The History of Christianity: The Age of Exploration to the Modern Day

By Jonathan Hill

How did a group of scared peasants from a backwater of the Roman empire – followers of an executed criminal – form the largest religion on the planet?

The story of Christianity, its transformation from an illegal sect to the religion of emperors, kings and presidents, and its spread across the globe, is an endlessly fascinating one. 

The History of Christianity gives readers an overview of these extraordinary 2,000 years. It is a history not only of how Christianity has changed the world, but also of how the world has changed Christianity.

The first half of this volume is arranged mostly chronologically to create a single narrative from the age of exploration to the late twentieth century.

The second half describes the history of the church in the past hundred years or so, with each chapter focusing on a different part of the world. 

Boxed features throughout the volume highlight especially important figures or themes from each of these periods. The History of Christianity:The Age of Exploration to the Modern Day will be welcomed by all those wanting a lively and engaging presentation of the people, events, places, and plain curiosities that have formed the Christian story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lion Scholar
• Release date: Nov 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781912552436

Jonathan Hill

Jonathan Hill is Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Exeter. He holds an MPhil in Theology from Oxford, and a PhD in Philosophy from the National University of Singapore. He is the author of the highly acclaimed The History of Christian Thought (Lion, 2003), What Has Christianity Ever Done for Us? (Lion, 2005), The Big Questions (Lion, 2007), and The New Lion Handbook: The History of Christianity (Lion, 2007).

Book preview

THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

THE AGE OF EXPLORATION TO THE MODERN DAY

Jonathan Hill

Consulting editors

Michelle Brown

Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscript Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London

Mark Noll

Research Professor of History, Regent College

Michael Nai Chiu Poon

Asian Christianity coordinator of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia at Trinity Theological College, Singapore

Lamin Sanneh

Formerly Professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale Divinity School and Professor of History at Yale University

Graham Tomlin

President of St Mellitus College and Bishop of Kensington

This edition copyright © 2020 Lion Hudson IP Limited

The author and contributors assert the moral right to be identified as the author and contributors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published by

Lion Hudson Limited

Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Business Park

Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England

www.lionhudson.com

ISBN 978 1 9125 5252 8

e-ISBN 978 1 9125 5243 6

First edition 2007

Acknowledgments

Scripture quotations taken from The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches in the USA. Used by permission. All Rights Reserved.

All maps and diagrams by Richard Watts of Total Media Services.

Cover image: copyright © Peter Adams Photography/Shutterstock

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

CONTENTS

Timeline of Christian History

Introduction

1. A New Age of Exploration

Africa

Portugal and ‘Pepper and Souls’

Settlers and Missionaries

Congo and the Slave Trade

The Capuchin Missions

Angola

Ethiopia and the re-Catholicization Experiment

The Dutch and African Protestantism

South America

The Colonies and the Slaves

The Missionaries

Vasco De Quiroga, the Jesuits, and the Utopian Dream

Indigenous Catholicism

North America

A Catholic Superstate: New France

The British Colonies

The Puritan Fathers: A new theocracy? (Jeremy Bangs)

Missions to India

The Far East

The Missions to Japan

Matteo Ricci in China

New Missions

Persecution and Clampdown

The Rites Controversy

Indonesia

The Philippines

2. Reason and Revival

The Dawn of Modernity

Faith and Reason

Cartesianism

Rationalism

Socinianism and Unitarianism

Deism

Enlightenment in North America

Enlightenment in Russia

Ukraine and Russia

Nikon and the Old Believers

Catherine ‘the Great’ and the re-Christianization of Russia (Paul Steeves)

Peter ‘The Great’

The Roots of Revival

Catholic Spirituality

Pietism

The Moravians

The Great Awakening

The Caribbean

The British Revivals

John Wesley and the Methodists (David Hempton)

From Revivalism to Evangelicalism

3. The West After the Enlightenment

New Wars, New Europe

The Jacobins

Napoleon Bonaparte and Pius VII

A New Europe and a New Papacy

Manifest Destiny and New Revivals

The Second Great Awakening

New Preaching, New Sects

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Douglas Davies)

Missions to the Slaves

The Social Challenge

The Abolition of Slavery

The Industrial Revolution and New Social Conditions

The Evangelicals

Social Activism

Industrial Philanthropy

Romanticism

Hegel and the dialectic (Samuel Powell)

Romantic Theology

The Crisis of Faith

Darwinism (Jon Roberts)

Liberal Christianity

The Critics

Liberal Theology

The Social Gospel

Battening Down the Hatches

The Catholic Response

The Protestant Response

The ‘Struggle of Cultures’

Science Versus Religion

The Oxford Movement (Peter Nockles)

Anti-Clericalism in Europe

Revival in Russia

The Startsy

Orthodoxy Goes East

Spirituality in literature: The great Russian novelists (Malcolm Jones)

4. The Age of Colonialism

New Worlds, New Challenges

The Scramble for Africa

The First African Protestants

Sierra Leone: An Experiment in African Freedom

Samuel Crowther and the Nigerian Missions

Fetishism and Syncretism

The Renewal of European Mission

Central Africa

Southern Africa

Africa Ascendant: Ethiopia in the Nineteenth Century

The Second ‘New World’

The South Seas

Australia

New Zealand

India

The Tamil Missions

The East India Company and the Rise of Anglicanism

The Baptist Missions

Roman Catholics and Romo-Syrians

The Malankara Church

East Asia

China

Hong Xiuquan and the God worshippers (Thomas Reilly)

