1. An
Absurdly
Short
History of
Christianity
Part 5
Enthusiasm & Doubt

2. The story so far Protest leads to schism All sides work on doctrine
First signs of pluralism
State starts to get the upper hand
Jewish -> Christian identity shift
Formation through persecution
Institutionalization
First signs of official public role
Church wrestles with ideas
Conciliar decision-making
First cracks in unity
Birth of Islam
Crusades have mixed results
East/West unity disrupted
Church practices draw criticism
Politicians resist Church influence

3. When we left off last time
Safety Valves &
New Experiments
Outside Europe
Denominations Emerge
Roman Retrenchment
& Secular Challenges

4. A certain weariness on all sides

5. On the Protestant side Bourgeois respectability Extremists in eclipse
Rulers show outward
piety
Enlightenment brings
agnosticism and
Deism

6. ? Nonjurors BUT Knox Calvinist ERI Nonjuring Bishops Not a Fan
Out & out
Catholic

7. On the Catholic side Loss of political influence Erastian effects
Orders lose ground
Popular piety remains

8. Still a
power
to be
reckoned
with

9. Protestant Churches’ Other Problem

10. Great Awakenings Somewhat Pan-Protestant, but mainly in
English-speaking countries
Driven by preaching
Emphasized personal & emotional faith
Little impact on Anglicans, Lutherans, Quakers
Shockwave in Calvinist denominations

11. First Great Awakening (1730-1755)
Preaching tours of
George Whitefield
Jonathan Edwards
“Sinners in the Hands
of an Angry God”

12. First Great Awakening (1730-1755)
Aimed mainly at reviving the faith of those
already in the pews
Created controversy between those who favored
revival tactics and believed conversion was
possible (New Lights) – and those who stuck with
Predestination (Old Lights)
Played a role in evangelizing slaves in southern
colonies

13. Fallout Episcopal Church (Hooray!) Congregational Church (Old Light)
(New Light)

14. Meanwhile, back in England
John & Charles Wesley
Oxford Holy Club (early 1720s)
Methodist as a term of ridicule
Calvinist & Arminian streams
Reform movement 
Denomination(s)

15. Major Methodist ideas Justification by faith
Constant and sustained action of the Holy Spirit
Need to be “born again”
Faith produces inward and outward holiness
All need to be saved - All may be saved -
All may know themselves saved - All may
be saved to the uttermost

16. In Catholic countries
Syncretism

17. Also rising in the 18th Century
Deism
Thomas Paine: I believe in one God, and no more; and I
hope for happiness beyond this life.
Matthew Tindal: By natural religion, I understand the
belief of the existence of a God, and
the sense and practice of those duties
which result from the knowledge we,
by our reason, have of him and his
perfections.

18. Also rising in the 18th Century
Agnosticism
Voltaire: Those who can make you believe absurdities
can make you commit atrocities
Hume: The primary religion of mankind arises chiefly
from an anxious fear of future events; and what
ideas will naturally be entertained of invisible,
unknown powers, while men lie under dismal
apprehensions of any kind, may easily be
conceived.

19. Revolutions in America
and France also alter
the church-state
relationship

20. Second Great Awakening (1790s-1850s)
Targeted mainly at non-believers
Romantic, rejection of rationalism and Deism
Post-Millennialist, reform-minded
Baptists and Methodists
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists
Majority of converts were women

21. Second Great Awakening (1790s-1850s)
New denominations…

22. Second Great Awakening (1790s-1850s)
…new movements…

23. Second Great Awakening (1790s-1850s)
…and a new faith

24. Colonies expand – the Church follows

25. New challenges

26. Reaction

27. Reaction Vatican I (1869-1870) Rejected modernism, rationalism
Declared papal infallibility
Providentissimus Deus (1893)
Limited Biblical criticism
Longinqua oceani (1898)
Condemned “Americanism”

28. Reaction A Protestant example Charles Augustus Briggs (1841-1913)
Studied Biblical criticism in
Germany
First Professor of Biblical Theology
at Princeton Theological Seminary
(1891)

29. Reaction Briggs In his inaugural address (among other things):
Moses didn’t write to Pentateuch
David didn’t write the Psalms
Scriptural inerrancy is “is a ghost of modern
evangelicalism to frighten children"

30. Reaction
Briggs
One Presbyterian faction (Old Schoolers) tried to have him
fired
Princeton faculty refused, left the denomination in 1892
Failed heresy trials in 1892 & 1893, defrocked anyway by
Presbyterian denominational leadership
Briggs became an Episcopalian and was ordained in 1899!

31. New political challenges
Clergy suffered in the French Revolution(s)
1840s – Marx and Engels
Late 19th Century Nihilism
Reaches full expression in
20th Century revolutions
Major impact on Orthodoxy

32. Century of Wars WWI – All sides claimed to have a holy mission
Between the wars –
Theologians take a lead
role in opposing fascism
WWII – Destruction on
a scale that leads some
to doubt the justice of
God

33. As the scene fades for this week…
Vastly more Christians in 1945 than in 1700
19th Century enthusiasm has personalized – and
to some extent privatized – faith
Religion is no longer the dominant intellectual
paradigm
Orthodoxy seems to be challenged by pragmatism