Lesson 8: Enlightenment

Day One: The Enlightenment

We saw last week that throughout much of the seventeenth century, the Church divided and re-divided into thousands of competing sects. We have seen how religion became so important in public life that wars were fought over it for about a century and a half. Religious fervor was so intense that public witchcraft trials were common, both in Europe and in the New World. The Act of Toleration in England under William and Mary at the close of the seventeenth century offered a hint that the eighteenth century would be different.

The humanist studies that had begun back in the sixteenth century bore fruit around 1700 in a movemen called The Enlightenment. There was an intense revulsion against the religious bigotry and dogmatism of the Catholics and Protestants of the preceding era. The philosophers John Locke and Samuel Butler compared the hundreds of Protestant sects to corrupted maggots, and suggested that the Puritans always wore their hats to conceal the cracks in their skulls. Jonathan Swift in his satire Gulliver's Travels compared human beings to repulsive, horselike Houyhnhnms (pronounced HWIN-ums) by saying that the humans (whom he called Yahoos) fought wars over "whether flesh be bread or bread be flesh, and whether the juice of a berry be blood or wine." The French philosopher Voltaire has the hero of his story Candide pass from an Avar village burned by the Bulgars, into a Bulgar village burned by the Avars. The enlightenment philosophers, though often highly moral, strictly avoided any church, Catholic or Protestant. They had seen the war and bloodshed brought about by religious intolerance. Many of the Enlightenment philosophers were looking for a way to justify moral behavior based on something other than religious creeds. Some of them found a religious home in Deism. This is the belief that God, the mighty architect, created the universe as one might construct a fine watch, then He wound it up, and left it to run on its own. In such a scheme there is no need for a Trinity or a Christ, and the doctrinal quibbling of the churches is avoided. They were looking for a basis for morality in natural law. Within a generation it became apparent that Reason was not about to provide all of the answers religious dogmatism had failed to provide. Even so, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), a German philosopher in his book Critique of Pure Reason, still argued for what he called Practical Reason, which is roughly the same thing as morality.

Ever since the days of Thomas Aquinas philosophers and theologians had debated the role of faith versus reason. St. Thomas had concluded that in dealing with matters of this world, say the size of the ocean or the weight of an elephant, reason was adequate. However, one cannot reason one's way to God, Thomas argued. For that, faith was essential. God had revealed in the Scriptures the information upon which faith took hold. The Enlightenment philosophers, on the other hand, generally felt that reason was adequate, even to find one's way to God. Some, but not all, of the Enlightenment philosophers were probably atheists, and many were Deists. It is probably incorrect, however, to cast them all in the same mold and say that they were rejectors of God. Some, such as Sir Isaac Newton and the French mathematician-philosopher-scientist Blaise Pascal, were intensely spiritual men. Others who seem less interested in religion may not have been rejecting God, but rather the fevered dogmatism that turned religion into an instrument of war for more than a century.

The exaltation of reason also led to what we call modern science. Philosophers of science developed a reliance on the experimental method, the belief that true knowledge comes only from results that can be observed, measured, and repeated. (This belief, by the way, is itself a kind of faith.) As a result, even some of the Enlightenment philosophers who believed in a God poked fun at the idea of miracles. Voltaire made sport of Jesus turning water into wine at a party where the guests were already so drunk that they could not tell the difference. He chided Jesus for destroying a barren fig tree that did not belong to him. He thought it ridiculous that Jesus cast demons into a herd of pigs in a nation where pork is not raised. Some of the philosophers who rejected miracles, but still unwilling to reject the Scriptures, came up with some rather fantastic explanations. For example, one professor at the University of Jena said that when Jesus walked on the water, he did so on a concealed raft. For the next century and a half, European theologians wrestled with the competing claims of science and the Scriptures. Roman Catholic theologians were not allowed to examine such questions until the twentieth century. A large number of Protestant Christians have now come to a place where they believe it is possible to accept both faith and reason in their belief system.

