Christianity in the twentieth century : a world history / Brian Stanley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stanley, Brian, 1953- author.

Series:

Princeton history of Christianity.

The Princeton History of Christianity ; 1

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Church history--20th century.

Church history.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxi, 477 pages) : maps.

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

A history of unparalleled scope that charts the global transformation of Christianity during an age of profound political and cultural change. Christianity in the Twentieth Century charts the transformation of one of the world's great religions during an age marked by world wars, genocide, nationalism, decolonization, and powerful ideological currents, many of them hostile to Christianity. Written by a leading scholar of world Christianity, the book traces how Christianity evolved from a religion defined by the culture and politics of Europe to the expanding polycentric and multicultural faith it is today--one whose growing popular support is strongest in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, China, and other parts of Asia. Brian Stanley sheds critical light on themes of central importance for understanding the global contours of modern Christianity, illustrating each one with contrasting case studies, usually taken from different parts of the world. Unlike other books on world Christianity, this one is not a regional survey or chronological narrative, nor does it focus on theology or ecclesiastical institutions. Rather, Stanley provides a history of Christianity as a popular faith experienced and lived by its adherents, telling a compelling and multifaceted story of Christendom's fortunes in Europe, North America, and across the rest of the globe. Transnational in scope and drawing on the latest scholarship, Christianity in the Twentieth Century demonstrates how Christianity has had less to fear from the onslaughts of secularism than from the readiness of Christians themselves to accommodate their faith to ideologies that privilege racial identity or radical individualism.

"Charts the transformation of one of the world's great religions during an age marked by world wars, genocide, nationalism, decolonization, and powerful ideological currents, many of them hostile to Christianity. Written by a leading scholar of world Christianity, the book traces how Christianity evolved from a religion defined by the culture and politics of Europe to the expanding polycentric and multicultural faith it is today -- one whose growing popular support is strongest in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, China, and other parts of Asia. Brian Stanley sheds critical light on themes of central importance for understanding the global contours of modern Christianity, illustrating each one with contrasting case studies, usually taken from different parts of the world. Unlike other books on world Christianity, this one is not a regional survey or chronological narrative, nor does it focus on theology or ecclesiastical institutions. Rather, Stanley provides a history of Christianity as a popular faith experienced and lived by its adherents, telling a compelling and multifaceted story of Christendom's fortunes in Europe, North America, and across the rest of the globe. Transnational in scope and drawing on the latest scholarship, Christianity in the Twentieth Century demonstrates how Christianity has had less to fear from the onslaughts of secularism than from the readiness of Christians themselves to accommodate their faith to ideologies that privilege racial identity or radical individualism." --

Contents:

1 Wars and Rumors of Wars: The Response of British and American Churches to the First World War

I. The Global Religious Legacy of the First World War

II. The British Churches: The Religious Legacy of the First World War

III. Fighting for the Faith: American Fundamentalism between the Wars

IV. Divergent Christian Responses

2 Holy Nations? Uneasy Marriages between Christianity and Nationalism

I. Christianity and the Diffusion of Nationalism

II. Protestant Nationalism in Korea: Christianity, Anticolonialism, and National Identity

III. Catholic Nationalism in Poland: Mary as the Queen of a Dismembered Nation

IV. Christianity and Nationalism: Uneasy Bedfellows

3 The Power of the Word and Prophecy: Pathways of Conversion in Africa and the Pacific

I. The "Great Century" of Conversion to Christianity

II. Three West African Prophet Movements

III. Conversion and Revival Movements in Melanesia

IV. The Ambiguous Power of the Word

4 Making War on the Saints: The Church under Siege in France and the Soviet Union

I. Varieties of the Secular

II. The Catholic Church, the State, and Religious Practice in Secular France

III. Orthodox and Protestant Churches in the Soviet Union

IV. The Impotence of the Secular State

5 Contrasting Patterns of Belonging and Believing: Scandinavia and the United States

I. Who Is the Exceptional Case?

II. Scandinavia: Belonging without Much Believing

III. The United States: Changing Patterns of Belonging and Believing

IV. Marriages of the Religious and the Secular

6 Is Christ Divided? The Ecumenical Movement and Its Converse

I. Was the Twentieth Century the Ecumenical Century?

II. Church Union and Disunion in the Indian Subcontinent

III. Christian Unity and Disunity in Republican and Communist China

IV. The Failure and Success of the Ecumenical Movement

7 The Voice of Your Brother's Blood: Christianity, Ethnic Hatred, and Genocide in Nazi Germany and Rwanda

I. Theories of Race and Vocabularies of Ethnic Hostility

II. Race and Religion in Nazi Germany

III. The Church and Ethnic Conflict in Rwanda

IV. Christian Prophecy and Its Failures

8. Aliens in a Strange Land? Living in an Islamic Context in Egypt and Indonesia

I. Christianity and Religious Plurality

II. Coptic Christianity in Egypt

III. The Church in Indonesia

IV. The Politics of Christian Survival

9 That the World May Believe: Christian Mission to the Modern World

I. From "Making Jesus King" to the Missio Dei

II. Reconceiving the Catholic Church and Its Mission: The Second Vatican Council, 1962-65

III. Reconceiving Protestant Missions: The Uppsala Assembly of 1968 and the Lausanne Congress of1974

IV. Mission in a Postcolonial Age

10 Good News to the Poor? Theologies of Liberation in Latin America and Palestine

I. The Priority of Praxis

II. The Origins of Latin American Liberation Theology

III. Palestine: Searching for Liberation without Exodus

IV. The God Who Acts

11 Doing Justice in South Africa and Canada: The Human Rights Agenda, Race, and Indigenous Peoples

I. The Churches and Human Rights Ideology

II. Apartheid and the Churches

III. The Canadian Churches and the Residential Schools

IV. From Civilization to Human Rights

12 A Noise of War in the Camp: Human Rights, Gender, and Sexuality

I. Egalitarianism and Christian Tradition

II. The Ordination of Women in Australian Anglicanism

III. Debates over Gay Rights in the American Churches

IV. Christian Culture Wars

13 The Spirit and the spirits: Global Pentecostal Christianities

I. The New Pentecost

II. Pentecostal Christianities in Ghana

III. Pentecostalism in Brazil

IV. The Religious Chameleon

14 The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Modern World

I. The Westward Diffusion of Eastern Orthodoxy in the Twentieth Century

II. Orthodoxy in Greece and Turkey: Ethnic Cleansing, Nationalism, and the Holy Mountain of Athos

III. New Strands of Orthodoxy in Twentieth-Century Africa

IV. Tradition and Change in the Orthodox World

15 Migrant Churches

I. Migration and the Making of World Christianity

II. The Black Exodus from the American South and Jamaica

III. Chinese Migrant Churches: Trans-Pacific Connections

IV. Migration and the Reshaping of Christianity in the West.

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2018.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9781400890316

1400890314

OCLC:

1031966314