A WORLD HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY   ADRIAN HASTINGS (ed.) (London: Cassell, 1999) pp.594 + xiv ISBN 0-264-67499-5   Book Review by GREG MUNRO

 

One is often understandably cautious with a book which claims to offer an overview of the history of Christianity. However, this collection of essays edited by the late Adrian Hastings is a highly commendable scholarly work. The book consists of thirteen chapters which examine the development of Christianity from a regional perspective. Unlike many histories of Christianity, Hastings and his onetime collaborator,  the late Peter Hinchcliff, have avoided a eurocentric and ecclesiocentric approach. In addition to a number of chapters on Western Europe and Byzantium, India, Africa, Latin America, North America, China and Australasia are also examined. This territorial approach does have some obvious drawbacks as Hastings readily concedes. Specifically, the later Papacy, the missionary movement, the Ecumenical Movement and the World Council of Churches are omitted. This is indeed unfortunate; in the Twentieth Century, Christianity has manifested itself as a truly global religion. A global approach to Christianity is truly appropriate since the universality of Christianity should ultimately transcend the limitations presented by particular cultures. As Pope John Paul II wrote in his Encyclical Veritatis Splendor:

It must certainly be admitted that man always exists in a particular culture, but it must also be admitted that man is not exhaustively defined by that same culture. Moreover, the very progress of cultures demonstrates that there is something in man which transcends those cultures. This “something” is precisely human nature: this nature is itself the measure of culture and the condition ensuring that man does not become the prisoner of any of his cultures, but asserts his personal dignity by living in accordance with the profound truth of his being”1

As Hastings observes in his introduction, if one is to understand  world history, then one must understand the history of Christianity (p.1). Of the great world religions, Christianity is unique in that it is the predominant world religion in four and a half of of the world's six continents. Of course, Christianity is also a difficult religion for many to understand as it manifests itself in such an extraordinary proliferation of contrasting forms. Thus, Christianity has both been an apolitical minority religion, yet it has been no less an imperial and persecuting  ideology just as it has acted as the other side of the coin to the nation state. At times Christianity has manifested  itself as a highly activist, evangelical, missionary faith, and yet it also accommodates a highly revered monastic and contemplative life. Many Christians have embraced  poverty as a means of realising the Christian faith and yet we also know that it is an integral component in the growth of capitalism.

Hastings suggests that one way of  attempting to understand these contradictions is through Friedrich von Hügel's conception of three elements of religion: the mystical, the intellectual and the institutional. 2 In this sense, three key figures in the New Testament can be seen as representative of Christianity: “[…] Peter, the institutional; Paul, the intellectual and prophetic; Mary, especially as linked with the figure of John […] in the Fourth Gospel, stands for the mystical (p.3)

Following a brief but lucid and informative chapter on the emergence of Christianity by Martin Goodman, Hastings traces the development of the faith from 150-550AD in chapter two. He examines the emergence of Christian communities in the Near East and the Mediterranean, the emergence of episcopal authority and the translation of the Scriptures from Greek into Latin. Indeed , by the fifth century, the Scriptures were being studied in the Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and Georgian languages. By the fourth century, the major centres of power of the Christian community were emerging: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Rome and Jerusalem.

Hastings notes that after the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, the new Christian Church became increasingly intolerant of dissent such as that of the Manicheans and Arians and even tolerated random acts of violence against Jewish synagogues.

The famous struggles over theology and dogma from the Council of Nicaea in 325 to the Council of Chalcedon in 451 dominate the second half of the chapter. In these prolonged struggles Hastings isolates three key factors: the role of imperial intervention in supporting one side against the other. Secondly, the rivalry between the emerging Sees, particularly between Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople and thirdly, the ongoing problems of translating biblical ideas into the words and concepts of Greek and Latin civilisation. The Council of Chalcedon also effectively confirmed the primacy of Constantinople at the expense of Alexandria. It also brought about the permanent alienation of the Monophysite Churches: the Copts, the Abyssinians and the Armenians.

In chapter four, Benedicta Ward and Gillian Evans trace the development of medieval Christianity in Western Europe. By the sixth century there was already a significant division in the Roman Empire owing to the dominance of the Greek language in the Eastern Empire and Latin in the West. As the authors note, this division was to lead to the hardening of two distinct world views. Byzantium leaned towards the mystical elements in Christianity and adopted a form of late Platonism. In contrast, Western Europe was preoccupied with problems of ecclesiastical governance and reform, a distinct sacramental theology and the heritage of Aristotelian logic which Boethius translated in the sixth century.

