (the German Democratic
Republic) became the sole country in which a Marxist government ruled
a largely (70 percent) Protestant population. For a time the Lutheran
churches were the chief link between East and West Germany, and the annual
meeting, or Kirchentag, the single
expression of a lost German unity. But the building of the Berlin Wall in
1961 stopped this communication and isolated the East German churches.
Despite governmental pressure, especially in relation to money, education,
and church building and in the national (and anti-Christian) form of youth
dedication, the East German Protestants worked courageously and flourished.
The 450th anniversary of the Reformation on Oct. 31, 1967, showed how strong
a hold the Protestant churches still had over the affections of a large
number of people. (see also Index:
Lutheranism) | |
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In Russia, a deeply Orthodox state before the Revolution of 1917, the 40
years after the Revolution witnessed a growth in the Baptist community. The
flexibility and simplicity of Baptist organization made it in some respects
more suitable to activity under difficult legal conditions. In the years
after Stalin's death in 1953 there was evidence of rapid advance; but after
1960 the Baptist communities, like the Orthodox, again came under pressure,
which at times was severe. | |
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The material losses that Great Britain suffered in World War II and the
end of the British Empire in the years after 1947 had serious effects on the
Protestant churches in former British territories. The home country could no
longer provide money and human resources to the overseas churches on the
same scale, and in a few areas church government was handed over to leaders
who were not ready to take over church leadership. But in other areas the
change of status for Britain hastened the process of change in leadership
that had been proceeding slowly; and some of the failing resources were
supplemented from elsewhere, especially from the United States, Canada, and
Australia. Thus the so-called younger churches came to be a new fact of
world Christianity, led by men who no longer saw the history of Christianity
solely through European eyes and had an impatience partly derived from a
different attitude to the Christian past. This was to be of primary
importance in the ecumenical movement. Meanwhile, the secularizing trend of
a technological age assailed the old European churches and had an even
greater effect upon the areas where the younger churches ministered. | |
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The growth of mainline Protestantism in sub-Saharan Africa, as of
Lutheranism in South West Africa/Namibia or Anglicanism in South Africa--as
well as of the Pentecostal and Evangelical churches and sects in South
America and Asia--helped compensate for losses in Europe and North America.
Because of conversions and population growth, the Protestant church actually
increased in size as it changed its scope and ethos. | |
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There were also surprising survivals and reappearances of Protestantism
in areas of the world where its demise had been foreseen. Thus, in 1948-49
the Communist seizure of power in China
effectively ended Protestant missions there. By 1951 there were hardly any
European missionaries in the country, and the Chinese churches had to stand
without outside aid. They came under severe pressure, especially during the
so-called Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and '70s. They could no longer
evangelize and sought barely to survive. The partial reopening of China to
the West and the cautious measures granting more freedom of religion and
speech beginning in the late 1970s and the 1980s led to new contacts between
Chinese Protestants and Westerners. It was estimated that several million
Protestants and other Christians had endured the suppression and persecution
of the two previous decades, and, however uncertain their futures remained,
they represented a vital group of churches. | |
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The most important movements in 20th-century Protestantism took root in
soil that most call conservative, and some of their founding had a
reactionary character. At the same time not all members of these movements
wished to be typed as conservative. Their forward-looking and exuberant
expressions of faith displayed more radical outlooks. The three main
movements are usually called Pentecostalism, Fundamentalism, and
Evangelicalism. The first has been of immeasurable importance in the spread
of Protestantism beyond its historic European home. | |
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Pentecostalism emerged out of Wesleyan Holiness
movements at the turn of the century in the United States. In 1901 in
Topeka, Kan., and in 1906 in Los Angeles, there were particularly notable
manifestations of various phenomena that characterize the movement. Central
to these is glossolalia, "speaking in tongues." This is a form of
unrepressed speech whose agents "yield" themselves to the Lord.
Normally the syllables they speak or sing are unintelligible, though some
claim that they speak in recognizable foreign tongues as the disciples of
Jesus did at the first Pentecost, from which the movement derives its name.