One of the ways they were able to accept both faith and reason is shown by how Christians dealt with the subject raised by Galileo back in the sixteenth century. You remember that he was arrested for saying that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe. The church argued that the Bible, when describing a battle in the Valley of Aphek, speaks of the sun setting. The church said that this proves that the sun, and not the earth, moves. Later observations and calculations showed that Galileo had been right. Many Christians concluded that the writers of the story believed that the sun set, because from the earth it apparently does so. We talk that way all the time, saying "The sun will set at six o'clock," for example, even though we know that scientifically the sun does not set. The authors of the Bible story simply used their conventional language to describe this natural event. The main point of the story is that God gave his people a great victory in the Valley of Aphek, and that their description of the sun setting should be taken as an incidental detail, not technical, astronomical analysis. Thus a believer can believe both that the sun is the center of the solar system, and that God is involved with our lives. There really is no contradiction between faith and reason. Until the middle of the twentieth century Roman Catholics were required to believe every word of the Bible, even the parts that contradict reason, science and history. Fundamentalist Protestants still believe that the Bible is totally without any kind of error. They sometimes resort to some rather elaborate explanations trying to prove historically a literal seven-day creation, or a universal flood in the days of Noah, or other Biblical facts.

Some questions. Print these and write your answers on your paper. Please get help from your parents and other members of the class. Bring them to class on Sunday and we will talk about them together.

1. Do you believe in miracles? Why or why not? Do you think that a person must believe in miracles to be a Christian? Why or why not?

2. A Russian cosmonaut went into space in the 1960's and returned to say that he had been into the heavens and did not see a God. Therefore, he concluded, "God does not exist?"  Was he right? Why or why not?

3. Sir Isaac Newton discovered the force we call gravity. Some people criticized him for speculating about God's creation. Newton answered that he loved God and that he was merely "thinking God's thoughts after Him." What do you think he meant?

4. Are there any stories in the Bible that are hard for you to accept? How do you deal with them?

5. Why do you think the religious groups of the sixteenth century went to war with one another?

6. Do you think God intended for His people to fight one another? Do you think God expects Christians to fight non-Christians? Are there things that are worth fighting and dying for? If so, what are they?

7. Another way of talking about reason may be to say that reason is whatever makes sense. Are there parts of the Bible or the church that do not make sense to you? If so, should we abandon them? Why do you think people have kept them?

8. Are there some things you believe to be true even though you cannot prove them? If so, what are they?

9. What is the difference between faith and superstition? Is it possible to live without faith in something?

10. Some people today say that one should base one's life on science, not on faith. Do you think that maybe they have faith in science? Has science become a religion for them?

11. Do you think the Enlightenment philosophers were rejecting God, or were they merely rejecting corrupt religious groups that had gone to war with one another?

This is a short section but it contains some rather important information. Once you've discussed your study questions with your parents, you're finished for today. Tomorrow we will look at the foundations of our own denomination - the rise of Methodism in England.

Day Two: The Foundations of Methodism

The early eighteenth century was a time when all were tired of the wars between the various Christian denominations. Even Christians were more concerned with fostering morality than with fine points of doctrine. People were also tired of the coolness of the Deists and also cold, hard Reason. Believers did not want to lapse back into the wars that had been fought over fine points of doctrine, but they still believed that Christianity should be a matter of the heart as well as the head. The goal of Christian preaching was to produce this experience of the heart warmed toward God, and the means to this goal was Revivalism. In Germany it was called Pietism; in New England the term was "The Great Awakening;" in England it was called Methodism.

The home into which John Wesley was born in 1708 combined the best elements of Anglican and Dissenting Christianity. His father, Samuel Wesley, was the Anglican parish priest in the little town of Epworth. John's mother, Susanna, was the daughter of a Dissenting preacher. John was the fifteenth of nineteen children, whose spiritual training Susanna supervised like an army drill sergeant. Every day all nineteen children were assigned passages of the Bible to memorize. Each day they all appeared before their mother individually to recite from memory the lesson they had learned.

When John Wesley was a very small child the rectory (parsonage) at Epworth caught fire and burned down. Just in time one of the fire fighters found "little Jackie" Wesley and rescued him. Afterwards, his father said that John Wesley had been picked "like a brand from the burning." In other words, Samuel Wesley felt that his son had been spared by God for a very special purpose. This link will take you to several interesting pictures related to the life of John Wesley.

http://rylibweb.man.ac.uk/data1/dg/methodist/jwol1.html#jw1

Here are links for your parents to take a look at. You may enjoy it too, but it is not part of your assignment http://gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/

John Wesley and his brother Charles both planned to go into the ministry. As young men they enrolled at Oxford University. There they began to meet with friends who took their Christian faith seriously. They would gather early in the morning, and late at night to pray for one another and read the Scriptures. The little group grew to include several dozen persons. Many of their fellow students thought they were just a bit weird for being so regular in their attendance to spiritual matters, so they began to call this little group " The Holy Club." This term was not meant to be a compliment. John Wesley, remembering his mother's rigid training regimen, prepared a list of twenty-two questions that the members of the Holy Club had to answer every day. They are found at this link. http://www.jcsm.org/biblelessons/WesleyQs.htm Do you think you could answer all twenty-two questions satisfactorily? Do you think that a Christian should be able to answer all? Why or why not?

