1.
Protestantism
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Protestantism is a form of Christianity which originated with the Reformation, a movement against what its followers considered to be errors in the Roman Catholic Church. It is one of the three divisions of Christendom, together with Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The term derives from the letter of protestation from German Lutheran princes in 1529 against an edict of the Diet of Speyer condemning the teachings of Martin Luther as heretical. Although there were earlier breaks from or attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church—notably by Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, Protestants reject the notion of papal supremacy and deny the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, but disagree among themselves regarding the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The Five solae summarize the reformers basic differences in theological beliefs, in the 16th century, Lutheranism spread from Germany into Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Baltic states, and Iceland. Reformed churches were founded in Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland and France by such reformers as John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, the political separation of the Church of England from Rome under King Henry VIII brought England and Wales into this broad Reformation movement. Protestants developed their own culture, which made major contributions in education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy and the arts, some Protestant denominations do have a worldwide scope and distribution of membership, while others are confined to a single country. A majority of Protestants are members of a handful of families, Adventism, Anglicanism, Baptist churches, Reformed churches, Lutheranism, Methodism. Nondenominational, evangelical, charismatic, independent and other churches are on the rise, and constitute a significant part of Protestant Christianity. Six princes of the Holy Roman Empire and rulers of fourteen Imperial Free Cities, the edict reversed concessions made to the Lutherans with the approval of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V three years earlier. During the Reformation, the term was used outside of the German politics. The word evangelical, which refers to the gospel, was more widely used for those involved in the religious movement. Nowadays, this word is still preferred among some of the historical Protestant denominations in the Lutheran and Calvinist traditions in Europe, above all the term is used by Protestant bodies in the German-speaking area, such as the EKD. In continental Europe, an Evangelical is either a Lutheran or a Calvinist, the German word evangelisch means Protestant, and is different from the German evangelikal, which refers to churches shaped by Evangelicalism. The English word evangelical usually refers to Evangelical Protestant churches, and it traces its roots back to the Puritans in England, where Evangelicalism originated, and then was brought to the United States. Protestantism as a term is now used in contradistinction to the other major Christian traditions, i. e. Roman Catholicism. Initially, Protestant became a term to mean any adherent to the Reformation movement in Germany and was taken up by Lutherans. Even though Martin Luther himself insisted on Christian or Evangelical as the only acceptable names for individuals who professed Christ, French and Swiss Protestants preferred the word reformed, which became a popular, neutral and alternative name for Calvinists
2.
Reformation
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The period is usually considered to have begun with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses by Luther in 1517 to the Thirty Years War and ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The Protestant position, however, would come to incorporate doctrinal changes such as sola scriptura, the initial movement within Germany diversified, and other reform impulses arose independently of Luther. The spread of Gutenbergs printing press provided the means for the dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular. The largest groups were the Lutherans and Calvinists, Lutheran churches were founded mostly in Germany, the Baltics and Scandinavia, while the Reformed ones were founded in Switzerland, Hungary, France, the Netherlands and Scotland. The new movement influenced the Church of England decisively after 1547 under Edward VI and Elizabeth I, there were also reformation movements throughout continental Europe known as the Radical Reformation, which gave rise to the Anabaptist, Moravian and other Pietistic movements. The Roman Catholic Church responded with a Counter-Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent, much work in battling Protestantism was done by the well-organised new order of the Jesuits. In general, Northern Europe, with the exception of most of Ireland, southern Europe remained Roman Catholic, while Central Europe was a site of a fierce conflict, culminating in the Thirty Years War, which left it devastated. The oldest Protestant churches, such as the Unitas Fratrum and Moravian Church, the later Protestant Churches generally date their doctrinal separation from the Roman Catholic Church to the 16th century. The Reformation began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church, by priests who opposed what they perceived as false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice. They especially objected to the teaching and the sale of indulgences, and the abuses thereof, and to simony, the reformers saw these practices as evidence of the systemic corruption of the Churchs hierarchy, which included the pope. Unrest due to the Great Schism of Western Christianity excited wars between princes, uprisings among the peasants, and widespread concern over corruption in the Church, New perspectives came from John Wycliffe at Oxford University and from Jan Hus at the Charles University in Prague. Hus rejected indulgences and adopted a doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, the Roman Catholic Church officially concluded this debate at the Council of Constance by condemning Hus, who was executed by burning despite a promise of safe-conduct. Wycliffe was posthumously condemned as a heretic and his corpse exhumed and burned in 1428, the Council of Constance confirmed and strengthened the traditional medieval conception of church and empire. The council did not address the national tensions or the theological tensions stirred up during the century and could not prevent schism. Pope Sixtus IV established the practice of selling indulgences to be applied to the dead, Pope Alexander VI was one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes. He was the father of seven children, including Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, in response to papal corruption, particularly the sale of indulgences, Luther wrote The Ninety-Five Theses. The Reformation was born of Luthers dual declaration – first, the discovering of Jesus and salvation by faith alone, the Protestant reformers were unanimous in agreement and this understanding of prophecy furnished importance to their deeds. It was the point and the battle cry that made the Reformation nearly unassailable
3.