In the sixth and seventh centuries, Western Europe was blessed with a number of outstanding leaders and missionaries. These included Pope Gregory the Great (reg.590-604) who made a decisive impact on western spirituality through ‘Gregorian' plainsong. In the previous centuries, the work of the great missionaries had commenced with St.Patrick in Ireland. Late in the sixth century, Pope Gregory dispatched Augustine to further the conversion of Britain and in the eighth century St.Boniface oversaw the conversion of western, southern and central Germany.

Of decisive importance for the consolidation of Western Christianity was the coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III in 800 with the title “Holy Roman Emperor”. The coronation effectively signified the end of the authority of the Eastern Emperor in Western Europe. Henceforth, Charlemagne and his successors enforced the rule of St.Benedict in western Monasteries. St.Jerome's Latin translation of the Bible became standard in western Europe and Charlemagne's court initiated the revival of learning in western monasteries. The cathedral schools were to provide the foundations for the first Universities.

The middle Ages were marked by the great confrontations and struggles between the newly asserted power of the Papacy under Pope Gregory VII and the Holy Roman Emperors who believed just as earnestly and piously in their own divine power and authority in the Empire. In many respects, it was precisely this unresolved tension which served to nurture the vitality of Christianity in western Europe. The nature and limits of Papal power remained a matter of burning controversy both inside and outside the Church. In spite of the efforts of the Conciliar movement in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the centralised power of the Papacy seemed once again entrenched in the fifteenth century. (p.125)

Medieval Christian culture in Europe was in many respects one of the most celebrated periods in Christian history. It saw the flowering of medieval scholasticism, the development of the great monastic orders and of medieval mysticism through the works of great spiritual writers such as Meister Eckhart and Thomas à Kempis. However, the Renaissance of the Church and Papacy in the eleventh century also contributed to the Great Schism of 1054 and to the Crusades which failed to regain the Holy Lands and resulted in the permanent alienation of Byzantium from the West. The authors neglect to mention the emergence of a new menacing form of anti-Judaism which manifested itself in numerous pogroms during the Crusades and later saw the expulsion of the Jews from the new Kingdom of Spain at the end of the fifteenth century.

In chapter three, Mary Cunningham provides an historical overview of the Eastern Orthodox Church from the sixth century to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. In the fourth century, the celebrated historian, Eusebius of Caesarea had produced a Byzantine political ideology which closely aligned the religious and secular spheres of the Byzantine Empire. This manifested itself in the reign of the Emperor Justinian (527-565) who oversaw the construction of the spectacular Church of St.Sophia in Constantinople and the splendours of the divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church.

From the reign of Justinian until the twelfth century, the Byzantine Empire continued to sway between Monophysite and Dyosphite interpretations of Christ's  being. The protracted struggle contributed significantly to the instability of the Empire and to its increasing alienation from the western Church. In the latter, the use of the “Filoque” from the seventh century (the dogmatic formula signifying the double procession of the Holy Ghost which had been added by the western Church to the Nicene-Constantoplitian creed since the reign of Charlemagne) greatly exacerbated tensions between the two Churches.

It was also during this period that the great missionary campaigns of the Orthodox Church in the Balkans and Russia took place. While missions to the Balkans and eastern Europe were only partially successful, Kievan Russia was converted to Orthodox Christianity from 988 when Vladimir of Kiev was converted to Christianity. As Cunningham emphasises, the real schism between east and west occurred not in 1054 but was rather the result of the Crusades. From this time the Roman Pontiffs proclaimed their universal supremacy in Christendom. In contrast, the eastern Church sought to preserve the ideal of a pentarchy. ie. the continued existence of the five patriarchates which should all continue to  play a vital part in the doctrinal development of the Church. (p.95) The situation reached a crisis during the fourth crusade (1202-1204) when the crusaders sacked Constantinople and briefly established a Latin Empire in Byzantium (pp.97-99). In spite of subsequent efforts of the Byzantine Church to secure a reunion with the West because of  the deteriorating political and military situation in eastern Europe, eastern theological objections remained as an insuperable obstacle.