Japan

Indonesia

5. Modern Europe

A Changing Eastern Europe

The Ottoman Empire and the Balkans

The Communist Revolutions

Orthodoxy under communism (Philip Walters)

The End of the Communist Era

Eastern Europe After Communism

Modernism to Postmodernism: Western Europe

The First World War and the End of the Modern Project

The Age of the Dictators

Dialectical theology (Timothy Bradshaw)

After the Holocaust

The 1960s and a Post-Christian Europe

Radical Movements

Bones and Councils: A Revitalised Roman Catholicism

A New Social Agenda

The ecumenical movement (Charles Hill)

6. Modern America and Oceania

Unity Out of Diversity

The Canadian Churches

Protestants and Catholics in the USA

Old-Time Religion: The American Civil War

The Legacy of the Awakenings

Preachers, Revivals and a New Evangelicalism

Students and Free Dinners: Evangelicals Worldwide

New Movements, New Controversies

The African American Experience

Pentecostalism

Christianity and equality: Martin Luther King (Ira Zepp)

Conservatives and Liberals

The ‘Religious Right’

The American Catholic Church and Sexual Abuse

The Latin American Experience

‘Red Mexico’

The Renewal of Latin Catholicism

Socialism and Liberation

Protestantism

The Pacific

The Antipodes

The Pacific Churches

7. Modern Asia

India

Christian Hinduism and the Nationalist Movement

The Malankara Church Before National Independence

The Post-Independence Churches

Christian Ashrams

China

New Challenges

The Search for an Indigenous Christianity

Russian Orthodoxy in China

The Christian Manifesto and the Three-Self Movement

Catholicism Under Communism

The Cultural Revolution

After the Revolution

The Kakure Kirishitan (Mark Williams)

Japan

The Imperial Rescript on Education

The United Church of Christ

The Nonchurch Movement

The Christ Heart Church

Japanese Pentecostalism

The Way

Christianity in Japanese Society

Korea

The Beginnings

The Persecutions

Korea Opens Up

From the Japanese Occupation to the Divided Nations

The Rejuvenation

South-East Asia

The Philippines

Indonesia

8. Modern Africa

The End of the Colonial Period

Colonialism, War and the Move to Autonomy

Leading the Way: Catholicism in East Africa

Central Africa: New Missions, New Growth

Growth and Conflict in West Africa

New Prophets, New Movements

Independent Africa

Southern Africa

John Mbiti and the development of African theology (Ogbu Kalu)

The Spirit and the Law: Pentecostalism and the African Initiated Churches

African church music (Patrick Chukwudezie Chibuko)

The Ancient African Churches

Glossary

Contributors

Bibliography

Index

TIMELINE OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY

c. 30 Execution of Jesus of Nazareth.

c. 49 Council of Jerusalem establishes that Christians do not have to be Jewish.

c. 50–c.64 Paul writes letters to different churches.

c. 64 First persecution of Christians, under Nero. Deaths of Peter, Paul, and James the Just.

c. 66–c. 95 Probable dates of the four Gospels.

70 Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

c. 90 Council of Jamnia marks break between Christianity and Judaism.

c. 95 Persecution under Domitian.

c. 107 Ignatius of Antioch writes to seven churches.

c. 180 Irenaeus of Lyons writesOn the so-called gnosis.

c. 190 Osrhoene becomes the first officially Christian state.

c. 230 Origen of Alexandria writesOn first principles.

250 Persecution under Decius.

303–11 Persecution under Diocletian and Galerius.

c. 310s–370s Persecutions in Persia under Shapur II.

313 Edict of Milan legalizes Christianity.

325 Council of Nicaea condemns Arianism.

330 Constantinople founded as the Christian capital of the Roman empire.

c. 330 Pachomius writes the first Rule for a Christian monastery.

381 Council of Constantinople condemns Arianism again.

380s Emperor Theodosius effectively establishes Christianity as the official religion of Rome.

393 A council at Hippo establishes the canon of the Bible.

417 Pope Innocent I condemns Pelagius.

c. 426 Augustine of Hippo completesCity of God.

431 Council of Ephesus condemns Nestorius.

c. 433 Patrick lands in Ireland and converts King Laoghaire.

451 Council of Chalcedon condemns Eutyches.

484 Roman synod excommunicates Acacius of Constantinople over theHenoticon, marking the first official break between the two churches.

c. 500 Pseudo-Dionysius writesThe mystical theology.

c. 530 Benedict of Nursia writes his Rule.

537 Dedication of new cathedral of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople.

553 Second Council of Constantinople condemns the ‘Three Chapters’.

590 Gregory the Great becomes Pope.

627 Emperor Heraclius conquers Ctesiphon and restores the ‘True Cross’ to Jerusalem.

630s Persia, Egypt, Armenia, and Levant conquered by Muslims.

652 Christian Makuria and Muslim Egypt agree thebaqttreaty.

664 Synod of Whitby decrees that England will use Roman, not Celtic, rites.

680 Third Council of Constantinople condemns monotheletism.

725 Emperor Leo III begins crackdown on icons.

c. 780 Stele of Xian records the state of the Chinese church.

787 Second Council of Nicaea authorizes use of icons in worship.

c. 800 Book of Kellsproduced in Ireland.

843 ‘Restoration of orthodoxy’ in Byzantium confirms legitimacy of icons.

