Editing History of Christianity (section)

== Modern period (1650–1945) ==
=== Ideological movements ===
The era of [[Absolutism (European history)|political absolutism]] followed the breakdown of Christian universalism in Europe.{{sfn|Aguilera-Barchet|2015|p=141}} Abuses from absolutist Catholic kings gave rise to a virulent critique of Christianity that first emerged among the more extreme Protestant reformers in the 1680s as an aspect of the [[Age of Enlightenment]].{{sfn|Jacob|2006|pp=265–268, 270}}{{sfn|Aston|2006|pp=13–15}} For 200 years, Protestants had been arguing for religious toleration,{{sfn|Coffey|1998|p=961}}{{sfn|Coffey|2014|p=12}} and by the 1690s, secular thinkers were rethinking the state's reasons for persecution, and they too began advocating for religious toleration.{{sfn|Patterson|1997|p=64}}{{sfn|Mout|2007|pp=227–233; 242}} Concepts of [[freedom of religion]], [[Freedom of speech|speech]], and [[Freedom of thought|thought]] became established in the West.{{sfn|Mout|2007|pp=225–243}}{{sfn|Kaplan|2009|p=119}}{{sfn|Franck|1997|pp=594–595}}

Secularisation spread at every level of European society.{{sfn|Jacob|2006|pp=272–273, 279}} Pioneered by Protestants, [[Biblical criticism]] advocated [[historicism]] and [[rationalism]] to make study of the Bible more scholarly and secular in the 1700s.{{sfn|Law|2012|pp=8, 224}}{{sfn|Baird|1992|pp=118, 201}}{{sfn|McLeod|2006|p=3}} In reaction to rationalism, [[pietism]], a holiness movement within [[Lutheranism]], began in Europe and spread to the [[Thirteen Colonies]] where it contributed to the [[First Great Awakening]], a religious revival of the 1700s.{{sfn|Ward|2006|pp=329; 347}}{{sfn|Smith|2014b|p=19}}{{sfn|Valkenburgh|1994|p=172}} Pietist [[Moravians]] came to [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] in 1732 where they influenced [[John Wesley]], an [[Anglican]] missionary in [[Savannah]].{{sfn|Cairns|2015|p=67}}{{sfn|Towns|Whaley|2012|p=117}} After returning to England, Wesley began preaching in open-air meetings, leading to the creation of the [[Methodism|Methodist]] church.{{sfn|Jones|1974|p=xiii}}{{sfn|Towns|Whaley|2012|p=119}}{{sfn|Jones|White|2012|pp=xi; xv}}{{sfn|Cairns|2015|p=93}} In the colonies, Presbyterians and Baptists contributed to revival, and to divisions over it, which formed political parties and lent crucial support for the [[American Revolution]].{{sfn|Heimert|2006|p=2}}{{sfn|Marty|2006|p=524}}{{sfn|Cairns|2015|p=51}} Spurred by Christians of varying sects, [[Thomas Jefferson]] adapted his earlier [[Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom]] into the [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution]], enshrining a [[separation of church and state]] to support [[religious pluralism]].{{sfn|McLeod|2006|p=8}}{{sfn|Zoller|2006}}

The rise of Protestantism contributed to the conceptualization of [[human capital]],{{sfn|Boppart|Falkinger|Grossmann|2014|pp=874–895}} development of [[Protestant work ethic|a new work ethic]],{{sfn|Schaltegger|Torgler|2010|pp=99–101}} the European state system,{{sfn|Becker|Pfaff|Rubin|2016}} modern [[capitalism]] in Northern Europe,{{sfn|Weber|Kalberg|2012|pp=xi; xxviii–xxxvi; xl; 3–5; 103–126}} and overall economic growth.{{sfn|Spater|Tranvik|2019|pp=1963–1994}} However, [[urbanization]] and [[industrialisation]] created a plethora of new social problems.{{sfn|Skocpol|Trimberger|1977|pp=101–104}}{{sfn|Gilley|2006|pp=4–5}} In Europe and North America, both Protestants and Catholics provided massive aid to the poor, supported family welfare, and offered medicine and education.{{sfn|Gilley|2006|p=5}}

During the [[French Revolution]], Jefferson co-authored the 1789 [[Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen]] recognizing freedom of religion, while radical revolutionaries violently sought [[Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution|dechristianization]].{{sfn|McLean|2004}}{{sfn|Tallett|1991}} As a result, the Eastern Orthodox Church rejected Enlightenment ideas as too dangerous to embrace.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=175}}