In chapter eight, Philip Walters provides an excellent overview of the complex development of Christianity in Eastern Europe since the fifteenth century. Whereas Catholicism and Protestantism place far greater emphasis on doctrine and orthodoxy, the Eastern Orthodox tradition in Europe places its primary emphasis on worship. Walters focuses on two key themes: First the extent to which the encounter between eastern and western Christianity either led to fruitful cross-fertilisation or came to symbolise a Europe divided along political, economic and social lines. Secondly, Walters examines the nature of the relationship between the various autocephalous Orthodox Churches and their relationship between the nation on the one hand and the secular power on the other. The author then proceeds to examine the development of Christianity in those areas of Europe which became part of the Ottoman Empire. While Christians were allowed to live in relatively peaceful conditions, limitations were imposed on church building and monasticism. Consequently, theology lost its originality and vigour, charitable and educational work was reduced to a minimum, many parish clergy were illiterate and missionary activities ceased altogether. (p.286)  Notwithstanding this, the various Orthodox Churches forged powerful bonds with their respective nations (eg., Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Armenia).

After the decline and conquest of Kievan Russia, Moscow emerged as the leading power in Russia. From 1326, the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church resided in Moscow. In 1472, the Muscovite Prince, Ivan III, married the niece of the last Byzantine Emperor and adopted the Byzantine two-headed eagle as the royal coat of arms. It was also at this time that Moscow brought under its control most of the lands which had formerly been under periodic Mongol control. From the early 1500s the Russian Church began to propound ‘Moscow as the Third Rome' following the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453.Ultimatlely, the Russian Church became subordinate to the state. During the reign of Peter the Great in the eighteenth century, this policy was strengthened when the Tsar placed the leadership of the Church in the hands of the Ukrainian Church which had had regular contact with the Uniate Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. By the latter part of the eighteenth century, Russia presented itself to the world as the defender of all the members of the Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe. In the nineteenth century, the Church pursued a policy of "Orthodoxy, autocracy, and Nationality". (p.301).

The religious renaissance of the late nineteenth century led by figures such as Vladimir Solovieff was threatened by the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. For the next seventy years the Russian Church was to suffer varying degrees of suppression and persecution under the Soviet regime. The Orthodox Churches appear to be undergoing a new rebirth though this has in part been compromised by the new nationalist fervour re-emerging in Russia and the Balkans.

In chapter five, R.E. Frykenburg examines the history of Christianity in India. There were three distinct periods of Christian history in India: first, the Thomas Christians; secondly, the mission of the Roman Catholic Church and thirdly, the Evangelical phase. According to Christian legend, the Apostle Thomas landed on the Malabar coast in India ca. 52-58AD where a thriving Christian community developed. By the sixth century, Indian Christians were classified as Nestorian owing to their geographical, doctrinal and ritualistic distinction from Byzantine Christianity. Muslim expansion in the seventh century cut off East Asia from Byzantium until the fifteenth century.

In 1498 Christian India resumed contact with the West with the arrival of the Portuguese Estado der India Oriental (The principal Portuguese Trading Company). They were later joined by Dominican, Fransican, and Jesuit missionaries. However, harmony could not be maintained  between the Thomas Christians and the recently arrived European Christians owing to questions of ritual and worship. From the late 1500s the Thomas Christians were subordinated to Roman authority.

The next phase of evangelisation in India followed upon the arrival of Protestant missionaries from England, Germany, and Denmark. This continued with the powerful evangelical revival of the nineteenth century, though for many  Indians the Christian missionaries were still resented as disturbers of the social and religious status quo. (p.183) This resentment and suspicion has continued in various parts of India since independence.

In his essay on  Christianity in Africa (chapter eight), Kevin Ward stresses that the Christian religion has one of the strongest claims to be reckoned as one of the oldest religions in Africa with a lineage of almost 2,000 years. Moreover, African Christianity has primarily been a movement of affirmation and preservation of local culture. (p.192). Missionary Christianity came much later to Africa. The earliest Christian countries were in North Africa and Nubia. The Church in Nubia was able to withstand the onslaught of Islam until the fourteenth century. The monophysite Coptic Church of Egypt survives to this day. Of particular interest is Ethiopian Christianity which developed a distinctive form of faith via Alexandrian Christianity  but then developed  its own rich tradition in the following centuries. (pp.199 - 200)

Christianity was brought to West Africa by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. Following the success of the Reconquista in the fifteenth century when the Moors were expelled from Iberia, the Portuguese sought out African allies in their crusade against Islam and to assist the expansion of their overseas Empire. Christianity became an important component of Congolese culture with the support of the  royal Congolese court and an indigenous clergy. However,  just as the slave trade in West Africa grew in the latter half of the sixteenth century  so too did Portuguese missionary fervour dissipate with the result that Christianity was never to become an integral part of the popular culture of the Congo. (p.202)

The nineteenth century was the great age of missionary activity in Africa. The movement to abolish the slave trade resulted inn the foundation of Sierra Leone where the Anglican Church Missionary Society and the Methodist Wesleyan Missionary Society cooperated in the effort to establish a Christian municipality in Freetown. In spite of the efforts of the native clergy, the undertaking was of course, far from successful.