845 Emperor Wu-tsang closes Chinese monasteries.

858 Pope Nicholas I condemns Photius of Constantinople, marking the second official break between the two churches.

864 Baptism of Khan Boris I of Bulgaria.

878 Treaty of Wedmore forces Vikings in England to convert to Christianity.

910 Cluniac order founded.

966 Prince Mieszko I of Poland baptized.

988 Prince Vladimir of the Rus baptized.

1051 Kiev-Pechersk Lavra founded in Kiev.

1054 ‘Great Schism’ between Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

1075 Pope Gregory VII issues thePapal decree.

1084 Carthusian order founded.

1095 Pope Urban II preaches the First Crusade.

1098 Cistercian order founded.

1099 Crusaders capture Jerusalem.

1128 Knights Templar founded.

1145 Pope Eugenius III preaches the Second Crusade.

1180 Pope Alexander III condemns the Waldensians.

1187 Saladin captures Jerusalem.

1198 Innocent III becomes Pope.

1204 Third Crusade results in sacking of Constantinople and the establishment of a Latin patriarchate.

1210 Francis of Assisi founds the Franciscan order.

1215 Fourth Lateran Council defines Catholic beliefs and practices, including transubstantiation.

1216 Dominic de Gusmán founds the Dominican order.

1242 Montsegur, citadel of the Cathars, destroyed.

1242 Alexander Nevsky defeats the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Lake Peipus, to keep Russia Orthodox.

1261 Byzantines recapture Constantinople.

1273 Thomas Aquinas leaves hisSumma theologiaeunfinished.

c. 1280 Kebre Negastcompiled in Ethiopia.

1305 Pope Clement V moves the Papacy to Avignon.

1314 Knights Templar suppressed.

1330s–40s Amda Siyon of Ethiopia conquers Ifat and imposes Christianity there.

1338 Gregory Palamas writesTriads in defence of the holy hesychasts.

1368 Fall of the Yuan dynasty brings the Chinese church to an end.

1377 Pope Gregory XI condemns John Wycliffe.

1380s Persecutions under Tamerlane almost destroy the Church of the East.

1387 ‘Great Schism’ begins between the Avignon and Roman Papacies.

1414 Council of Constance resolves ‘Great Schism’, restores Papacy to Rome, and condemns Jan Hus.

1438 Council of Basle (later Ferrara, Florence, and Rome) briefly reunites Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

1453 Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans.

1474 Marsilio Ficino writesPlatonic theology.

1483 Spanish Inquisition set up.

1491 Nzinga Nkuvu (João) of Congo is baptized.

1498 Portuguese establish contact with Indian Christians.

1509–43 Mvemba Nzinga (Afonso) establishes Christianity throughout Congo.

1513 Requirementimposed upon Conquistadors in the Americas, requiring that they give a cursory explanation of Christianity to natives.

1517 Martin Luther nails his ‘Ninety-five theses’ to the church door in Wittenberg.

1520 Portuguese establish contact with Ethiopia.

1521 The Diet of Worms condemns Martin Luther.

1534 Act of Supremacy makes King Henry VIII head of the Church of England.

1537 Pope Paul III condemns the enslavement of native Americans.

1540 Ignatius Loyola founds the Society of Jesus.

1542 Francis Xavier arrives in India and begins preaching there.

1545–63 Council of Trent re-affirms Catholic doctrine in the face of Protestantism.

1549 Francis Xavier arrives in Japan and begins preaching there.

1552 Thomas Cranmer publishes the second edition of theBook of common prayer.

1553 Jesuits establish a mission at Luanda, Angola.

1559 John Calvin publishes the definitive edition ofInstitutes of the Christian religion.

1561 Cathedral of the Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat (known as St Basil’s Cathedral) completed in Moscow.

1565 Augustinian missionaries arrive in the Philippines.

1569 Ukraine is given to Poland and Catholicized.

1571 The ‘Thirty-nine articles’ established as the doctrine of the Church of England.

1577 Teresa of Avila publishesThe interior castle.

1583 Matteo Ricci enters China.

1596 Eastern-rite Ukrainian Catholic Church established.

1596 Persecutions of Christians in Japan begun.

1598 King Henry IV of France issues the Edict of Nantes, permitting freedom of worship to the Huguenots.

1599 Synod of Diamper attempts to Catholicize the Malabar Christians in India.

1603 Matteo Ricci completesThe true doctrine of the Lord of heaven.

1609 Jesuits gain control of Paraguay and establish the first of the ‘Thirty Missions’.

1611 A team of scholars commissioned by King James I of England produce the Authorized Version of the Bible in English.

1615 New basilica of St Peter’s completed in Rome.

1618 The Synod of Dort condemns Arminianism and defines orthodox Calvinism.

1619 Feodor Romanov is enthroned as Filaret, patriarch of Moscow.

1620 ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ land at Plymouth Rock and establish a Puritan society.

1622 Pope Gregory XV creates the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.

1633 Emperor Fasilidas expels Jesuits and other Catholic missionaries from Ethiopia.

1639 Japan closes its borders to westerners, driving Christianity underground.

1645 Pope Innocent X bans the Chinese rites.

1649–60 England becomes a Commonwealth, with Puritanism dominant in the church.