Pentecostalists believe that they must experience a "second
baptism," beyond water baptism, in which the Holy
Spirit comes to them. They not only speak in tongues but also
interpret them; they prophesy; many engage in healings, claiming that
miraculous healings did not cease after the apostolic period, as many other
Christians claim they did. | |
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The Pentecostal movement in the United States was often Southern,
associated with the "Bible Belt," and developed among the rural
poor whites or urban blacks. After the mid-20th century, through
fast-growing denominations like the Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism
emerged as one of the most visible forms of Protestantism and became
increasingly acceptable to the middle classes. After 1960 the movement
spread into mainstream churches like the Episcopal, Lutheran, and
Presbyterian, where participants often called it a "charismatic"
movement. (see also Index: Presbyterian
churches) | |
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Pentecostalism had its greatest success in the Caribbean, Latin America,
and sub-Saharan Africa. There many prophetic movements erupted, in which
Christians adopted emotional forms of worship and healing. Pentecostalism in
these parts of the world was often the religion of the poor, bringing hope
to people in nations that were emerging from colonialism. The
Pentecostalists, building on the work done by missionaries a century
earlier, were not often anti-American or anti-European, as some liberation
movements were. In fact, they often accented "otherworldliness"
and avoided politics or identified with conservative and even repressive
regimes. | |
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The second major movement, Fundamentalism, combined late 19th-century
premillennialism with more or less rationalistic defenses of biblical
inerrancy. It took its name from a sequence of tracts called The
Fundamentals that were issued between 1910 and 1915 in the United
States, and the movement became institutionalized in 1919 and 1920, as
Fundamentalism became a formal and militant party in denominational conflict
in the United States. | |
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The most obvious causes for the rise of Fundamentalism were the spread
of Darwinian evolutionary theory and its acceptance in the more liberal
parts of the Protestant churches as well as the higher criticism of the
Bible. Fundamentalists in the United States felt that these two movements
were subverting seminaries, bureaus, mission boards, and pulpits in the
northern branches of denominations like the Baptists and Presbyterians. The
Scopes trial in 1925, in which the Fundamentalist champion William Jennings
Bryan fought against the teaching of evolution in schools and defended the
Genesis record as being scientific, coincided with the climactic
denominational battles in those two churches. | |
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The Fundamentalists tended to lose the political battles but survived
with their own network of Bible colleges, radio programs, and publishing
ventures. In the early 1940s they regrouped into several competitive
Fundamentalist organizations that steadily gained followers, visibility,
morale, and assertiveness. They prospered most when they moved from a
generally passive political posture to open participation, particularly in
support of Ronald Reagan's successful presidential bids in 1980 and 1984. | |
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Groups like the Moral Majority, founded by Fundamentalist evangelist
Jerry Falwell, demonstrated how effective the television ministry of the
movement could be. The Fundamentalists concentrated political energies on
opposition to abortion, support of an amendment that would permit prayer in
public schools, and identification with the causes of Israel and a strong
military defense budget. | |
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The third movement is Evangelicalism. Focused for decades in the
ministry of figures like evangelist Billy Graham and journals like Christianity
Today, this conservative and evangelistic group tended to agree with
Fundamentalism on cardinal doctrines: the virgin birth, substitutionary
atonement, and physical resurrection of Jesus. Most Evangelicals insisted on
some version of biblical inerrancy, but gradually more and more scholars of
the movement questioned whether that was the best way to assert faith in
biblical authority. Nor did all agree with those Fundamentalists who
stressed premillennialism. | |
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Evangelicals, however, were more moderate than Fundamentalists; they
agreed with the older-style Fundamentalists in substance but differed in
style. They found Fundamentalists to be too negative about culture, too
withdrawn into sects, too rude and blustery and judgmental. When
Evangelicals formed the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942, they
were attacked from the Fundamentalist right much as they attacked the
mainstream moderates and liberals. Most of them preferred to see themselves
not as well-mannered Fundamentalists but rather as perpetuators of the
19th-century Protestant mainstream. | |
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To that end the Evangelicals increasingly reentered the world of
cultural, social, and political engagement. Rather than build Bible schools,
they concentrated on liberal arts colleges. Some Evangelicals even engaged
in radical social programs and criticized conservative Protestantism's
over-identification with militarism and unfettered capitalism. They also
acquired considerable if slightly unpredictable political power in the
United States and elsewhere. | |
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Evangelicals also tended to be ecumenical; Billy Graham welcomed
Catholic and mainstream Protestant leaders on his platforms, and he prayed
with many kinds of Christians whom Fundamentalists would shun. Whereas
Fundamentalists and Pentecostalists had counterparts in the Third World,
Evangelicals tended to form international movements and hold conferences
designed to bring Christians of many nations together. | |
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While Fundamentalists usually split off into churches of their own,
millions of Evangelicals remained connected to mainstream denominations and
increasingly moved fully into the mainstream. But they always endeavoured to
keep alive their doctrinal distinctiveness and their passion for witnessing
to Christ. | |
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Meanwhile, a certain reaction could be observed in the Protestant
tradition of theology. This was partly due to a general doubt about European
liberalism after World War I and particularly due, in its further
development, to a reaction against attempts by the Nazis to use liberal
theology for some of their views of society. (see also Index:
theological liberalism) | |
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In both the 19th and 20th centuries liberal theology met much criticism
on the ground that it narrowed Christianity to the limits of what men
believed themselves to be experiencing or turned what was objective truth
into subjective feeling. Though himself no conservative, Kierkegaard
was the most extreme of these critics. All the conservative
theologians--including the earliest members of the Oxford Movement in
England, the evangelical tradition generally, and those many who stood by
the inerrant word of the Bible
and in the 20th century came to be called by the name
Fundamentalist--opposed the liberals on the same grounds. But in the 20th
century there was a reaction even within the liberal camp. Beginning in 1918
a reaction against all theologies emphasizing religious experience was led
by Karl Barth of Basel and
Emil Brunner of Zürich.