Great Awakening
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The term Great Awakening can refer to several periods of religious revival in American religious history. Historians and theologians identify three or four waves of increased religious enthusiasm occurring between the early 18th century and the late 19th century, the Awakenings all resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of personal guilt and of their need of salvation by Christ. It brought Christianity to African-American slaves and was an event in New England that challenged established authority. It had little impact on Anglicans, and Quakers, unlike the Second Great Awakening, which began about 1800 and reached out to the unchurched, the First Great Awakening focused on people who were already church members. It changed their rituals, their piety, and their self-awareness, edwardss congregation was involved in a revival later called the Frontier Revivals in the mid-1730s, though this was on the wane by 1737. But as American religious historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom noted, the Great Awakening was still to come, ushered in by the Grand Itinerant, the great British Evangelist George Whitefield. Whitefield arrived in Georgia in 1738, and returned in 1739 for a visit of the Colonies, making a triumphant campaign north from Philadelphia to New York. In 1740, he visited New England, and at every place he visited, ministers from various evangelical Protestant denominations supported the Great Awakening. In the middle colonies, he influenced not only the British churches, additionally, pastoral styles began to change. In the late period, most pastors read their sermons. Nathan Hatch argues that the movement of the 1740s played a key role in the development of democratic thought. As well as the belief of the press and the belief that information should be shared. These concepts ushered in the period of the American Revolution and this contributed to create a demand for religious freedom. The Great Awakening represented the first time African Americans embraced Christianity in large numbers, the Second Great Awakening was a religious revival that occurred in the United States beginning in the late eighteenth century and lasting until the middle of the nineteenth century. While it occurred in all parts of the United States, it was strong in the Northeast. This awakening was unique in that it moved beyond the elite of New England to those who were less wealthy. The center of revivalism was the so-called Burned-over district in western New York, named for its overabundance of hellfire-and-damnation preaching, the region produced dozens of new denominations, communal societies, and reform. Closely related to the Second Great Awakening were other reform movements such as temperance, abolition, the temperance movement encouraged people to abstain from consuming alcoholic drinks in order to preserve family order
4.
History of Protestantism
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Protestantism originated from the ideas of several theologians starting in the 12th century, although there could have been earlier cases of which there is no surviving evidence. However, these ideas were a subject to persecution by the Roman Catholic Church, one of the early Protestant reformers was John Wycliffe, a theologian and an early proponent of reform in the 14th century. He influenced Jan Hus, a Czech priest from Prague, who in turn influenced German Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformation began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church. Martin Luther wrote Ninety-Five Theses on the sale of indulgences in 1517, at the same time, a movement began in Switzerland under the leadership of Huldrych Zwingli. The political separation of the Church of England from Rome under Henry VIII brought England alongside the broad Reformation movement, the Scottish Reformation of 1560 decisively shaped the Church of Scotland. Following the excommunication of Luther, the Pope condemned the Reformation, the work and writings of John Calvin helped establish a loose consensus among various groups in Switzerland, Scotland, the Netherlands, Hungary, Germany and elsewhere. In the course of religious upheaval, the German Peasants War of 1524–1525 swept through Bavaria, Thuringia and Swabia. The confessional division of the states of the Holy Roman Empire eventually erupted in the Thirty Years War of 1618–1648, nonconforming Protestants along with the Protestant refugees from continental Europe were the primary founders of the United States of America. The Great Awakenings were periods of rapid and dramatic religious revival in American religious history, the result was a multitude of strong Protestant denominations, many quite new. In the 20th century, Protestantism, especially in the United States, was becoming increasingly fragmented, both liberal and conservative splinter groups asrose, as well as a general secularization of Western society. Notable developments in the 20th century US Protestantism include the rise of Pentecostalism, while these movements spilled over to Europe to a limited degree, the development of Protestantism in Europe was more dominated by secularization, leading to an increasingly post-Christian Europe. Protestants generally trace to the 16th century their separation from the Catholic Church, mainstream Protestantism began with the Magisterial Reformation, so called because it received support from the magistrates. The Radical Reformation, had no state sponsorship, older Protestant churches, such as the Unitas Fratrum, Moravian Brethren or the Bohemian Brethren trace their origin to the time of Jan Hus in the early 15th century. As the Hussite movement was led by a majority of Bohemian nobles and recognized for a time by the Basel Compacts, to some degree, these protests can be explained by the events of the previous two centuries in Europe and particularly in Bohemia. These also spread later to other parts of Europe, unrest due to the Avignon Papacy and the Papal Schism in the Roman Catholic Church sparked wars between princes, uprisings among peasants, and widespread concern over corruption in the Church. A new nationalism also challenged the relatively internationalist medieval world, the first of a series of disruptive and new perspectives came from John Wycliffe at Oxford University, then from Jan Hus at the University of Prague. The Catholic Church officially concluded debate over Hus teachings at the Council of Constance, the conclave condemned Jan Hus, who was executed by burning in spite of a promise of safe-conduct. At the command of Pope Martin V, Wycliffe was exhumed and burned as a twelve years after his burial
5.