1652 Nikon becomes patriarch of Moscow and begins his controversial reforms.

1667 Ukraine is divided between Poland and Russia, bringing the Catholic Enlightenment to Russia.

1672 Thousands of Huguenots are killed in the Bartholomew’s Day massacre in France.

1673 Test Act in England bans non-Anglicans from all establishment posts.

1674 Catholic hierarchy officially established in New France.

1682 The French clergy issue a Declaration of Gallicanism.

1685 King Louis XIV of France revokes the Edict of Nantes.

1688 King James II of England is deposed, partly because of his increasing support of Roman Catholicism.

1721 Tsar Peter the Great of Russia replaces the patriarchate of Moscow with a Holy Synod.

1724 Emperor Yongzeng of China bans Christianity.

1728 William Law publishesA serious call to a devout and holy life.

1730 Matthew Tindal publishesChristianity as old as creation.

1739 John Wesley breaks with the Moravians in Britain and founds what will become the Methodists.

1740 George Whitefield arrives in America and preaches the new revivals.

1742 Pope Benedict XIV confirms the banning of the Chinese rites.

1750 Jesuits expelled from Paraguay.

1754 Methodist missionaries arrive in Antigua and begin the first systematic preaching to West Indian slaves.

1755 The Lisbon earthquake causes many to question the goodness of God.

1764 Voltaire publishes thePhilosophical dictionary.

1773 Pope Clement XIV suppresses the Jesuits.

1774–77 Gotthold Lessing publishes fragments by Hermann Reimarus casting doubt on the authenticity of the New Testament.

1786 Virginia passes Thomas Jefferson’s bill guaranteeing complete religious liberty.

1790s Persecutions against Christians begin in Korea.

1792 Colonists from North America arrive in Sierra Leone to establish a new Christian colony there.

1792–94 The National Convention in France attempts to replace Catholicism with Deism.

1796 The London Missionary Society sends the first missionaries to Tahiti.

1799 Friedrich Schleiermacher publishesOn religion: speeches to its cultured despisers.

1799 William Carey arrives in Serampore and begins to preach there.

1807 Robert Morrison arrives in China and begins to preach there.

1807 G.W.F. Hegel publishesPhenomenology of spirit.

1809 Napoleon invades the Papal States and forces Pope Pius VII into exile.

1814 Pope Pius VII restores the Jesuits.

1819 Pomare II of Tahiti is baptized.

1820s Mfecanemigrations in southern Africa help to spread Christianity into the interior.

1821 Robert Moffat arrives in Kuruman and sets up a mission station.

1830 Friedrich Schleiermacher publishes the second edition ofThe Christian faith.

1830 Joseph Smith founds the Church of Christ, later the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

1833–41 Publication ofTracts for the timesby the leaders of the Oxford Movement.

1835 David Strauss publishesThe life of Jesus critically examined.

1835–43 Thousands of Boers head north from Cape Town in the Great Trek, bringing the Reformed faith with them.

1836 Synod at Mavelikara rejects interference by the British in the Malankara Church.

1846 Pius IX becomes Pope.

1847 Rosendo Salvado establishes the monastery of New Norcia in Australia and preaches to the Aborigines.

1850s Persecutions against Christians in Vietnam reach a peak.

1854 Pope Pius IX defines the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

1858 Keshab Chandra Sen joins the Brahmo Sabha and pushes for a universal religion combining Jesus’ teachings with those of Hinduism.

1860 An argument about Darwinism, involving Thomas Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce, takes place in Oxford.

1864 Samuel Crowther becomes the first black Anglican bishop.

1865 Bernard Petitjean rediscovers theKakure Kirishitanof Japan.

1870 First Vatican Council condemns theSyllabus of errorsand affirms Papal infallibility.

1871 ‘Old Catholics’ establish their own church, rejecting the First Vatican Council.

1872 Te Kooti establishes the Ringatu church in New Zealand.

1873 The passing of the ‘May Laws’ begins theKulturkampfin Germany.

1878 Emperor Yohannes IV of Ethiopia calls the Council of Borumeda to establish Christological orthodoxy.

1883 Christianity legalized in Korea.

1889 Christianity legalized in Japan.

1899 Plenary Council for Latin America calls for reforms in the Latin American Catholic Church.

1900 ‘Boxers’ kill many foreigners and Christians in Beijing.

1901 Charles Parham reports manifestations of the Holy Spirit in his Bible study class in Kansas, initiating Pentecostalism.

1901 Uchimura Kanzōfounds the Nonchurch movement in Japan.

1902 Gregorio Aglipay founds the Philippine Independent Church.

1903 P.L. Le Roux founds the Zionist Apostolic Church, one of the first AICs.

1907 Great Revival at P’yŏngyang helps spread Christianity in both Korea and China.

1910 World Mission Conference in Edinburgh marks the start of the modern ecumenical movement.

1910–15 The fundamentalsare published in the United States, defining the typical doctrines of fundamentalism.

1917 The Russian Orthodox Church restores the patriarchate of Moscow.

1917 New Mexican constitution clamps down on Catholicism.

1918 Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana has a series of visions, leading to the establishment of the Ratana Church in New Zealand.

1920s–30 Russian Orthodox Church increasingly persecuted.

1926 Pope Pius XI ordains the first six indigenous Chinese bishops of modern times.

1927–29 Cristero Rebellion in Mexico.

1929 Lateran Pacts establish Vatican City as an independent state.

1932–68 Karl Barth publishesChurch Dogmatics.

1933 Adolf Hitler agrees a concordat with the Catholic Church, and has the German Protestant churches united into a Nazi-dominated Reich Church.

1934 German Confessing Church founded in opposition to Nazism.

1936 Italians conquer Ethiopia and begin intermittent persecutions of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

1936–37 Many Russian Orthodox clerics die in Joseph Stalin’s ‘Great Purge’.