This theological movement, called Neoorthodoxy,
widely influenced Protestant thinking in Europe and America. Barth and his
disciples regarded their work as a reassertion of the true sovereignty of
Scripture and as a return to the authentic principles of the Reformation. In
America Reinhold Niebuhr
was almost as influential in reacting against liberal Christian philosophies
as they applied to society and to man. Yet that the questions the older
theologians had sought to meet still remained was shown by the influence
exerted by the German theologian Rudolf
Bultmann of Marburg, who sought to "demythologize" the New
Testament by discovering its core truths and thus allowing its significance
for faith to be more fully disclosed. Refugees from Nazi Germany, such as Paul
Tillich, interpreted European developments to Americans. (see also Index: United Kingdom,
evangelical church) | |
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The Neoorthodox synthesis did not outlast the generation of the giants
who gave voice to it, and Protestant theology after the mid-1960s was in
disarray. Europe lost its hegemony, though certain theologians, among them Jürgen
Moltmann, began to take elements of Neoorthodoxy and combine them into
variously described movements, such as "theology of hope,"
"political theology," "theology of revolution," or
Protestant versions of "liberation theology." Espoused in the
Third World by theologians who stressed witness to the fact that God sides
with the oppressed and the poor or in the United
States by feminists or black theologians who developed new
interpretations of biblical and traditional texts, these theologies called
into question what seemed to be the patriarchalism, elitism, and racism of
much earlier academic theology. | |
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Numerous movements adopting liberation theologies coexisted. In general
they shared a tendency to particularize Protestant thought. One approach was
to make much of cultural contexts. Thus, there was African or Asian,
feminist or black theology. In all these cases interpretations were
perceived as coloured by the "pre-understanding" people or groups
brought to the reading of the texts. Another approach was to focus on
"narrative theology" or "story theology" in an effort to
move from abstract theology to concrete understandings centring on people.
Finally, thanks to the rise of Pentecostalism and Fundamentalism, there
developed across the Protestant spectrum fresh attention to the doctrine of
the Holy Spirit and to eschatology, the teaching about "the last
things." | |
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The ecumenical movement was in origin exclusively Protestant (though Eastern
Orthodox leaders soon took part) and was at first largely dominated
by Protestant thinking. Its origins lay principally in (1) the new speed of
transport across the world and the movement of populations that mixed the
denominations as never before; (2) the world reach of traditional
denominations; (3) the variety of religion within the United States and the
problems that such a variety created; and (4) the younger churches of Africa
and Asia and their contempt for barriers raised by events of European
history for which they felt no special concern. There was always a strong
link with the missions, and an American Methodist
missionary leader, John R. Mott,
whose travels did as much as anything to transform the various ecumenical
endeavours into a single organization, represented in his own person the
harmony of missionary zeal with desire for Christian unity. A conference at
Edinburgh in 1910, which marks the beginning of the movement proper, was a
World Missionary Conference. From it sprang conferences on life and work
(led by the Swedish Lutheran archbishop Nathan Söderblom), dealing with
practical problems, as well as conferences on faith and order, at which
theologians sought to examine their theological differences with sympathy.
In the beginning Roman Catholics refused to participate; the Eastern
Orthodox participated only through exiles in the Western dispersion; and the
Nazi government refused to allow Germans to go far in participating. By the
end of World War II in 1945 it was evident that there was a new atmosphere,
and the World Council of Churches
was formally constituted at the Amsterdam conference in 1948. The entire
movement depended for most of its money and for part of its drive on the
Americans; but its headquarters was in Geneva, and, under the guidance of
its first General Secretary, Netherlands Reformed administrator W.A. Visser
't Hooft, it never lost sight of the fact that the traditional problems of
divided Christian Europe had to be met if it was to succeed. | |
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In the years after 1948 the ecumenical movement brought Protestants into
an ever-growing dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholics.
After John XXIII became pope in 1958, the Roman Catholics at last began to
participate in the ecumenical movement. Although the definitions of the
second Vatican Council (1962-65) were unacceptable to most Protestants, they
had a breadth quite unlike the definitions of the first Vatican Council in
1870 and encouraged those (usually liberal) Protestants who hoped in time to
lower this greatest of barriers raised by the 16th century. | |
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For specific information on ecumenical efforts in the second half of the
20th century, see the entries on individual denominations below. | |
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