Protestant culture
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All Protestant churches allow their clergy to marry, in contrast to the Roman Catholic church. Historically, the role of women in church life, the Protestant clergy, the role of women expanded over time and was closely associated with the movements for universal education and womens suffrage. Since about 1990, many women have assumed senior leadership roles in several Protestant churches, including the Anglican Communion. Since the 1990s Protestant churches have encountered controversy regarding the Churchs response to persons of minority sexual orientations, compulsory education for both boys and girls was introduced. For example, the Puritans who established Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628 founded Harvard College only eight years later, about a dozen other American colleges followed in the 18th century, including Yale University. Pennsylvania also became a centre of learning, by initiating translations of the Bible into various national languages, Protestantism supported the development of national literatures. The Protestant concept of God and man allows believers to use all their God-given faculties and that means that Protestant believers are encouraged to explore Gods creation and, according to Genesis 2,15, make use of it in a responsible and sustainable way. Thus a cultural climate was created that greatly enhanced the development of the humanities, another consequence of the Protestant understanding of man is that the believers, in gratitude for their election and redemption in Christ, are to follow Gods commandments. Industry, frugality, calling, discipline, and a sense of responsibility are at the heart of their moral code. In particular, John Calvin rejected luxury, as a result, productivity grew, which led to increased profits and enabled employers to pay higher wages. In this way, the economy, the sciences, and technology reinforced each other, the chance to participate in the economic success of technological inventions was a strong incentive to both inventors and investors. The Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that influenced the development of capitalism and this idea is also known as the Protestant ethic thesis. Protestants are disproportionately represented in the reaches of American business, law and politics. According to the study there is correlation between education and income, about 59% of American Anglican have a graduate and post-graduate degree. Protestantism had an important influence on science, according to the Merton Thesis, there was a positive correlation between the rise of Puritanism and Protestant Pietism on the one hand and early experimental science on the other. In his theory, Robert K. Merton focused on English Puritanism, Merton explained that the connection between religious affiliation and interest in science was the result of a significant synergy between the ascetic Protestant values and those of modern science. Protestant values encouraged scientific research by allowing science to study Gods influence on the world, according to Harriet Zuckermans review of American Nobel prize laureates from 1901 to 1972, 72% were of Protestant background. According to Zuckerman, Protestants featured among the American laureates in a greater proportion than their prevalence within the general population
6.
Protestantism by country
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There are between 800 and more than 900 million Protestants worldwide, among approximately 2.4 billion Christians. Protestants account for nearly forty percent of Christians worldwide and more than one tenth of the human population. Various estimates put the percentage of Protestants in relation to the number of worlds Christians at 33%, 36%,36. 7%. In European countries which were most profoundly influenced by the Reformation and these include the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom. In other historical Protestant strongholds such as Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Latvia, Estonia and Hungary, over the last several decades, religious practice has been declining as secularization has increased. According to a 2012 study about Religiosity in the European Union in 2012 by Eurobarometer, according to Pew Research Center, Protestants constituted nearly one fifth of the continents Christian population in 2010. Clarke and Beyer estimate that Protestants constituted 15% of all Europeans in 2009, changes in worldwide Protestantism over the last century have been significant. Since 1900, Protestantism has spread rapidly in Africa, Asia, Oceania and that caused Protestantism to be called a primarily non-Western religion. Much of the growth has occurred after World War II, when decolonization of Africa, according to one source, Protestants constituted respectively 2. 5%, 2%,0. 5% of Latin Americans, Africans and Asians. In 2000, percentage of Protestants on mentioned continents was 17%, more than 27% and 5. 5%, respectively. According to Mark A. Noll, 79% of Anglicans lived in the United Kingdom in 1910, while most of the remainder was found in the United States, by 2010, 59% of Anglicans were found in Africa. China is home to worlds largest Protestant minority, according to some, Russia is another country to see Protestant growth. Other denominations accounted for 38. 2% of Protestants, United States is home to approximately 20% of Protestants. According to a 2012 study, Protestant share of U. S. population dropped to 48%, the decline is attributed mainly to the dropping membership of the Mainline Protestant churches, while Evangelical Protestant and Black churches are relatively stable or continue to grow. Overall, Protestants have won a total of 84. 2% of all the American Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, 60% in Medicine,58. 6% in Physics, by 2050, Protestantism is projected to rise to slightly more than half of the worlds total Christian population. According to other such as Hans J. Hillerbrand, Protestants will be as numerous as Catholics. According to Mark Jürgensmeyer of the University of California, popular Protestantism is the most dynamic religious movement in the contemporary world, evangelicals, Charismatics, Neo-charismatics and other Revivalists are found virtually across every Protestant branch. Nondenominationals, various independents and Protestants from other denominations, not easily fitting in the classification, are also taken into account
7.