Because the young students were so methodical, or regular, in their spiritual exercises, some of their classmates derisively began to call the members of the Holy Club Methodists.

In 1736 John and Charles Wesley were sent as Anglican missionaries to Savannah, Georgia. On the ship crossing the Atlantic, Wesley became acquainted with a group of German pietists called Moravians. He was impressed with their quiet faith and confidence in God. While serving the church in Savannah, John became attracted to a young lady, Sophy Hopkey, and even considered marriage. However, when Miss Hopkey pressed John on the issue, he decided that he would not marry her. She married another young man, and when the young preacher Wesley refused to serve them Holy Communion, he became mired in controversy. He had, in effect, excommunicated them, something it was illegal to do. Wesley was then brought to court to answer several charges. He had to leave Savannah in 1738, defeated and confused.

This link will give more detailed information about Wesley's experience in Georgia. You may read it for fun if you like. You won’t have any questions from it, though http://www.iscuo.org/georgia.htm

Returning to London, he attended a prayer meeting at a Moravian meetinghouse on Aldersgate Street, where he heard a reading from Martin Luther's commentary on the Book of Romans. There, Wesley later wrote, "I felt my heart strangely warmed," and he knew that he had faith in Christ. Soon he sensed that he knew God's purpose for his life. He felt called to preach the gospel to the "unclean beasts" in the Ark of God. In other words he wanted to preach to the people who would not normally be found in church.

Wesley would go to the mouth of a nearby coal mine early in the morning as the workers were arriving, then return late in the afternoon when they were getting off from work. He would stand at the gate of the mine and attract a crowd however he could. His brother Charles had proven himself to be a gifted songwriter, and often he and Charles would set Christian words to one of the catchy dance tunes of the day. They would sing these songs and gather a crowd. Then John Wesley would preach to the workers that Christ loved them. Many of the workers gave their lives to God, and then Wesley would send them to other mines and factories, where they would also preach the gospel. Early Methodism spread rapidly because of this corps of non-ordained, lay preachers.

Once the local Anglican priest of a church near the factories complained to his bishop that Mr. Wesley, who was still an Anglican priest, was preaching without permission in his parish (a parish is an area served by a single church). The bishop ordered Wesley not to preach in another priest's parish. Wesley answered the bishop by saying, "The world is my parish." By this he meant that God had called some men to preach at church on Sunday morning. God had called John Wesley to go out into the mines, factories, fields and mills to preach the gospel. In time, thousands of common people responded to Wesley's preaching and turned to God.

A second thing that Wesley did insured the growth of the Methodist movement was to organize converts into Class Meetings. These were not church meetings, since the people converted under Wesley's preaching were all good Anglicans. They would go to church to receive the sacraments. However, they would meet weekly under the management of a "Class Leader." Together they would pray and sing Charles Wesley's hymns. People in the town reported that you could always tell a Methodist Meeting House by the hearty singing. At the Class Meeting they would also ask each other questions, very similar to the questions asked by the Holy Club at Oxford so many years before: "Are you reading the Scriptures daily? Are you enjoying prayer? Have you harbored resentment against your neighbor," and so on. If a Methodist answered satisfactorily, he or she would receive a little ticket that would admit them to the next Class Meeting. If he were not "going on to perfection" then he could be temporarily or permanently excluded from the Class Meeting.

The effect of Methodism in eighteenth-century England is incalculable. The rigid class system meant that wealthy Anglicans neither cared about the poor factory workers or associated with them. Methodism gave them a voice. Methodists were not only encouraged to pray, they were also encouraged to work for social improvements. Methodists were in the forefront of efforts to improve working conditions and sanitation in the slums created by England's industrial revolution. Orphanages were founded for the many homeless children who lived in the streets of England's great cities. Child labor laws were passed and enforced because of pressure from Methodists. Methodists showed dramatic success in rescuing persons from alcohol and drug abuse. Methodists were primarily responsible for getting Prime Minister Wilberforce to end black African slavery in England. In short the Prime Minister himself said that it was the Methodists in their attention to the needs of the working class that prevented a bloody repetition of the French Revolution in England.

