PROTESTANTISM, HISTORY OF


Meaning of PROTESTANTISM, HISTORY OF in English

history of the movement from its beginnings in northern Europe in the early 16th century as a reaction to medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices to the 20th century. Along with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism became one of three major forces in Christianity. After a series of European religious wars, and especially in the 19th century, it spread rapidly in various forms throughout the world. Wherever Protestantism gained a foothold, it influenced, to a greater or lesser extent, the social, economic, political, and cultural life of the area. This article treats the history of the Protestant movement. For further treatment of the life and works of the two principal Reformation leaders, see Calvin, John; Calvinism; and Luther, Martin. See also biographical treatment of other Reformers (e.g., John Knox; Thomas Mntzer; Huldrych Zwingli). Protestantism was given its name at the Diet of Speyer in 1529. At that imperial assembly the Roman Catholic princes of Germany, along with the Holy Roman emperor Charles V, rescinded most of what toleration had been granted to the followers of Martin Luther three years earlier. On April 19, 1529, a protest was read against this decision, on behalf of 14 free cities of Germany and six Lutheran princes, who declared that the decision did not bind them because they were not a party to it, and that if forced to choose between obedience to God and obedience to Caesar they must choose obedience to God. They appealed from the diet to a general council of all Christendom or to a congress of the whole German nation. Those who made this protest became known as Protestants. The name was adopted not by the protesters but by their opponents, and gradually it was applied as a general description to those who adhered to the tenets of the Reformation, especially to those living outside Germany. In Germany the adherents of the Reformation preferred the name evangelicals and in France Huguenots. The name Protestant was attached not only to the disciples of Luther (c. 14831546) but also to the Swiss disciples of Huldrych Zwingli (14841531) and later of John Calvin (150964). The Swiss Reformers and their followers in Holland, England, and Scotland, especially after the 17th century, preferred the name Reformed. In the 16th century the name Protestant was used primarily in connection with the two great schools of thought that arose in the Reformation, the Lutheran and the Reformed. In England in the early 17th century the word Protestant was used in the sense of orthodox Protestant, as opposed to those who were regarded by Anglicans as unorthodox, such as the Baptists or the Quakers. Roman Catholics, however, used it for all who claimed to be Christian but opposed Catholicism (except the Eastern churches). They therefore included under the term Baptists, Quakers, and Catholic-minded Anglicans. Before the year 1700 this broad usage was accepted, though the word was not yet applied to Unitarians. The English Toleration Act of 1689 was entitled an Act for exempting their Majesties' Protestant subjects dissenting from the Church of England. But the act provided only for the toleration of the opinions known in England as orthodox dissent and conceded nothing to Unitarians. Throughout the 18th century the word Protestant was still defined in relation to the historical reference of the 16th-century Reformation. Samuel Johnson's dictionary (1755), which is characteristic of other dictionaries in that age, defines the word thus: one of those who adhere to them, who, at the beginning of the reformation, protested against the errours of the church of Rome. W. Owen Chadwick Additional reading General works on the history of Protestantism include Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity, rev. ed., 2 vol. (1975), with useful bibliographies; and mile G. Lonard, Histoire gnrale du protestantisme, 3 vol. (196164)vol. 1 has also appeared in English with the title, A History of Protestantism (1968). Additional references may be found in Owen Chadwick, The History of the Church: A Select Bibliography, 3rd ed. (1973).For Puritanism, see William Haller, The Rise of Puritanism: or, The Way to the New Jerusalem as Set Forth in Pulpit and Press from Thomas Cartwright to John Lilburne and John Milton, 15701643 (1938, reissued 1984); Christopher Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (1964, reissued 1986); Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (1967); Samuel Eliot Morison, The Intellectual Life of Colonial New England, 2nd ed. (1956, reprinted 1980); and Francis J. Bremer, The Puritan Experiment: New England and Society from Bradford to Edwards (1976). For Arminianism, see A.W. Harrison, The Beginnings of Arminianism to the Synod of Dort (1926); and Carl Bangs, Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation, 2nd ed. (1985). For Pietism, see Koppel S. Pinson, Pietism as a Factor in the Rise of German Nationalism (1934, reissued 1968); and F. Ernest Stoeffler, The Rise of Evangelical Pietism (1965, reprinted 1971), and German Pietism During the Eighteenth Century (1973). For Protestant missionary expansion, see Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, vol. 37 (194045); and Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions, 2nd ed. rev. by Owen Chadwick (1986). For the 19th and 20th centuries, see Kenneth Scott Latourette, Christianity in a Revolutionary Age, 5 vol. (195862, reissued 1973); Stephen Neill (ed.), Twentieth Century Christianity: A Survey of Modern Religious Trends by Leading Churchmen, rev. ed. (1963); and David B. Barrett (ed.), World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Study of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, AD 19002000 (1982).For American Protestantism, see H. Shelton Smith, Robert T. Handy, and Lefferts A. Loetscher, American Christianity: An Historical Interpretation with Representative Documents, 2 vol. (196063), a general guide; E.S. Gaustad, A Documentary History of Religion in America, 2 vol. (198283), a comprehensive overview; William Warren Sweet, The Story of Religion in America, 2nd rev. ed. (1950); Winthrop S. Hudson, American Protestantism (1961, reprinted 1972); and R.T. Handy, A Christian America: Protestant Hopes and Historical Realities, 2nd ed. rev. and enl. (1984), on cultural intentions. For the social Gospel, see C.H. Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 18651915 (1940, reprinted 1982). For churches under the Nazis, see J.S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 193345 (1968); and Arthur C. Cochrane, The Church's Confession Under Hitler, 2nd ed. (1976), which accents resistance documents. For the ecumenical movement, see Ruth Rouse and Stephen Neill (eds.), A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 15171948, 3rd ed. (1986); and Harold E. Fey (ed.), A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 19481968: The Ecumenical Advance, 2nd ed. (1986). Research findings related to primarily American Protestant church history are published in Church History (quarterly). W. Owen Chadwick Roland H. Bainton James C. Spalding E. Clifford Nelson Martin E. Marty Protestant renewal and the rise of the denominations The setting for renewal Survival of a mystical tradition The Thirty Years' War (161848) must be seen as one of the circumstances out of which the desire for spiritual renewal emerged. Although modern historical research has modified the exaggerated contemporary accounts of the war's effects, it is unquestioned that distress was widespread and profound. In some places the economy was reduced to barter, schools were closed, churches were burned, the sick and needy were forgotten. Not unexpectedly spiritual and moral deterioration accompanied the physical destruction. Drunkenness, sexual license, thievery, and greed were the despair of faithful pastors and earnest laymen. During the war some notable signs of renewal began to appear. There reemerged, for example, an interest in the earlier devotional literature, some of which reflected the pious mysticism associated with such names as Johannes Tauler (c. 130061), Thomas Kempis (c. 13801471), and other German, Dutch, and even Spanish authors. The mystical tradition had lived on into the Reformation century and found representatives in Kaspar Schwenckfeld (14891561), Valentin Weigel (153388), and Jakob Bhme (15751624). Although both Lutherans and Calvinists opposed these mystics, many of their religious and theological ideas were subsequently absorbed by orthodox theologians. Catholic recovery of Protestant territories After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 that ended the war, Catholicism regained some territories from Lutheran Protestantism: first, because the rise of toleration was somewhat more rapid in Protestant countries than in Catholic lands and, second, because Louis XIV identified French power with universal French acceptance of the Roman Catholic faith. In 1685 he revoked the Edict of Nantes and expelled thousands of Huguenots, who fled to England, Holland, or Germany, much to the advantage of those countries. Several of the French refugees became prominent in English religious life, and in Prussia groups of them founded flourishing congregations known as the French Reformed. In 1702 a determined group of Huguenots in the mountains of the Cvennes in France, known as the Camisards, rose in rebellion but was suppressed by military power two years later. There was a further small outbreak of war in 1709. For a time the few surviving Huguenot congregations met only in secret. They were led by Antoine Court (16951760), who secured ordination from Zrich and founded (1730) a college at Lausanne to train pastors. French Protestants barely held out until the French Revolution, after which they had a revival. France gained Alsace in 1648. This enabled Catholics to increase rapidly, and Protestants decreased in strength. Strassburg, once one of the leading cities of the Protestant Reformation, returned its cathedral to the Catholics (1681) and became a town with a large Catholic population. Louis XIV ruled the Palatinate for nine years and allowed the French Catholics to share the churches with the Protestants; though he was compelled to surrender the country at the Treaty of Rijswijk (1697) to the Holy Roman Empire, a clause (the Simultaneum) of the treaty (added at the last moment and not recognized by the Protestants) preserved certain legal rights and endowments of Catholics in Protestant churches. As a result of France's greater power Protestant authority in the Rhineland between Switzerland and the Netherlands diminished. Another shock to Protestantism was the conversion of Augustus II, elector of Saxony, to Roman Catholicism in 1697. It appeared as though Protestantism was not even safe in its original home. The conversion involved political motives; Augustus was a candidate for the throne of Poland and was loyal to his new allegiance, assisting the Roman Catholic Church in Poland and also, somewhat, in Saxony; but such assistance had no effect on the Lutheranism of Saxony. Protestantism in the 20th century Mainstream Protestantism The war of 191418 broke Europe's waning self-confidence in the merits of its own civilization. Since it was fought between Christian nations, it weakened worldwide Christianity. The seizure of power by a formally atheist government in Russia in 1917 brought a new negative pressure into the world of Christendom and sharpened the social and working class conflicts of western Europe and America. During the following 40 years the Protestant churches suffered inestimable losses. Germany under Adolf Hitler (in power 193345) professed to save Europe from the threat of Bolshevism; and the Nazi rule was at first welcomed by many German churchmen. Disillusionment was not slow to follow. From September 1933 there already existed a partial schism between churchmen willing to cooperate with the government in church mattersespecially over the Aryan clause that demanded that no Jew should hold office in the churchand those, led by Martin Niemller, who were not willing to cooperate in church matters. With the support of the state-aided Lutheran churches in the south (Bavaria and Wrttemberg), Niemller's group was able to form the Confessing (or Confessional) Church, and the schism was made manifest when the Confessing Church held the Synod of Barmen in MayJune 1934. For a time the Confessing Church was strong throughout Germany; but when the German government provided a less doctrinaire government under the minister of church affairs Hanns Kerrl, the Confessing Church was itself dividedinto those who were willing to cooperate and Niemller's men, who were not willing to cooperate because it was a