Anti-Protestantism
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Anti-Protestantism is bias, hatred or distrust against some or all branches of Protestantism and its followers. The Reformed faith was not recognized until the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, other states, such as France, made similar agreements in the early stages of the Reformation. Poland-Lithuania had a history of religious tolerance. Anabaptism arose as a part of the Radical Reformation, lacking support of the state Lutheranism and Calvinism enjoyed, theological disagreement initially led to a Lutheran-Reformed rivalry in the Reformation. Protestantism in Latin America was largely ostracized until the abolishment of certain restrictions in the 20th century and it spreads with Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism gaining the majority of followers. North America became a shelter for Protestants who were fleeing Europe after the persecution increased, persecution of Protestants in Asia can be put under a common shild of the persecution Christians in the Middle East and northern Africa, dominated by Islam is also a part of this phenomenon. Martin Luthers Proclamation occurred in 1517, by 1540, Pope Paul III had sanctioned the first society pledged to extinguish Protestantism. Christian Protestantism was denounced as heresy, and those supporting these doctrines excommunicated as heretics and this movement was started by the reigning Pope at that time and various political rulers with a more political stake in the controversy then a religious one. Eastern Orthodoxy had comparatively little contact with Protestantism for geographic, linguistic, Protestant attempts to ally with Eastern Orthodoxy proved problematic. In general, most Orthodox had the impression that Protestantism was a new heresy that arose from various previous heresies, the book forecast the end of Protestantism by 1825 and was published in at least 15 editions and several languages. In recent eras Orthodox anti-Protestantism has grown due to aggressive Protestant proselytization in predominantly Orthodox countries, anti-Protestantism originated in a reaction by the Catholic Church against the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Protestants were denounced as heretics and subject to persecution in those territories, such as Spain, Italy and this movement was orchestrated by Popes and Princes as the Counter Reformation. This resulted in wars and eruptions of sectarian hatred such as the St Bartholomews Day Massacre of 1572. In Francos authoritarian Spanish State, Protestantism was deliberately marginalized and persecuted, during the Civil War, Francos regime persecuted the countrys 30,000 Protestants, and forced many Protestant pastors to leave the country. Once authoritarian rule was established, non-Catholic Bibles were confiscated by police and these perceptions are often linked to highly publicized events, such as the decision to endorse same-sex marriage by the United Church of Christ. Some critics have suggested that evangelicals are a kind of fifth column aimed at turning the United States or other nations into Christian theocracies. Cultural progressive activists have indicated fear of a potential Christian theocracy as one of the reasons for their opposition to the Christian Right, many evangelicals reject Dispensationalism and support peace efforts in the Middle East, however. Some Christian groups focused on the Bible have been derided as Bible thumpers, depictions of evangelicals as uneducated rubes or hypocrites are common in Hollywood movies and television shows, such as Saved
8.
Criticism of Protestantism
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Anti-Protestantism is bias, hatred or distrust against some or all branches of Protestantism and its followers. The Reformed faith was not recognized until the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, other states, such as France, made similar agreements in the early stages of the Reformation. Poland-Lithuania had a history of religious tolerance. Anabaptism arose as a part of the Radical Reformation, lacking support of the state Lutheranism and Calvinism enjoyed, theological disagreement initially led to a Lutheran-Reformed rivalry in the Reformation. Protestantism in Latin America was largely ostracized until the abolishment of certain restrictions in the 20th century and it spreads with Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism gaining the majority of followers. North America became a shelter for Protestants who were fleeing Europe after the persecution increased, persecution of Protestants in Asia can be put under a common shild of the persecution Christians in the Middle East and northern Africa, dominated by Islam is also a part of this phenomenon. Martin Luthers Proclamation occurred in 1517, by 1540, Pope Paul III had sanctioned the first society pledged to extinguish Protestantism. Christian Protestantism was denounced as heresy, and those supporting these doctrines excommunicated as heretics and this movement was started by the reigning Pope at that time and various political rulers with a more political stake in the controversy then a religious one. Eastern Orthodoxy had comparatively little contact with Protestantism for geographic, linguistic, Protestant attempts to ally with Eastern Orthodoxy proved problematic. In general, most Orthodox had the impression that Protestantism was a new heresy that arose from various previous heresies, the book forecast the end of Protestantism by 1825 and was published in at least 15 editions and several languages. In recent eras Orthodox anti-Protestantism has grown due to aggressive Protestant proselytization in predominantly Orthodox countries, anti-Protestantism originated in a reaction by the Catholic Church against the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Protestants were denounced as heretics and subject to persecution in those territories, such as Spain, Italy and this movement was orchestrated by Popes and Princes as the Counter Reformation. This resulted in wars and eruptions of sectarian hatred such as the St Bartholomews Day Massacre of 1572. In Francos authoritarian Spanish State, Protestantism was deliberately marginalized and persecuted, during the Civil War, Francos regime persecuted the countrys 30,000 Protestants, and forced many Protestant pastors to leave the country. Once authoritarian rule was established, non-Catholic Bibles were confiscated by police and these perceptions are often linked to highly publicized events, such as the decision to endorse same-sex marriage by the United Church of Christ. Some critics have suggested that evangelicals are a kind of fifth column aimed at turning the United States or other nations into Christian theocracies. Cultural progressive activists have indicated fear of a potential Christian theocracy as one of the reasons for their opposition to the Christian Right, many evangelicals reject Dispensationalism and support peace efforts in the Middle East, however. Some Christian groups focused on the Bible have been derided as Bible thumpers, depictions of evangelicals as uneducated rubes or hypocrites are common in Hollywood movies and television shows, such as Saved
9.