Some questions. Print these and write your answers on your paper. Please get help from your parents and other members of the class. Bring them to class on Sunday and we will talk about them together.

1. The movements to get people to turn to God in response to preaching were collectively referred to as R________.

2. The son of Samuel and Susanna Wesley who formed the Methodist movement in England was _____________.

3. His brother, the great hymn writer was ____________________________.

4. Right after graduation from college they went to be missionaries in the American colony of G____________.

5. On the voyage across the Atlantic, Wesley met some very devout Germans called _________________.

6. The non-ordained persons who spread early Methodism were called __________________.

7. John Wesley did not preach inside of Anglican churches usually. Name three other places where Wesley did preach.

8. Wesley organized his converts into groups called _________________.

9. Name three of the social reforms carried out by the early Methodists.

10. Prime Minister Wilberforce credited the Methodists with ending what terrible evil in England ___________.

That's all for today. Tomorrow we will see how Methodism spread to America. Be sure to talk with your parents about what you learned today.

Day Three: Methodism Comes to America

No one knows who first brought Methodism to the English colonies that later became the United States. It was probably brought by hundreds of John Wesley's converts who came to the New World. By 1766 Philip Embury, an Irish immigrant, was preaching to Methodists in New York, and Robert Strawbridge was doing the same in Maryland. Embury began preaching because of pressure from Barbara Heck, known as "The Mother of Methodism." http://www.famousamericans.net/barbaraheck/

In 1769 Mr.Wesley started sending preachers to America. Francis Asbury arrived from England in 1771 and began preaching up and down the East Coast. The first annual conference in America was held in 1773. While the other Protestant denominations had church buildings stuck in the major cities on the East Coast, Methodist circuit riders carried their faith with them on horseback into the undeveloped parts of the Piedmont and the mountains. The result was the Methodism was for a hundred years the fastest growing denomination in America. These lay preachers copied the model they had known in England, setting up Class Meetings that would meet weekly under the leadership of a Lay Leader. As often as he came around, the traveling preacher would lead worship. Each circuit rider was assigned a territory, sometimes as large as a whole state. As more and more Methodists were converted and became preachers, and more meetings were started, their territories got smaller. Still by the close of the eighteenth century it was common for a Methodist preacher to ride a circuit consisting of more than a forty "stations."

This arrangement was the start of the Methodist itinerant ministry. This term refers to the fact that then, and now, all Methodist preachers are considered itinerant, that is, they are all traveling preachers. In the old days preachers would travel every few days. Nowadays some preachers stay at the same post for a year at a time, but all Methodist preachers still know that they are only temporarily in a certain location. For more information on circuit riders, check out this hyperlink

http://www.gcah.org/Circuit_Riders.html

Some of the circuit riders were free black men. Henry Evans was such an itinerant Methodist preacher. He settled in Fayettville, North Carolina and formed in 1801 the church that is now Metropolitan AME Zion Church.

With the War for American Independence in 1776, many Methodists returned to England. Wesley wrote, in fact, that he did not support the freedom of the American colonies. From then on, many American patriots were very suspicious of Methodists. Bishop Francis Asbury, however, did not go back to England. Sometimes he had to travel at night, in storms, or in disguise to avoid capture as a British spy, but he rode on horseback over 12,000 miles during the American Revolution to preach to Methodists and encourage them in the faith. Methodists in Vance County were able to hear Bishop Asbury preach a number of times at a small church on Nutbush Creek just north of Henderson. Because of his exhaustive efforts in almost impossibly difficult circumstances, Francis Asbury is often called The Father of Methodism in America.

One must remember that in England and in America, Methodists were still Anglicans. After the war, all Anglican priests had returned to England. Since Methodist traveling preachers were not ordained, they could not celebrate the sacraments. Many Anglicans (Methodist and non-Methodist) in the colonies begged the Anglican Bishop of London to send priests to America to baptize and consecrate Holy Eucharist, but he was very slow in doing so. In the absence of the Anglican Church, American Methodists asked Mr. Wesley for permission to organize themselves not just into a society within Anglicanism, but as a new church. Wesley very reluctantly agreed to do so. He ordained Thomas Coke as .." general superintendent" of the Methodists in America, and had ordered him to organize a new Methodist Church in the colonies.