In South Africa, one had the Christian fervour of the Afrikaners which of course bore no relation to the development of a native African Christianity. Indeed,  the Afrikaners resented the efforts of the missionaries to create an indigenous Christian faith.

East African Missionary Christianity was championed by David Livingstone in the second half of the nineteenth century. Thenceforth, missionary Christianity was overtaken by the European scramble for colonies.   Since World War I, there has been a certain tension between the efforts of the European missionary movements and the efforts of African Christians to establish an indigenous African Christian tradition. However, since 1980, this tension has decreased in the era of deconilisation.

In chapter nine, Hastings traces the history of Christianity in Latin America. Christian missionaries accompanied the Conquistadores of the sixteenth century at first in Mexico and then in Peru. With the exception of the strong Jesuit presence in South America, the Church was almost wholly accountable to Madrid. While the indigenous population was shamelessly exploited by the Spanish authorities, it is also clear that the Spanish government took their religious mission in America very seriously. Indeed, as Hastings notes it was this “sacred imperialism” (p.334) which legitimised the Spanish presence for over three centuries. It was unfortunate that so few of the Spanish missionaries denounced or even openly criticised the extremely cruel treatment of the indigenous population by the Spanish colonial administrators or the slave trade.. Hastings mentions the famous case of the secular priest Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566) who fought for the protection of Indian rights and the recognition of Indian culture. (pp.338-341). Partly because of Las Casas' work, the New Laws for the Indies were proclaimed as a royal ordinance in 1542. They were intended to end some of the worst aspects of the enslavement of the Indian population by the Spanish overlords and met with a very lukewarm reception in Spanish America.

By the mid-seventeenth century, Latin American Catholicism had acquired its distinctive characteristics. The lower clergy consisted of Creoles (ie. Spaniards who had settled in America) while the Episcopate and the upper civil service were still drawn from Spain and continued with their highly paternalistic supervision of the indigenous population. By this stage however, both the power of the monarchy and the spiritual strength of the Spanish Catholic Church had been greatly diminished. (p.343) After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, a powerful opposition arose against the Spanish and Portuguese Imperium in America. By the late 1820s, Latin America had developed into a group of autonomous states. In the twentieth Century, anti-clericalism was particularly pronounced in countries such as Mexico. It is, of course, well known that the Church in Latin America has undergone a spiritual resurgence in the latter half of the twentieth Century. Readers will be familiar with the controversies surrounding liberation theology espoused by figures such as Gutiérrez from Peru and  Archbishop Helder Câmara of Brazil which led the Vatican to denounce Liberation Theology (p.362). The problem of closing the gap between popular Catholicism and the ecclesiastical-clerical system remains an unresolved problem in Latin American Christianity.

In marked contrast to Latin America, Robert Bruce Mullin demonstrates the multifaceted nature of Christianity in North America. Spain, France, Britain, Sweden and Ireland all played an important role in the development of North American Christianity. In the early years of the American colonies,  Jacobean Anglicanism, French Catholicism and particularly English Puritanism all made a vital contribution to North American Christianity.

From the middle of the eighteenth century, North America experienced a great religious revival led chiefly by the preaching of George Whitfield who was a close associate of John Wesley. The revival was led by Presbyterians, Methodists and above all Baptists. As Mullin notes, the revivalist message bore a powerful critique of the hierchical social order of Anglicanism (p.424). The second great religious awakening of North American Christianity commenced in the early Nineteenth Century as the new republic sought after a  national identity and was far more complex than the first awakening. Thus, in the colonies of New England, there was a conservative movement which sought to preserve traditional reform theology while also allowing for a greater degree of human agency  in the greater realm of divine justice (p.429). This second awakening was overwhelmingly dominated by evangelical Protestantism. As Mullin notes: “Scripturalism, a conversion- oriented  piety, moral urgency and a missionary spirit were shared presuppositions of this great evangelical Protestant community, and by the 1820s Protestants of different denominations found themselves slowly coming together for common purposes”  (p.430). In this context, in ante bellum America, Catholicism remained a marginalised community.