1937 Persecutions begin against Catholic priests in Germany.

1937 Pope Pius XI condemns both communism and Nazism.

1939 Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith decrees that Chinese rites are compatible with Catholicism.

1941 United Church of Christ formed as the only officially recognized Protestant body in Japan.

1943 Joseph Stalin legalizes the Russian Orthodox Church.

1945–47 Communist governments are installed in most eastern European countries, which oppress the churches there to varying degrees.

1948 Establishment of a communist government leads to clampdown on Christianity in North Korea.

1950 Pope Pius XII defines the doctrine of the physical assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

1950 Chinese Christian Manifesto appears, leading to the establishment of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement.

1954 Establishment of a communist government in North Vietnam leads to many Christians fleeing south.

1955 Trevor Huddleston publishesNaught for your comfort.

1959–64 Nikita Krushchev clamps down on the Russian Orthodox Church.

1962–65 The Second Vatican Council restates Catholicism for the modern age.

1966–69 Cultural Revolution in China sees persecution against Christians and all churches closed.

1971 Gustavo Gutiérrez publishesTheology of liberation.

1978 John Paul II becomes Pope.

1978 Bharat Christian Church created as a federation of Indian churches.

1979 Jerry Falwell forms the Moral Majority, initiating a period of political influence for right-wing Christianity in the United States.

1980 China Christian Council created, as churches are gradually reopened there.

1981 President Anwar Sadat of Egypt briefly outlaws the Coptic Church.

1984 Pope John Paul II performs the first canonization outside Rome, in Seoul.

1985 Institute for Contextual Theology in South Africa issues theKairos Document.

1989–91 Collapse of communism in most of eastern Europe leads to new freedom for the churches there.

1990 Catholicism legalized in Cambodia.

1992 The Church of England ordains its first female priests.

1994 The ‘Toronto Blessing’ is reported at Toronto Airport Vineyard Christian Fellowship.

2003 Bernard Law resigns as Catholic archbishop of Boston over allegations of covering up paedophilia among the priesthood.

2003 Gene Robinson becomes Episcopalian bishop of New Hampshire in the United States, drawing deep controversy over his active homosexuality.

2005 German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected as the new Pope.

2006 The general synod of the Church of England, led by the archbishop of Canterbury, apologizes for benefiting from slavery up to 1834.

INTRODUCTION

Palestine, c. AD 30: an obscure Jewish preacher, the latest in a line of charismatic religious figures, is executed by the Roman authorities. His followers scatter. The wider world pays no attention whatsoever.

The early twenty-first century: approximately a third of the world’s population – some two billion people – are estimated to be followers of that preacher. Typing his name into the most popular search engine on the Internet brings up well over 100 million hits. More books have been written about him than about any other person in history.

How did a group of scared peasants from a backwater of the Roman empire, followers of an executed criminal, become the largest religion on the planet? The story of Christianity, its transformation from an illegal sect to the religion of emperors, kings and presidents, and its spread across the globe, is an endlessly fascinating one. This book and its companion volume, The History of Christianity: The Early Church to the Reformation, offer an overview of these extraordinary two thousand years. Both volumes are written to be accessible to readers without any background in the subject, but the hope is that they will also contain plenty of interest to those who are already familiar with much of the story.

It is a story not just of how Christianity has changed the world, but of how the world has changed Christianity. In these pages, we will meet persecuted pacifists, glossy American televangelists, Enlightenment-era European philosophers, Asian and African missionaries, Japanese Pentecostalists, and many more – Christians one and all. Christianity has spread to virtually every culture on earth, and people from each culture have understood or re-interpreted the Christian message in their own way. And so we have aimed to tell not simply what Christians did and where they went, but how Christianity itself has adapted to different peoples and cultures – even as Christians seek to remain true to the same message of Jesus, however differently they have understood it.

The history of Christianity is such a vast subject that no two-volume set can hope to do justice to its scope and complexity. This book is intended as a sort of bird’s-eye view of the main contours from the age of exploration to the modern day. It is divided into eight chapters, each one describing a different period of Christian history; along the way, text boxes highlight especially important figures or themes. The first four chapters (and the sections within each chapter) are arranged mostly chronologically, to create a single narrative post-Reformation up to the modern day – although occasionally a more thematic arrangement has been used to clarify matters. The last four chapters all describe the history of the church in the past hundred years or so, each one focusing on a different part of the world.

Perhaps inevitably, the history of Christianity in Europe forms the dominant theme for much of the book. Christianity began in the Middle East, and in recent decades it has seen its greatest growth in Africa. Yet for much of the intervening period, it was in Europe that it grew and developed most dramatically, and European-style Christianity has proven far more determined and effective at spreading overseas than the versions of Christianity that developed elsewhere. In the past, this fact has sometimes led to Europeans and Americans almost entirely overlooking non-European forms of Christianity, with Asia and Africa depicted as passive receivers of the religion of European or American missionaries, rather than as the homes of ancient, thriving, and independent Christian traditions. In this book, we have aimed to reflect the importance of these non-European traditions while acknowledging the role of Europeans in spreading Christianity in later centuries – and the role of non-Europeans in creatively interpreting the message that they heard.

The book does not presuppose any prior knowledge of Christian history or theology. There is a glossary to help those unfamiliar with any technical terms that may crop up. There is also a bibliography, with chapter-by-chapter suggestions for further reading for those who wish to delve more deeply into some of the subjects sketched here. It is our hope that this volume will inspire many – whether or not they are Christians themselves – to do exactly that. For while the history of Christianity is by turns violent, inspiring, shocking, tragic, comic, or just plain bizarre, it is certainly never dull.