At a meeting at the Lovely Lane Chapel in Baltimore, Maryland at Christmas in 1784, Coke intended to appoint Asbury as "general superintendent,"but he refused to serve unless elected. The preachers elected Asbury, and immediately began to refer to him and Coke as " bishops," a title neither wished to have. Nevertheless, the title the preachers gave them stuck, and Bishop Coke and Bishop Asbury became the first leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church. (The word "episcopal" simply means "having bishops.") This founding meeting of the new church is known as the Christmas Conference.

http://www.gcah.org/Heritage_Landmarks/Lovely.htm

The new church decided that it would hold its first annual conference at the home of General Green Hill in Louisburg, North Carolina less than twenty miles from where you live. The Green Hill House is still standing, and occasionally tours are given.

http://www.gcah.org/Heritage_Landmarks/Green.htm

Some of the early Methodists, like Barbara Heck and Philip William Otterbein were of German descent, and they conducted their worship services in the German language. Gradually they felt the need to separate from the English-speaking churches. They formed their own German-speaking Methodist denominations, such as the United Brethren. After nearly two centuries in America, however, most of them now conduct their worship services in English, and there is no longer any need for this separation.

In the early days of Methodism, the only persons who were allowed to attend annual conference were the preachers. Laymen and laywomen were not represented. Some Methodists were very unhappy with this arrangement and decided to form their own Methodist denomination allowing half the members of the annual conference to be lay and half to be preachers (clergy). This group held a meeting at Whitakers Chapel near Enfield, North Carolina in 1830 and formed themselves into the Methodist Protestant Church.

The most serious problem in nineteenth-century America, both inside and outside the church, was that of slavery. At the first annual conference session at the Green Hill House in 1785, Bishop Coke caused some tense moments by speaking out vigorously against slavery. Still, change was a long time coming, especially in the South. In 1844 it was clear that churches in southern states would not give up slavery, and they split from the parent church to form the Methodist Episcopal Church South. About the same time African-American Methodists in the South found it necessary to form their own denominations, including the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (often called the C.M.E. Church), and the African Methodist Episcopal Church (often called the A.M. E. Church).

By the time of the 1930 s many of the reasons for these separations were no longer valid. The War Between the States had settled the question of slavery. By the twentieth century all Methodist groups were allowing half lay, half clergy representation at the sessions of the annual conference. In 1938 the three main Methodist groups in America decided to reunite. The Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and the Methodist Protestant Church all merged again to become the Methodist Church. By the 1960 s there were no longer any Methodist groups conducting services only in German, so in 1968 the United Brethren rejoined their parent body to become the United Methodist Church. There are constant conversations with the black Methodist churches, and we hope for reunification with them one day. Maybe you will become a member of the annual conference or the general conference and be able to witness the reunification of all of our Methodist family, white and black.

Something to do:

http://www.eden.edu/cuic/members/denominations/umc.pdf This link takes you to a good summary of the division and reunion of Methodism. Print out the pages then paste together the historical charts at the bottom of each page to give you a graphic summary of the history of Methodism. That will be all for today.

Day Four

Some Study Questions

Some questions. Print these and write your answers on your paper. Please get help from your parents and other members of the class. Bring them to class on Sunday and we will talk about them together.

1. Name one of the three lay preachers mentioned in your reading who were already preaching in America before Mr. Wesley officially sent preachers to America.

2. Who is sometimes called The Father of Methodism? Why is he given this name?

3. The meeting that formed the Methodist societies into a new church was called ___________________. Where was it held? When was it held?

4. The system of traveling preachers that caused Methodism to grow so rapidly is still with us today. It is the system called the I________ ministry.

5. A free black Methodist preacher who started churches all over North Carolina and settled in Fayetteville was _____________.

6. The first bishops of the new Methodist Episcopal Church were _______________________ and _______________________.

7. The first annual conference was held in Louisburg, NC at whose home?

8. A group of Methodists who formed their own denomination to allow lay people to attend annual conference was __________________.