Adventism
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Adventism is a branch of Protestantism with origins in the 19th century American Protestant revival known as the Second Great Awakening. The name refers to belief in the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ, William Miller started the Adventist movement in the 1830s. His followers became known as Millerites, the movement has encouraged the examination of the whole Bible, leading Seventh-day Adventists and some smaller Adventist groups to observe the Sabbath. The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists has compiled that churchs core beliefs in the 28 Fundamental Beliefs, in 2010, Adventism claimed some 22 million believers scattered in various independent churches. The largest church within the movement — the Seventh-day Adventist Church — is one of the largest Christian churches in the world, Adventism began as an inter-denominational movement. Its most vocal leader was William Miller, between 50,000 and 100,000 people in the United States supported Millers predictions of Christs return. After the Great Disappointment of October 22,1844 many people in the movement gave up on Adventism, of those remaining Adventist, the majority gave up believing in any prophetic significance for the October 22 date, yet they remained expectant of the near Advent. Of those who retained the October 22 date, many maintained that Jesus had come not literally but spiritually, a small minority held that something concrete had indeed happened on October 22, but this event had been misinterpreted. This viewpoint later emerged and crystallized with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Albany Conference in 1845, attended by 61 delegates, was called to attempt to determine the future course and meaning of the Millerite movement. Following this meeting, the Millerites then became known as Adventists or Second Adventists, however, the delegates disagreed on several theological points. Four groups emerged from the conference, The Evangelical Adventists, The Life and Advent Union, the Advent Christian Church, the largest group was organized as the American Millennial Association, a portion of which was later known as the Evangelical Adventist Church. Unique among the Adventists, they believed in an eternal hell and they declined in numbers, and by 1916 their name did not appear in the United States Census of Religious Bodies. It has diminished to almost non-existence today and their main publication was the Advent Herald, of which Sylvester Bliss was the editor until his death in 1863. It was later called the Messiah’s Herald, the Life and Advent Union was founded by George Storrs in 1863. He had established The Bible Examiner in 1842 and it merged with the Adventist Christian Church in 1964. The Advent Christian Church officially formed in 1861 grew rapidly at first and it declined a little during the 20th century. The Advent Christians publish the four magazines The Advent Christian Witness, Advent Christian News, Advent Christian Missions and they also operate a liberal arts college at Aurora, Illinois, and a one-year Bible College in Lenox, Massachusetts called Berkshire Institute for Christian Studies. The Primitive Advent Christian Church later separated from a few congregations in West Virginia, the Seventh-day Adventist Church officially formed in 1863
10.
Anabaptism
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Anabaptism is a Christian movement which traces its origins to the Radical Reformation in Europe. Traditionally this movement is seen as an offshoot of European Protestantism, Anabaptists are Christians who believe that baptism is only valid when the candidate confesses his or her faith in Christ and wants to be baptized. This believers baptism is opposed to baptism of infants, who are not able to make a decision to be baptized. Anabaptists are those who are in a line with the early Anabaptists of the 16th century. Other Christian groups, like Baptists, who practice believers baptism but have different roots, are not seen as Anabaptist. The Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites are direct descendants of the early Anabaptist movement, schwarzenau Brethren, Bruderhof, and the Apostolic Christian Church are considered later developments among the Anabaptists. The name Anabaptist means one who baptizes again and their persecutors named them this, referring to the practice of baptizing persons when they converted or declared their faith in Christ, even if they had been baptized as infants. Anabaptists required that baptismal candidates be able to make a confession of faith that is freely chosen, the early members of this movement did not accept the name Anabaptist, claiming that infant baptism was not part of scripture and was therefore null and void. They said that baptizing self-confessed believers was their first true baptism, but the right baptism of Christ, which is preceded by teaching and oral confession of faith, I teach, and say that infant baptism is a robbery of the right baptism of Christ. Anabaptists were persecuted largely because of their interpretation of scripture that put them at odds with official state church interpretations, most Anabaptists adhered to a literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount, which precluded taking oaths, participating in military actions, and participating in civil government. Some groups that are now extinct, who practised rebaptism, however, felt otherwise and they were thus technically Anabaptists, even though conservative Amish, Mennonites, and Hutterites and some historians tend to consider them as being outside of true Anabaptism. Conrad Grebel wrote in a letter to Thomas Müntzer in 1524, True Christian believers are sheep among wolves, Neither do they use worldly sword or war, since all killing has ceased with them. For instance, Petr Chelčický, a 15th-century Bohemian reformer, taught most of the beliefs considered integral to Anabaptist theology, medieval antecedents may include the Brethren of the Common Life, the Hussites, Dutch Sacramentists, and some forms of monasticism. The Waldensians also represent a similar to the Anabaptists. The believer must not bear arms or offer forcible resistance to wrongdoers, no Christian has the jus gladii. Matthew 5,39 Civil government belongs to the world, the believer belongs to Gods kingdom, so must not fill any office nor hold any rank under government, which is to be passively obeyed. But no force is to be used towards them, on December 27,1521, three prophets appeared in Wittenberg from Zwickau who were influenced by Thomas Müntzer—Thomas Dreschel, Nicholas Storch, and Mark Thomas Stübner. They preached an apocalyptic, radical alternative to Lutheranism and their preaching helped to stir the feelings concerning the social crisis which erupted in the German Peasants War in southern Germany in 1525 as a revolt against feudal oppression
11.