In the aftermath of the Civil War,  Christianity faced a number of challenges in North America. Although the number of Roman Catholics in America had greatly increased since the beginning of the nineteenth century, Protestant prejudice meant that Catholicism remained at the fringe of American public life. However, African-Americans were allowed to rapidly expand their religious life in the southern states of the Union. In the age of Darwin, American Christianity also had to confront the fundamental questions concerning the relationship of God to the world and the role of God in History (p.440). Conservative Protestants argued passionately against for a fundamentalist interpretation of the Scriptures. Henceforth, this was to be a key point of division between liberal and conservative Protestants. In contrast to the USA, Canada was able to preserve a “ mediating evangelicalism” which respected both tradition and the new theological concerns.

After World War I, the gulf between liberal and conservative Protestantism became ever more pronounced. In this period the clash between  Presbyterian  fundamentalism and liberalism came to a head. The infamous Scopes Trial over the teaching of Evolution marked a setback rather than a defeat for American fundamentalism.  The decade of the 1930s marked  a new vitality of Neo Thomism in American Catholicism with flowering of neo-Thomism. American Protestantism was marked by Reinhold Niehbuhr's  attempt to recover the “…biblical view of human nature as marked by sin as opposed to the Protestant ethos of the latent perfectibility of humanity”. (p.450)

Religion became an even more potent force in American public life after World War II as the nation sought to confront atheistic communism. The cultural revolution of the 1960s saw the formal collapse of the Protestant hegemony in America symbolised by the election of John Kennedy to the Presidency. The idea of a perennial American religious mission came under sustained attack with the critique of ‘American Imperialism' during the Vietnam War. The old assumption that evangelisation and westernisation went hand in hand was now challenged by a growing recognition of the religious heritage of indigenous Americans. In the same decade, American Catholicism also experienced a crisis of identity. This was particularly pronounced in Quebec where attendance at Mass declined from 93% in 1960 to 30% in 1990. While a number of the mainstream American Churches increasingly found themselves thrust to the outer perimeters of the new American secularism, the conservative evangelical churches have experienced an extraordinary revival. Mullin notes that by the end of the 1980s the evangelical Protestant Churches equalled in size the older mainstream Churches and also exercised  a formative influence on public policy. The conservative/liberal split in American Christianity has now largely replaced the Catholic/Protestant split.

China and its Neighbours is examined by R.G. Tiedemann in chapter ten. While the first definite evidence of Christian missionary activity in China is dated from 781, it was not until the late 1500s that Jesuit missionaries established a presence in China. Having mastered the Chinese languages, the Jesuits were recognised and accepted by the Chinese elite. They argued that ‘ancient Confucianism' bore a certain identity to fundamental Christian ideas. The Jesuits' attempts to compromise with the Confucian rites was eventually rejected by Pope Clement XI in 1715. Thereafter, Christians were forbidden to take part in Confucian rites and Christianity was proscribed in China although Christian life continued to flourish in parts of rural China and particularly in the Shanghai region.

It was only after the Napoleonic Wars that the Church managed to reestablish a measure of authority in parts of China. During the nineteenth century Christianity in China remained primarily a rural phenomenon. However,  Protestant missionaries did have some success in establishing themselves in the major Chinese ports. The hostility of the urban Chinese elites towards Christianity was clearly manifested during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900.

From the early twentieth century, the  indigenous clergy in China played an increasingly important role according to the “three self principle” whereby Chinese Christians would be responsible for self management, self-support and self-propagation of the Churches. The situation of the Church changed dramatically after the communist seizure of power in 1949. In 1951 the Chinese Communist Party established a Religious Affairs Office. The Church was now required to be free of all foreign interference. Christianity suffered extensive persecution especially during the Cultural Revolution. Pro-Rome Catholics continue to practise as an underground movement.

David Hilliard surveys the history of Christianity in Australasia and the Pacific (chapter thirteen). Christian civilisation had a difficult and ignoble beginning in Australia with the founding of a penal settlement by Britain at Sydney in 1788.There were relatively few free settlers until the early 1820s. Consequently, the influence of organised Christianity in the first half of the century of British settlement remained limited. In 1836 New South Wales had a population of 77,000 which was attended by only 35 clergymen. A substantial proportion of the convict population were Irish Catholics and a mutual loathing and distrust between them and the Anglican establishment quickly became an entrenched feature of the new settlement.