=== Nineteenth and twentieth centuries ===
The [[Second Great Awakening]] - a religious revival of the 1800s–1830s - produced [[Latter Day Saint movement|Mormonism]], [[Restoration Movement|Restorationism]], and the [[Holiness movement]].{{sfn|Caldwell|2017|pp=3-4, 6}} Mormons preached the restoration of first-century Christianity, upheld [[millennialism]] and [[premillennialism]], and sought to create a religious utopia.{{sfn|Howe|2015|pp=27, 8, 29, 30, 32-33}} Restorationists, such as the [[Churches of Christ]], [[Jehovah's Witnesses]], and [[Seventh-day Adventist Church|Seventh Day Adventists]], also focused on restoring practices of the early church, emphasizing baptism as the crucial conversion experience and biblical authority.{{sfn|Ware|1999|p=233}}{{sfn|Caldwell|2017|pp=3, 10}} The Holiness movement contributed to the development of [[Pentecostalism]] by combining Restorationism with the goal of [[Sanctification in Christianity|sanctification]] defined as a deeper spiritual experience.{{sfn|Ware|1999|pp=234, 237}} 
[[File:Slavery19.jpg|thumb|alt=example of an anti-slavery tract concerning the separation of black families|American anti-slavery tract, 1853]]
This revival focused on evidencing conversion through active moral reform in areas such as [[women's rights]], [[Temperance movement|temperance]], literacy, and [[Abolitionism|the abolition of slavery]]. The pursuit of women's rights established "prayer, worship, and biblical exegesis as weapons of political warfare",{{sfn|Saunders|2019|p=abstract}} while the accent on human choice and activism influenced [[Evangelicalism in the United States|evangelicalism]] thereafter.{{sfn|Caldwell|2017|pp=8-9}}{{sfn|Mintz|1995| pp=51–53}}{{sfn|Cairns|2015|p=26}}{{sfn|Masters|Young|2022|loc=abstract}} The 300-year-old [[trans-Atlantic slave trade]], in which some Christians had participated, had always garnered moral objections, and by the eighteenth century, individual [[Quakers]], [[Methodists]], Presbyterians, and [[Baptists]] began a written campaign against it.{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=517–524}} Congregations led by black preachers kept abolitionism alive into the early nineteenth century when some American Protestants organized the first [[American Anti-Slavery Society|anti-slavery societies]].{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=525–530}} This ideological opposition eventually ended the trans-Atlantic slave trade, changing economic and human history on three continents.{{sfn|Eltis|1987|pp=71, 103, 236–239|loc=chapter 13}}{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=525–526}} 

The [[Third Great Awakening]] began in 1857 and took root throughout the world, especially in English-speaking countries.{{sfn|Cairns|2015|p=26}} Nineteenth-century Protestant missionaries, many of them women, played a significant role in shaping nations and societies.{{sfn|Gilley|2006|p=2}}{{sfn|Robert|2009|p=1}}{{sfn|Gonzalez|2010|p=302}}{{sfn|Gilley|2006|p=5}} They translated the Bible into local languages, generating a written [[grammar]], a [[lexicon]] of native traditions, and a [[dictionary]] of the local language.{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|p=xx}} These were used to teach in missionary schools, resulting in the spread of literacy and [[indigenization]].{{sfn|Táíwò|2010|pp=68–70}}{{sfn|Sanneh|2016|pp=279, 285}}{{sfn|Isichei|1995|p=9}} According to historian [[Lamin Sanneh]], Protestant missionaries thus stimulated the "largest, most diverse and most vigorous movement of cultural renewal" in African history.{{sfn|Sanneh|2016|p=xx}}{{sfn|Gilley|2006|p=3}}{{sfn|de Juan|Pierskalla|2017|p=161}}

[[Liberal Christians]] embraced seventeenth-century rationalism, but its disregard of faith and ritual in maintaining Christianity led to its decline. [[Fundamentalist Christianity]] rose in the early 1900s as a reaction against [[Modernist Christianity|modern rationalism]].{{sfn|Gasper|2020|p=13}}{{sfn|Hobson|2013|pp=1; 3-4}} By 1930, Protestant fundamentalism in America appeared to be dying.{{sfn|Gasper|2020|pp=14, 18}}{{sfn|Harris|1998|p=22}} However, in the second half of the 1930s, a theology against liberalism that also included a reevaluation of Reformation teachings began uniting moderates of both sides.{{sfn|Gasper|2020|p=19}}{{sfn|Harris|1998|pp=42, 57}}

The Roman Catholic Church became increasingly centralized, conservative, and focused on loyalty to the Pope.{{sfn|McLeod|2006|p=3}} As Nazism rose, [[Pope Pius XI]] declared the irreconcilability of the Catholic position with totalitarian fascist states that placed the nation above God.{{sfn|Holmes|1981|p=116}} Most leaders and members of the largest Protestant church in Germany, the [[German Evangelical Church]], supported the [[Nazi Party]] when they came to power in 1933.{{sfn|United States Holocaust Memorial Museu|n.d.}} About a third of German Protestants formed the [[Confessing Church]] which opposed Nazism; its members were harassed, arrested, and otherwise targeted. In Poland, Catholic priests were arrested and [[Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland|Polish priests and nuns were executed]] en masse.{{sfn|Rossino|2003|pp=72, 169, 185, 285}}

=== Russian Orthodoxy ===
The [[Church reform of Peter the Great|church reform of Peter I of Russia]] in the early 1700s placed the Orthodox authorities under the control of the [[Emperor of Russia|emperor]]. Russian emperors continually involved the church in campaigns of [[russification]], contributing to antisemitism.{{sfn|Shlikhta|2004|pp=361–273}}{{sfn|Klier|Lambroza|2004|p=306}} The [[Bolsheviks|communist revolutionaries]] who established the [[Soviet Union]] saw the Church as an [[enemy of the people]] and part of the monarchy.{{sfn|Bouteneff|1998|pp=vi–1}}{{sfn|Sullivan|2006}}{{sfn|Calciu-Dumitreasa|1983|pp=5–8}}{{sfn|Eidintas|2001|p=23}} The communist Soviet Union heavily persecuted the [[Russian Orthodox Church]],{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=178}} executing up to 8,000 people by 1922.{{sfn|Pipes|1995|p=356}} The [[League of Militant Atheists]] adopted a five-year plan in 1932 "aimed at the total eradication of religion by 1937".{{sfn|Walters|2005|p=15}} Despite this, the Orthodox Church continued to contribute to theology and culture.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|pp=177–178}}