CHAPTER 1

A NEW AGE OF EXPLORATION

The Renaissance saw western Europeans taking a great and renewed interest in the world beyond Europe. This was partly spurred by the remarkable expedition of Marco Polo, a Venetian who, in the late thirteenth century, travelled east to Mongolian-ruled China and upon his return wrote a best-selling book about it. People across Europe were galvanized: inspired by his exploits and hoping to better them, they planned new journeys of discovery.

There were fabulous prizes to be won. India, with its riches, especially in spice, was one such. Somewhere beyond India, tales spoke of an even richer land called Cathay. Explorers were also spurred by tales of the great empire of Mali in West Africa, a Muslim state where there was so much gold that the king used a huge nugget of it to tie his horse to. In fact, Mali really did have a major gold trade, which was conducted by camel caravan over the Sahara Desert with the Maghreb (Muslim northwest Africa, that is, modern Morocco and Tunisia). Since the Maghreb also traded with Christian Europe, this meant that much of the gold current in late medieval Europe came from African mines. In 1324 the king of Mali, Mansa Musa, made a famous pilgrimage to Mecca during which he stopped off in Cairo. Travelling with a retinue of thousands, the king gave away so much gold during his stay that he flooded the market and depressed prices for some years. Europeans were entranced, and the Catalan Atlas, made in Spain some years later, depicts the African emperor upon his throne, holding an enormous nugget of gold.

Most intriguing of all, however, was the mysterious legend of Prester John. Dating from the twelfth century, the story concerned a Christian kingdom, ruled by a priest (or ‘prester’) somewhere in Asia, or possibly Africa (medieval Europeans were rather hazy about where one continent stopped and the other started). Sometimes the Christian emperor John was thought to be a descendant of the magi who visited the infant Jesus; he was briefly identified with Genghis Khan (since there were Nestorian Christians in the Mongol armies). His kingdom was said to be a perfect utopia, though surrounded by the forces of Islam or paganism. It was also thought that the Prester intended to invade Jerusalem and free it from the Muslims.

The renewal of interest in exploration that such legends fostered would lead to an explosion of Christianity beyond its traditional borders. There had, of course, already been far-flung churches in central Asia, China and Sudan, and there were still well established ones in India and Ethiopia. But now European-style Christianity was to be exported and transplanted into distant countries. It happened in two main ways. In one, missionaries went out and sought to convert the people they found. In the other, colonists went and settled in the newly discovered lands, bringing their religion with them more or less incidentally. The two methods were not mutually exclusive – missionaries travelled to colonies, and colonies sprang up around missionaries. As a rule, the ‘mission approach’ prevailed in most of Asia and Africa and tended to be Catholic, while the ‘colonial approach’ dominated in the Americas and tended to be Protestant. But, where the Europeans encountered already existing churches, different beliefs about Jesus, authority or the church itself, which had developed separately for centuries, were brought into sudden contact. When this happened, conflict was usually inevitable: the Europeans, inheriting the clear but simplistic medieval distinction between orthodoxy and heresy, sought to bring the foreign churches into line with their own beliefs, while the members of those churches naturally resisted any attempt to override their cherished traditions.

Africa

Portugal and ‘Pepper and Souls’

Portugal became independent from Spain in around 1139 when Alfonso I (1110–85) proclaimed himself king of the northern part of the modern country, before conquering most of the rest of it. Diniz (1261–1325), king from 1279, founded the University of Lisbon in 1290, negotiated his country’s first commercial treaty with England, formed a Portuguese navy and in 1319 requested the pope to found the Order of Christ as the successor to the recently disbanded Knights Templar; but Portugal did not make much of a mark on the international scene and remained, essentially, Spain’s little brother.

All this changed in the fifteenth century, as the Portuguese crown embarked upon a sustained period of war with the Muslim powers of Iberia and the Maghreb. The Muslims were still a lingering presence in the southern part of Spain, but vastly weaker than they had once been, although Arabian corsairs were causing havoc among Portuguese merchant shipping. Portugal therefore built a significant navy. In 1415 the Portuguese sent an invasion fleet across the Straits of Gibraltar and seized Ceuta. More Portuguese conquests in North Africa followed throughout the century, especially under Alfonso V (1432–81), known for his campaigns as ‘the African’.

This African empire was expensive and subject to constant attacks from African Muslims, and it dwindled to almost nothing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At the same time new possibilities were being opened up. The key figure in this process was Henrique (1394–1460), normally known as Prince Henry the Navigator, son of King John I, who was helped by the fact that he was the apostolic administrator of the Order of Christ. This knightly order had taken over all the Portuguese possessions of the Knights Templar and Henry used these resources to finance new expeditions, ensuring that the order would have spiritual rule over any new lands that were discovered, and the Portuguese ships of discovery bore the Templars’ red cross upon their white sails.

Quite how much Henry himself contributed materially to the new era of exploration is disputed: he did not personally travel anywhere apart from North Africa, nor did he found the School of Navigation traditionally attributed to him. Nevertheless, he did help to create a new atmosphere, where exploration was not done by individual sea captains as they saw fit, but was a systematic programme run by the government. Madeira and the Azores, west of Portugal, had already been discovered, but they were systematically settled during Henry’s lifetime.