Anglicanism
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Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising the Church of England and churches which are historically tied to it or hold similar beliefs, worship practices and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to the Magna Carta and before, adherents of Anglicanism are called Anglicans. As the name suggests, the churches of the Anglican Communion are linked by bonds of tradition, affection and they are in full communion with the See of Canterbury, and thus the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his person, is a unique focus of Anglican unity. He calls the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference, chairs the meeting of primates, Anglicans base their Christian faith on the Bible, traditions of the apostolic Church, apostolic succession, and writings of the Church Fathers. Anglicanism forms one of the branches of Western Christianity, having declared its independence from the Holy See at the time of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. Many of the new Anglican formularies of the mid-16th century corresponded closely to those of contemporary Protestantism, the word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English Church. Adherents of Anglicanism are called Anglicans, as an adjective, Anglican is used to describe the people, institutions and churches, as well as the liturgical traditions and theological concepts developed by the Church of England. As a noun, an Anglican is a member of a church in the Anglican Communion, the word is also used by followers of separated groups which have left the communion or have been founded separately from it, although this is sometimes considered as a misuse. The word Anglicanism came into being in the 19th century, although the term Anglican is found referring to the Church of England as far back as the 16th century, its use did not become general until the latter half of the 19th century. Elsewhere, however, the term Anglican Church came to be preferred as it distinguished these churches from others that maintain an episcopal polity, as such, it is often referred to as being a via media between these traditions. Anglicans understand the Old and New Testaments as containing all necessary for salvation and as being the rule. Reason and Tradition are seen as means to interpret Scripture. Anglicans understand the Apostles Creed as the symbol and the Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith. Anglicans celebrate the sacraments, with special emphasis being given to the Eucharist, also called Holy Communion. Unique to Anglicanism is the Book of Common Prayer, the collection of services that worshippers in most Anglican churches used for centuries and it was called common prayer originally because it was intended for use in all Church of England churches which had previously followed differing local liturgies. The term was kept when the church became international because all Anglicans used to share in its use around the world, in 1549, the first Book of Common Prayer was compiled by Thomas Cranmer, who was then Archbishop of Canterbury. The founding of Christianity in Britain is commonly attributed to Joseph of Arimathea, according to Anglican legend, Saint Alban, who was executed in 209 AD, is the first Christian martyr in the British Isles. A new culture emerged around the Irish Sea among the Celtic peoples with Celtic Christianity at its core, what resulted was a form of Christianity distinct from Rome in many traditions and practices
12.
Baptists
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Other tenets of Baptist churches include soul competency, salvation through faith alone, Scripture alone as the rule of faith and practice, and the autonomy of the local congregation. Baptists recognize two ministerial offices, elders and deacons, Baptist churches are widely considered to be Protestant churches, though some Baptists disavow this identity. Historians trace the earliest church labeled Baptist back to 1609 in Amsterdam, in accordance with his reading of the New Testament, he rejected baptism of infants and instituted baptism only of believing adults. Baptist practice spread to England, where the General Baptists considered Christs atonement to extend to all people, while the Particular Baptists believed that it extended only to the elect. Thomas Helwys formulated a distinctively Baptist request that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, Helwys died in prison as a consequence of the religious persecution of English dissenters under King James I. In 1638, Roger Williams established the first Baptist congregation in the North American colonies, in the mid-18th century, the First Great Awakening contributed to Baptist growth in both New England and the South. Baptist missionaries have spread their church to every continent, the largest Baptist denomination is the Southern Baptist Convention, with the membership of associated churches totaling more than 15 million. Modern Baptist churches trace their history to the English Separatist movement in the century after the rise of the original Protestant denominations and this view of Baptist origins has the most historical support and is the most widely accepted. Adherents to this position consider the influence of Anabaptists upon early Baptists to be minimal and it was a time of considerable political and religious turmoil. Both individuals and churches were willing to give up their theological roots if they became convinced that a more biblical truth had been discovered, during the Protestant Reformation, the Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church. There were some Christians who were not content with the achievements of the mainstream Protestant Reformation, there also were Christians who were disappointed that the Church of England had not made corrections of what some considered to be errors and abuses. Of those most critical of the Churchs direction, some chose to stay and they became known as Puritans and are described by Gourley as cousins of the English Separatists. Others decided they must leave the Church because of their dissatisfaction, historians trace the earliest Baptist church back to 1609 in Amsterdam, with John Smyth as its pastor. Three years earlier, while a Fellow of Christs College, Cambridge, reared in the Church of England, he became Puritan, English Separatist, and then a Baptist Separatist, and ended his days working with the Mennonites. He began meeting in England with 60–70 English Separatists, in the face of great danger, Smyth and his lay supporter, Thomas Helwys, together with those they led, broke with the other English exiles because Smyth and Helwys were convinced they should be baptized as believers. In 1609 Smyth first baptized himself and then baptized the others, in 1609, while still there, Smyth wrote a tract titled The Character of the Beast, or The False Constitution of the Church. In it he expressed two propositions, first, infants are not to be baptized, and second, Antichristians converted are to be admitted into the true Church by baptism. Hence, his conviction was that a church should consist only of regenerate believers who have been baptized on a personal confession of faith