9. Southern Methodists split over the question of slavery to form _________________________________.

10. The question of slavery was resolved when the Methodist Episcopal Church rejoined its Southern branch in what year?

11. The Methodists who had formerly spoken German in their worship services rejoined the parent body in what year?

Here is a link to some more detailed history of the United Methodist Church arranged by period. Pick any period that interests you and click on its link. Read that page and tell your parents what your read.

http://www.umc.org/interior.asp?ptid=1&mid=346

Day Five: The Twentieth Century

By the close of the nineteenth century the Methodist Church was the largest and most powerful Protestant denomination in America. The churches had made a significant impact on the removal of slavery from the national scene. After the Civil War Christians were excited about the changes they had helped bring about.

After slavery the next crusade was against "demon rum." Methodists began to join with other denominations to attack the evils of modern society. A generation of Methodists became actively involved in the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Ultimately they were able to lobby for passage of the Volstead Act in 1919, which prevented the production, manufacture or sale of alcoholic beverages. Many Americans, however, considered Prohibition to be a violation of their constitutional rights, and there was always a great deal of opposition. Many persons found ways to get around the Prohibition law, some by "bootlegging," others by going to illegal drinking establishments called "speak-easies." The ability of certain underworld figures to provide illegal beverages at a price led to the growth of gangsters and organized crime. By 1933 it was clear that Prohibition was not working and the Volstead Act was repealed by the twenty-first amendment to the Constitution.

Christian missionary activity succeeded as never before in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Asia, Africa, and South America denominations unified to take the gospel to places it had never been. At home Christian social concern reached a new peak as well. A Baptist, Walter Rauschenbusch set up a soup kitchen to help the poor immigrants who lived in a part of New York City known as Hell's Kitchen. He wrote about his way of living out the Christian message in his book The Social Gospel. Not since John Wesley had Christians taken so seriously their responsibility to help the poor. Non-church Christian groups such as the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) were formed to provide healthful recreation and instruction to urban youth.

The Fundamentalist Movement arose in the 1920 ¢s to combat perceived conflicts between the Bible and science. You already know about one such clash that took place between Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church. The clash resulting in the Fundamentalist movement began when British naturalist Charles Darwin taught in the 1860 s that higher species of animals evolve from simpler species over a period of hundreds of thousands of years. Many Christians became alarmed that modern science contradicted the Bible, which speaks of the world being created in seven days. Some who objected to Darwin's ideas began to publish a little newsletter in the 1920 s called The Fundamentalist. In it they argued that the only correct interpretation of the Bible is a literal interpretation. They ridiculed the notion that man was "descended from apes," insisting that God had created the first human in a single day. Their efforts became known collectively as The Fundamentalist movement, and in many ways the arguments they started are still around today as they still maintain a literal, seven-day creation and a literal worldwide flood, for example.

Pacifism became the theme of many Christians in the early twentieth century. World War I, known before the 1940 s simply as The Great War, brought mechanized weapons to bear on enemies for the first time. Never before had a war been fought with airplanes, mustard gas, machine guns and tanks. In fact, the new weapons of war were so horrible that for several years Allied and German armies were forced to stare at one another from trenches across "no man's land." Presbyterian President Woodrow Wilson originally opposed U. S. entry into World War I, then finally admitted that American involvement was needed. After the war, with a firm belief in the progress of civilization, President Wilson joined other Christians in proposing an international community of governments he called the League of Nations. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWleague.htm

Wilson, along with others in the Christian churches, described The Great War as " a war to end all wars." If civilized men and women had a place where they could sit down and discuss their differences, he reasoned, then war would be a thing of the past. The European governments formed the League of Nations in 1919, but the United States Senate refused to allow the United States to join. Only twenty years later World War II erupted. Many persons felt that had the United States joined, then the League would have been successful. After World War II, the functions of the League of Nations were taken up into the United Nations. The Second World War was ended when two atomic bombs were detonated over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After that event and the witnessing of the Holocaust, the notion of the progress of civilization became a very difficult doctrine for thoughtful people to hold. One noted German Lutheran theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, began his life as a Christian pacifist. However, after he saw the atrocities of Adolf Hitler in killing six million Jews, Niebuhr abandoned pacifism. He wrote a powerful book titled Moral Man Immoral Society in which he describes his struggle. World War II was followed by a fifty-year-long Cold War between the Communist bloc and the Western nations. During this period the world was constantly threatened by the possibility of global destruction by thermonuclear weapons. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, however, stockpiles of nuclear weapons were reduced. Nevertheless, in the opening years of the twenty-first century, tensions between the Western democratic nations and the Muslim Near East increased to the point that the dream of world peace was as elusive as ever.