The first focus of Portuguese exploration was Africa. Explorers were sent further and further down its west coast, trading with native peoples as they went. Everywhere they travelled, they asked after Prester John and his Christian kingdom – for the eternal struggle with the Muslims was still uppermost in the Portuguese mind, and Prester John, should he be found, would doubtless be a valuable ally. In 1495 Manuel I decided to widen the scope of exploration to Asia as well. In 1497 Vasco da Gama (c. 1469–1525) set sail with four small ships. Stating that his goal was to find ‘pepper and souls’, he sailed all the way down the African coast, around the Cape of Good Hope, north up Africa’s eastern coast and eventually all the way to India. He returned to Lisbon in 1499 a hero, having successfully opened up the route not only to India but to much of Africa too. Manuel I ordered the construction of the magnificent Jerónimos Monastery near Lisbon to commemorate the discovery of this route. For the explorers were not only going to spread Portuguese trade and military influence: they were also going to bring Christianity. To oversee this endeavour, Manuel created a missionary tribunal, dominated by the Order of the Cross, of which he was now the head. The tribunal, one of the earliest bodies established for the express purpose of evangelization, met every fortnight to determine the course of mission in the new lands.

But, as they explored and claimed land, the Portuguese clashed with other powers, primarily Spain. In 1479 Spain and Portugal agreed the Treaty of Alcáçovas, which allowed the Spanish to claim anything north of the Canary Islands and the Portuguese to claim anything to the south. This proved unsatisfactory, especially following Columbus’s discovery, in 1492, of what was to become known as the Americas. Pope Alexander VI (who was Spanish) proposed a north-south dividing line, giving the Spanish anything to the west and the Portuguese anything to the east. This was settled in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, although the Portuguese insisted on moving the line west. Together with the Papal division of the world into two hemispheres went the bestowal of the padroado, essentially a divine prerogative to the Portuguese to conquer and govern whatever lands lay within their half and to oversee religion there.

Settlers and Missionaries

As the explorers opened up the African coast, other people followed in their wake. First they built forts and trading posts and then they built settlements. Since all trade was in the hands of the Portuguese crown, and any smuggling was punishable by death, settlement was relatively slow and sparse. Clearly many people felt put off by the strict rules. However, settlements still appeared, especially around the mouth of the River Gambia. The settlers built churches, and some took local women as their wives. In 1482 a fort was constructed at São João da Mina (on the coast of what is now Ghana), which was used as a base for trading with the whole region, especially what is now Senegal, Guinea and the Ivory Coast. Gold, ivory, pepper and slaves were traded all along the coast, and missionaries from the Order of Christ arrived there and began to preach to the indigenous people. In this they were helped by a fortuitous miracle: the face of a wooden statue of Francis of Assisi which they had brought darkened in the humidity and heat. The missionaries claimed that the saint was turning black, becoming the patron saint of Africans.

The missions had some success. Many Africans converted to Christianity, often as the chiefs or kings of tribes converted and had all their followers baptized at once. Yet it was often a rather ephemeral affair. Most of the missionaries spoke little of the local languages, and they did not explain much about Christianity to their prospective converts: instead, it was often considered enough for someone to be able to make the sign of the cross and repeat a formula about the Trinity. Inevitably, there were problems, as many Africans expected to be able to continue traditional religious practices even after Christian baptism. There was little attempt at accommodation. One slave continued to leave bread out for her dead father, who she claimed came to eat it. She was taken to Lisbon, tried before the Inquisition and imprisoned for life.

The colonists were fortunate to arrive at a time of flux in West African politics. To the north the great empire of Mali was breaking up, soon to be replaced by the even more extensive Songhai empire. Most of the vast forests and jungles of the African interior were inhabited by small tribes or statelets with no real unity. An exception was Benin, to the east, which in the fifteenth century under Oba Ewuare ‘the Great’ and his son Oba Ozulua ‘the Conqueror’ came to dominate the south of what is now Nigeria. Benin and its client states were happy to trade with the Portuguese, but there was little progress in evangelization in this region. Christianity remained largely confined to the coastal forts and settlements, and the evangelization of Benin was sporadic at best. We know of one enthusiastic Beninite convert, called (after his baptism) Gregorio Lourenço. He worked as an interpreter and helped the few missionaries who came to Benin, but they seem to have rather neglected him: he wanted to have his family baptized, but the oba forbade it, and the missionaries, keen to win the conversion of the king and his court, complied. For people like Gregorio Lourenço, conversion to Christianity meant social marginalization.

In the seventeenth century a group of Capuchin friars (a sub-order within the Franciscans) managed to gain permission to build a chapel in the capital, Benin City, but again little came of the mission. They did manage to infiltrate a religious rite in 1665, which turned out to be a human sacrifice in the presence of the king. The friars stepped out of the crowd and tried to halt proceedings, for which they were summarily thrown out.

Congo and the Slave Trade

Far more successful – at least initially – was the mission to Congo, further south. One of the first Portuguese enclaves was set up at the coastal region of Soyo, a client state of Congo – for, like Benin and indeed most African empires, Congo was essentially a federation of states dominated by the central government at the capital city, Mbanza Kongo. In 1491 Nzinga Nkuvu, the king of Congo, was baptized and took the name João (Portuguese for ‘John’); one of his first acts was to command the destruction of all non-Christian idols. However, there were difficulties already. Many Congolese adopted Christianity quite enthusiastically, seeing it as an addition rather than a replacement for their traditional religion. Many others rejected it, and Nzinga Nkuvu himself subsequently returned to paganism, forcing his son, Mvemba Nzinga, who was being brought up in the Christian faith, to flee the country.