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Calvinism
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Calvinism is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice of John Calvin and other Reformation-era theologians. The term Calvinism can be misleading, because the tradition which it denotes has always been diverse. The movement was first called Calvinism by Lutherans who opposed it, early influential Reformed theologians include Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, Martin Bucer, William Farel, Heinrich Bullinger, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Theodore Beza, and John Knox. In the twentieth century, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, B. B, Warfield, J. Gresham Machen, Karl Barth, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Cornelius Van Til, and Gordon Clark were influential. Contemporary Reformed theologians include J. I, sproul, Timothy J. Keller, John Piper, David Wells, and Michael Horton. Reformed churches may exercise several forms of polity, most are presbyterian or congregationalist. Calvinism is largely represented by Continental Reformed, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist traditions, the biggest Reformed association is the World Communion of Reformed Churches with more than 80 million members in 211 member denominations around the world. There are more conservative Reformed federations such as the World Reformed Fellowship, Calvinism is named after John Calvin. It was first used by a Lutheran theologian in 1552 and it was a common practice of the Catholic Church to name what they perceived to be heresy after its founder. Nevertheless, the term first came out of Lutheran circles, Calvin denounced the designation himself, They could attach us no greater insult than this word, Calvinism. It is not hard to guess where such a deadly hatred comes from that they hold against me, despite its negative connotation, this designation became increasingly popular in order to distinguish Calvinists from Lutherans and from newer Protestant branches that emerged later. Moreover, these churches claim to be—in accordance with John Calvins own words—renewed accordingly with the order of gospel. Since the Arminian controversy, the Reformed tradition—as a branch of Protestantism distinguished from Lutheranism—divided into two groups, Arminians and Calvinists. However, it is now rare to call Arminians a part of the Reformed tradition, some have also argued that Calvinism as a whole stresses the sovereignty or rule of God in all things including salvation. First-generation Reformed theologians include Huldrych Zwingli, Martin Bucer, Wolfgang Capito, John Oecolampadius, scripture was also viewed as a unified whole, which led to a covenantal theology of the sacraments of baptism and the Lords Supper as visible signs of the covenant of grace. Another Reformed distinctive present in these theologians was their denial of the presence of Christ in the Lords supper. Each of these also understood salvation to be by grace alone. Martin Luther and his successor Philipp Melanchthon were undoubtedly significant influences on these theologians, the doctrine of justification by faith alone was a direct inheritance from Luther
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Lutheranism
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Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestant Christianity which identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German friar, ecclesiastical reformer and theologian. Luthers efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched the Protestant Reformation in the German-speaking territories of the Holy Roman Empire. Lutheranism advocates a doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone on the basis of Scripture alone and this is in contrast to the belief of the Catholic Church, defined at the Council of Trent, concerning authority coming from both the Scriptures and Tradition. In addition, Lutheranism accepts the teachings of the first seven ecumenical councils of the undivided Christian Church, unlike Calvinism, Lutherans retain many of the liturgical practices and sacramental teachings of the pre-Reformation Church, with a particular emphasis on the Eucharist, or Lords Supper. Lutheran theology differs from Reformed theology in Christology, the purpose of Gods Law, the grace, the concept of perseverance of the saints. Today, Lutheranism is one of the largest denominations of Protestantism, with approximately 80 million adherents, it constitutes the third most common Protestant denomination after historically Pentecostal denominations and Anglicanism. The Lutheran World Federation, the largest communion of Lutheran churches, Other Lutheran organizations include the International Lutheran Council and the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference, as well as independent churches. The name Lutheran originated as a term used against Luther by German Scholastic theologian Dr. Johann Maier von Eck during the Leipzig Debate in July 1519. Eck and other Catholics followed the practice of naming a heresy after its leader. Martin Luther always disliked the term Lutheran, preferring the term Evangelical, which was derived from euangelion, the followers of John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, and other theologians linked to the Reformed tradition also began to use that term. To distinguish the two groups, others began to refer to the two groups as Evangelical Lutheran and Evangelical Reformed. As time passed by, the word Evangelical was dropped, Lutherans themselves began to use the term Lutheran in the middle of the 16th century, in order to distinguish themselves from other groups such as the Philippists and Calvinists. In 1597, theologians in Wittenberg defined the title Lutheran as referring to the true church, Lutheranism has its roots in the work of Martin Luther, who sought to reform the Western Church to what he considered a more biblical foundation. Lutheranism spread through all of Scandinavia during the 16th century, as the monarch of Denmark–Norway, through Baltic-German and Swedish rule, Lutheranism also spread into Estonia and Latvia. Since 1520, regular Lutheran services have been held in Copenhagen, under the reign of Frederick I, Denmark-Norway remained officially Catholic. Although Frederick initially pledged to persecute Lutherans, he adopted a policy of protecting Lutheran preachers and reformers. During Fredericks reign, Lutheranism made significant inroads in Denmark, at an open meeting in Copenhagen attended by the king in 1536, the people shouted, We will stand by the holy Gospel, and do not want such bishops anymore. Fredericks son Christian was openly Lutheran, which prevented his election to the throne upon his fathers death, however, following his victory in the civil war that followed, in 1537 he became Christian III and advanced the Reformation in Denmark-Norway
15.