church government imposed by the Nazi government. At the Synod of Bad Oeynhausen (February 1936) the Confessing Church broke up and was never again so strong. In the later stages, especially during World War II when the extreme Nazis secured complete control of Hitler's government, the churches came under increasing pressure and toward the end were struggling in some areas to survive. Bishop Theophil Wurm of Wrttemberg was a leader in protesting to the government against its inhumane activities, and Pastor Heinrich Grber, until his arrest, ran the Bro Grber, which sought to evacuate and protect Jews. Some church leaders, notably the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, paid with their lives for their associations with resistance to the Nazi government. The end of the war saw Russian armies in control of eastern Europe and Germany divided. All the churches in the area came under pressure. Most Germans were evacuated or deported from the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. Although Lutheran communities remained there, they were subjected to persecution, especially under the rule of Stalin. The Lutherans in Transylvania (Romania) and the Reformed in Hungary came under less severe pressure but were much diminished in numbers. The Protestants of Czechoslovakia, led by the theologian Joseph Hromadka, succeeded in maintaining more dialogue with Marxist thinkers than did Protestants elsewhere in Europe. From the viewpoint of Protestant strength, the greatest losses were suffered through the division of Germany. The settlement between the victorious powers gave large areas of former German-speaking (and largely Lutheran) areas to Poland, and many (approximately 8,000,000) Germans were expelled; most went to western Germany. The Soviet occupation zone of Germany in 1945 included Wittenberg and most of the original Protestant homeland. East Germany (the German Democratic Republic) became the sole country in which a Marxist government ruled a largely (70 percent) Protestant population. For a time the Lutheran churches were the chief link between East and West Germany, and the annual meeting, or Kirchentag, the single expression of a lost German unity. But the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 stopped this communication and isolated the East German churches. Despite governmental pressure, especially in relation to money, education, and church building and in the national (and anti-Christian) form of youth dedication, the East German Protestants worked courageously and flourished. The 450th anniversary of the Reformation on Oct. 31, 1967, showed how strong a hold the Protestant churches still had over the affections of a large number of people. In Russia, a deeply Orthodox state before the Revolution of 1917, the 40 years after the Revolution witnessed a growth in the Baptist community. The flexibility and simplicity of Baptist organization made it in some respects more suitable to activity under difficult legal conditions. In the years after Stalin's death in 1953 there was evidence of rapid advance; but after 1960 the Baptist communities, like the Orthodox, again came under pressure, which at times was severe. The material losses that Great Britain suffered in World War II and the end of the British Empire in the years after 1947 had serious effects on the Protestant churches in former British territories. The home country could no longer provide money and human resources to the overseas churches on the same scale, and in a few areas church government was handed over to leaders who were not ready to take over church leadership. But in other areas the change of status for Britain hastened the process of change in leadership that had been proceeding slowly; and some of the failing resources were supplemented from elsewhere, especially from the United States, Canada, and Australia. Thus the so-called younger churches came to be a new fact of world Christianity, led by men who no longer saw the history of Christianity solely through European eyes and had an impatience partly derived from a different attitude to the Christian past. This was to be of primary importance in the ecumenical movement. Meanwhile, the secularizing trend of a technological age assailed the old European churches and had an even greater effect upon the areas where the younger churches ministered. The growth of mainline Protestantism in sub-Saharan Africa, as of Lutheranism in South West Africa/Namibia or Anglicanism in South Africaas well as of the Pentecostal and Evangelical churches and sects in South America and Asiahelped compensate for losses in Europe and North America. Because of conversions and population growth, the Protestant church actually increased in size as it changed its scope and ethos. There were also surprising survivals and reappearances of Protestantism in areas of the world where its demise had been foreseen. Thus, in 194849 the Communist seizure of power in China effectively ended Protestant missions there. By 1951 there were hardly any European missionaries in the country, and the Chinese churches had to stand without outside aid. They came under severe pressure, especially during the so-called Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and '70s. They could no longer evangelize and sought barely to survive. The partial reopening of China to the West and the cautious measures granting more freedom of religion and speech beginning in the late 1970s and the 1980s led to new contacts between Chinese Protestants and Westerners. It was estimated that several million Protestants and other Christians had endured the suppression and persecution of the two previous decades, and, however uncertain their futures remained, they represented a vital group of churches. Conservative and Evangelistic forms of Protestantism The most important movements in 20th-century Protestantism took root in soil that most call conservative, and some of their founding had a reactionary character. At the same time not all members of these movements wished to be typed as conservative. Their forward-looking and exuberant expressions of faith displayed more radical outlooks. The three main movements are usually called Pentecostalism, Fundamentalism, and Evangelicalism. The first has been of immeasurable importance in the spread of Protestantism beyond its historic European home.

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