In 1506 the old king died and Mvemba Nzinga, more commonly known by his baptismal name of Afonso, returned in triumph to Congo and proceeded to stamp his personality on the country. Under Afonso churches were built and printing presses imported. He was determined to make Congo the cultural and technological equal of Portugal, and even sent two sons to Portugal to be educated: one became bishop of Uttica, the other professor of humanities at the University of Lisbon.

By the time Afonso died in 1543, there were around two million Christians in Congo – half the entire population. However, despite the apparent success of the mission there and Afonso’s own attempts to Christianize the country, things were not looking good. One major problem was the slave trade, which was steadily destroying Congo’s economy and its people. This was largely driven by greed for the profits to be made from sugar, which was becoming a major trade in the Atlantic islands, so great was the demand for it in Europe. Weight for weight, sugar was almost as valuable as gold, and the Portuguese wanted huge numbers of slaves to work the plantations. They found a ready supply in the ‘slave rivers’ of West Africa. Most slaves entered slavery when powerful states such as Benin or, to the south, Congo, captured people from weaker or client statelets and sold them on to the Europeans.

The slave trade quickly became central to the economies and burgeoning power of many European countries. One of the first English slave traders was John Hawkins, who first captured slaves on the West African coast in 1562. Two years later he had no less a backer than Elizabeth I for his next expedition. The fact that the ship he used for this cruel purpose was called Jesus of Lubeck reflects one of the more chilling aspects of the whole terrible business: most Christians seem not to have been bothered by the capture, sale or exploitation of slaves, or the exceptionally cruel treatment they suffered both in the slave ships and while working on the plantations. We shall see in the next two chapters how many Christians subsequently came to oppose slavery, but in the sixteenth century it seems that a love of profit overrode any moral scruples suffered by those who oversaw the trade – who all claimed, at least, to be Christians. This is despite the fact that, of course, Jesus himself not only preached about love for one’s fellow human beings but warned of the dangers of wealth and avarice. Nevertheless, many Christians remained unable to see a contradiction here well into the eighteenth century: it is well known that John Newton, the author of the hymn Amazing grace, was a slaver before his conversion to evangelical Christianity, but it is less often reported that he continued slaving for many years afterwards as well.

It is not known how many Africans died in the Atlantic slave trade, but it was certainly tens of millions. But in the eyes of those in power in Europe, slavery was indispensable to their nations’ economies and well being. Meanwhile, the economies of some African states, especially that of Congo, also came to rely quite heavily upon the slave trade – even though it was literally destroying them from within. By 1516 some 4,000 slaves were leaving Congo every year. A single Catholic missal cost about the same as a Congolese slave. Indeed, European contact was ultimately fatal for the civilization of Congo, not just because of the slave trade, but also because the firearms which the traders sold to chieftains and kings of client states removed the military superiority which the king of Congo had previously enjoyed.

The country – and the church – survived throughout the sixteenth century, however. In 1548 a Jesuit college was founded at Mbanza Kongo, now known as Sâo Salvador, but after five years they were expelled and moved south to Angola instead. In 1596, mainly to get around the Portuguese monopoly on religion in the area, Rome gave Sâo Salvador its own bishop. However, there was still a huge lack of native priests and church structure, and political instability did not help.

The Capuchin Missions

In 1640 the pope created a ‘Prefecture Apostolic’ of the Congo, which was put in the hands of the Italian Capuchins. Founded in the early sixteenth century in the Italian Marches by one Matteo di Bassi, these friars wanted to return to a more strict interpretation of the rule of Francis himself. They wore pointed hoods, which were believed to have been worn by Francis and his first followers and therefore symbolized this return to their roots; and they not only led very austere lifestyles, but were dedicated to preaching. This was why the Capuchins began to play an important role in foreign mission in the seventeenth century.

Italian friars began to infiltrate Congo, despite Portuguese protests that the padroado allowed only Portuguese missionaries there. War between Portugal and Spain in the 1640s allowed more Capuchins to find their way to Congo, and by the second half of the century there were enormous numbers of them, working to bring Catholicism to the indigenous people. The situation was dangerous. Many Capuchins died soon after arrival, unused to the climate, and war broke out in 1655 between Congo and Portugal, in which Portuguese forces not only wiped out the enemy but destroyed Sâo Salvador, complete with its cathedral. Slowly, the city and the church were rebuilt.

Meanwhile, the Capuchin missionaries were facing new problems with their converts. As in West Africa, the procedure was often to find a local chief or minor king, persuade him to accept baptism, and hope that he would order all his people to do the same – which he normally did. In this way, improbably vast numbers of people were baptized – some Capuchin missionaries in the late seventeenth century claimed to have baptized over 50,000 people! Little more was required of converts than the ability to repeat a Trinitarian formula and make the sign of the cross. Inevitably there were problems, as people proved unwilling to give up their traditional religions or practices; and the missionaries were equally unwilling to tolerate them. Disputes broke out between Christians and ‘fetishists’, as pagans were dubbed. Some fetishists claimed that baptism was fatal. Luca da Caltanisetta, a Sicilian Capuchin who worked in Congo in the 1690s, was alternately impressed by the Africans’ piety and exasperated by their paganism. In his journal he wrote:

At Mbanza Zolu I sent word to the king to tell the fetishists to stop their dances and these diabolic ceremonies. They replied that they could not stop. Then I said he had to catch them and chain them or else I would come myself

Reviews for The History of Christianity

[krista.rutherford · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I learned a lot from this book! I want to read it again! It is easy to understand, and the pictures are awesome.