One bright spot in the twentieth century history of Christianity revolves around the word ecumenism. You remember from chapter one that the early Christian Church would occasionally hold ecumenical (worldwide) councils. The word "ecumenism" relates to efforts to overcome the denominational differences that divide Christians. In John chapter 19 Jesus prayed before he went to the cross "...that they may all be one, even as you and I are one." Since the Protestant Reformation the oneness of the church has been broken by countless disputes over relatively unimportant issues. The World Council of Churches of Christ was formed in the twentieth century partly to help the various denominations to resolve their differences. You have already seen how various Methodist denominations have led the way in reuniting with one another. Methodists are now in dialogue with Anglicans, Lutherans, and Episcopalians about resolving some of the things that divide us. Perhaps the high-water mark of the ecumenical movement occurred in the mid-1960 s with the Second Vatican Council. Pope John XXIII was a strong advocate of reform in the Roman Catholic Church, and of dialogue with the various Protestant denominations. Latin was dropped from the Mass, new music was allowed in the church, Protestants were included in Roman Catholic worship and vice-versa. Unfortunately, the successors to Pope John have not been quite so open to the non-Catholic churches. Nevertheless, a great deal of progress has been made. Now the Council on Church Union of the WCC has adopted a common lectionary so that all Christians hear the same Bible readings on a given Sunday, and councils have been held in Lima, Peru and elsewhere to come to a common understanding of baptism, Eucharist, and ordination. The Service of Word and Table which United Methodists use is very similar to that of the other Christian denominations that are part of the Council on Church Union.

One very difficult challenge the churches face is that of racism. Not only in the United States, but all over the world, minority populations in every culture experience persecution. Slavery still exists in several Third World countries and the Christians in each of these nations are taking a stand against its continuation. In America in the 1960 s it was a Christian minister, Martin Luther King, Jr. who taught non-violent resistance to racism. In South Africa Methodist Bishop Abel Muzorewa, and Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu did the same thing. Related to the challenge of racism is that of sexism. There are still a few places in the world where female infants are buried alive. In most places, discrimination against women is not so severe, but still they are often treated as second-class human beings. Thankfully, wherever the Christian gospel has been proclaimed, the status of women has risen.

At the end of the century it was clear that modern communications and transportation had indeed transformed the world into a global village. The question of other religions has become an acute theological problem. It may have been possible in centuries past for Christendom to pretend that it had the planet to itself. Now all of the Western nations are a mixture of many different religions. Christians must mingle with Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists on a daily basis. The theological challenge remains, as does the need for mutual cooperation and understanding among Christians and non-Christians. We Christians still believe that Jesus Christ is the supreme expression of God's love to the world. Now we must come to terms with what that expression means for belief and for action in a world where many religions must exist side by side. The emergence of Islamic fundamentalism in the Near East became a serious concern by the end of the century. It was suggested by some thoughtful persons that since the Enlightenment, most large wars had been fought over politics. For the first time since the Reformation, it appeared possible that wars might again be fought over religion. By the end of the century, in spite of the positive gains of modern science, it seemed to many that science and knowledge would not be able to provide the salvation it had promised in its early days. Many persons again turned to spiritual resources for peace of mind, including Christian Fundamentalism and various Oriental or secular cults.

Some questions. Print these and write your answers on your paper. Please get help from your parents and other members of the class. Bring them to class on Sunday and we will talk about them together.

1. Christian movements to abolish the sale of alcoholic beverages resulted in a time in the 1920 s and 1930 s known as P________________

2. An understanding of Christianity that focused on the need to help the poor is known as the s____________ g______________

3. Christians who adopted a very literal interpretation of the Bible and ignored the findings of science produced a movement known by what name?

4. At the beginning of the twentieth century many Christians held a belief that completely rejects the idea of warfare. This belief is called what?

5. The killing of six million Jews by Nazi Germany in the 1940 s is known by what name?

6. The movement to erase denominational differences and to re-merge the denominations is known as the e______________movement.

7. Name one of the two African bishops who fought to end racism in Africa.