Attempts by Christian missions to convert the Aboriginal population to Christianity were generally unsuccessful. The Christian missions, which were financed by the government, separated aboriginal children from their parents and sought to educate them in English, Christianity and agriculture. The missions, which continued well into the twentieth century mostly failed to achieve their goal. Not until the middle of the twentieth century did an aboriginal Church emerge with its own leadership and distinctive style of worship.

In contrast to Britain, the colonial administration was compelled to adopt a policy of religious pluralism from 1836 when it was agreed that the government would assist with the funding of Anglican, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic Churches. The relationship between Church and State was marked by a prolonged controversy over the funding of denominational and non-denominational schools. State secular education was established in the Australian colonies in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist Churches established private fee paying secondary schools which in practice served to educate the children of the upper bourgeoisie.. The Catholic Church established its own system of primary and secondary schools fearing that the secular state school system would undermine the Catholic faith in Australia. From the 1870s, the colonial – and after 1901 – the federal governments refused to fund the Church schools. This was a heavy blow to Australian Catholics most of whom belonged to the working class and also incensed the Catholic Church as the state collected taxes from Catholic citizens, a part of which was used to fund the state school system. Not until the 1960s did the Australian and New Zealand governments introduce state funding for private schools. Sectarian and class animosities were also exacerbated by the close connection between the Australian Labor Party and Catholic Church which continued until the 1950s.

Christianity was first brought to New Zealand by the Church Missionary Society in 1814. However, it was not until 1840, following the annexation of New Zealand by Britain that the Churches began to flourish. While the Anglican Church naturally had a strong following in New Zealand, Presbyterians formed a greater proportion of the population than in Australia while the Irish Catholic community was substantially smaller.

The first missionary efforts in the Pacific Islands were undertaken by the London Missionary Society and later by French missionaries (Marists and Picpus Fathers). They were later joined by the American Board of  Commissioners for Foreign Missions who were active in Hawaii and the Gilbert Islands. Missionary work in the Pacific has continued well into the twentieth century. (e.g. the London Missionary Society and the Lutheran Missions in New Guinea).

Since the end of World War II, Australia and New Zealand have become ever more secular in their Worldview. However, as Hilliard notes, Australia is far from being a “post-Christian society” as some writers argue. Christianity continues to play a vital part in the public life of Australia and New Zealand.

In chapter twelve, Mary Heimann provides a survey of Christianity in Western Europe since the Enlightenment. Her “…intention is to discuss the issues in a way which focuses primarily on the intellectual, rather than the political, institutional or even sociological aspect of Christianity” (p.458). Heimann correctly emphasises that the triumph of the enlightenment over Christianity in the second half of the eighteenth century has been greatly exaggerated as has the incompatibility between the two. One cannot accept the deterministic view of a steady and inevitable decline of Christianity given that the “Age of Faith” of the Middle Ages was riven by dissension and heresy climaxing in the Reformation. Certainly, Deism was widespread in intellectual circles in the eighteenth century but there were also many educated persons who firmly believed in the compatibility of reason and revelation. There were, of course, a number of important strands of Christianity which rejected the Enlightenment: Pietism, Methodism and Jansenism. And in 1789 Kant's Critique of Pure Reason demonstrated the inadequacy of reason alone to establish the central tenets of Christianity.

The French Revolution produced a dramatic reaction against the Enlightenment as seen in works such as de Maistre's Considérations sur la France (1796) and Schliermacher's On Religion: Speeches to its cultured Despisers (1799) and Lamennais' Reflections on the State of the Church (1808). nineteenth century Romantics greatly strengthened Christianity. The latter half of the nineteenth century saw the triumph of ultramontanism with the reactionary attack of Pope Pius IX and the First Vatican Council against modernism. Religious identity now came to be increasingly aligned with political affiliation, ethnic groupings and nationalist perceptions.

While the triumph of liberalism appeared to offer protection for the Church, many conservative Christians saw it as a pernicious doctrine as it opened the way for a pluralism which threatened the moral authority of Christianity. For many decades, Christianity was historicised by philosophers such as Bauer, Hegel, Strauss and Renan. However, the unbridgeable gulf between the natural sciences and religion in the late nineteenth century and the first half of the Twentieth Century is increasingly giving way to a fruitful dialogue between religion and science in the opening years of the new millennium.

1 Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, No. 53.

2  Friedrich von Hügel, The Mystical Element of Religion, (2. Vols.) (2^nd. Ed., London: 1923) Vol. 1 p.65

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