Methodism
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Methodism, or the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity which derive their inspiration from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and Johns brother Charles Wesley were also significant leaders in the movement and it originated as a revival within the 18th century Church of England and became a separate Church after Wesleys death. Because of vigorous missionary work, the movement spread throughout the British Empire, Wesleys theology focused on sanctification and the effect of faith on the character of a Christian. Distinguishing Methodist doctrines include an assurance of salvation, imparted righteousness, the possibility of perfection in love, the works of piety and the primacy of Scripture. Most Methodists teach that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for all of humanity and that salvation is available for all, in theology and this teaching rejects the Calvinist position that God has pre-ordained the salvation of a select group of people. However, Whitefield and several others were considered Calvinistic Methodists and held to the latter position, Methodism emphasises charity and support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the works of mercy. These ideals are put into practice by the establishment of hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens and schools to follow Christs command to spread the gospel, the movement has a wide variety of forms of worship, ranging from high church to low church in liturgical usage. Denominations that descend from the British Methodist tradition are generally less ritualistic, Methodism is known for its rich musical tradition and Charles Wesley was instrumental in writing much of the hymnody of the Methodist Church. In Britain, the Methodist Church had an effect in the early decades of the making of the working class. In the United States, it became the religion of many slaves who later formed black churches in the Methodist tradition. The Methodist revival began with a group of men, including John Wesley and his younger brother Charles, the Wesley brothers founded the Holy Club at the University of Oxford, where John was a fellow and later a lecturer at Lincoln College. The club met weekly and they set about living a holy life. They were accustomed to receiving Communion every week, fasting regularly, abstaining from most forms of amusement and luxury and frequently visited the sick, the fellowship were branded as Methodist by their fellow students because of the way they used rule and method to go about their religious affairs. John, who was leader of the club, took the attempted mockery, unsuccessful in their work, the brothers returned to England conscious of their lack of genuine Christian faith. They looked for help to Peter Boehler and other members of the Moravian Church, at a Moravian service in Aldersgate on 24 May 1738, John experienced what has come to be called his evangelical conversion, when he felt his heart strangely warmed. Charles had reported an experience an few days previously. Considered a pivotal moment, Daniel L. John Wesley came under the influence of the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius, Arminius had rejected the Calvinist teaching that God had pre-ordained an elect number of people to eternal bliss while others perished eternally. Conversely, George Whitefield, Howell Harris, and Selina Hastings, George Whitefield, returning from his own mission in Georgia, joined the Wesley brothers in what was rapidly to become a national crusade
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Pentecostalism
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The term Pentecostal is derived from Pentecost, the Greek name for the Jewish Feast of Weeks. For Christians, this event commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the followers of Jesus Christ, like other forms of evangelical Protestantism, Pentecostalism adheres to the inerrancy of scripture and the necessity of accepting Christ as personal Lord and Savior. It is distinguished by belief in the baptism in the Holy Spirit that enables a Christian to live a Spirit-filled and empowered life and this empowerment includes the use of spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues and divine healing—two other defining characteristics of Pentecostalism. For this reason, some Pentecostals also use the term Apostolic or Full Gospel to describe their movement, Pentecostalism emerged in the early 20th century among radical adherents of the Holiness movement who were energized by revivalism and expectation for the imminent Second Coming of Christ. In 1900, Charles Parham, an American evangelist and faith healer, the three-year-long Azusa Street Revival, founded and led by William J. While virtually all Pentecostal denominations trace their origins to Azusa Street, an early dispute centered on challenges to the doctrine of the Trinity. As a result, the Pentecostal Movement is divided between trinitarian and non-trinitarian branches, there are over 279 million Pentecostals worldwide, and the movement is growing in many parts of the world, especially the global South. Together, Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity numbers over 500 million adherents, Pentecostalism is an evangelical faith, emphasizing the reliability of the Bible and the need for the transformation of an individuals life through faith in Jesus. Like other evangelicals, Pentecostals generally adhere to the Bibles divine inspiration and inerrancy—the belief that the Bible, Pentecostals emphasize the teaching of the full gospel or foursquare gospel. The central belief of Pentecostalism is that through the death, burial and this is the Gospel or good news. The fundamental requirement of Pentecostalism is that one be born again, the new birth is received by the grace of God through faith in Christ as Lord and Savior. In being born again, the believer is regenerated, justified, adopted into the family of God, Pentecostal soteriology is generally Arminian rather than Calvinist. The security of the believer is a doctrine held within Pentecostalism, nevertheless, Pentecostals believe in both a literal heaven and hell, the former for those who have accepted Gods gift of salvation and the latter for those who have rejected it. For most Pentecostals there is no requirement to receive salvation. Baptism with the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues are not generally required, a notable exception is Oneness Pentecostalism, most adherents of which believe both water baptism and Spirit baptism are integral components of salvation. Pentecostals identify three distinct uses of the baptism in the New Testament, Baptism into the body of Christ. Every believer in Christ is made a part of his body, the Holy Spirit is the agent, and the body of Christ is the medium. Baptism with the Holy Spirit, This is an experience distinct from baptism into the body of Christ
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Hussites
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This predominantly religious movement was propelled by social issues and strengthened Czech national awareness. Among present-day Christians, Hussite traditions are represented in the Moravian Church, Unity of the Brethren, the arrest of Hus in 1414 caused considerable resentment in Czech lands. The authorities of both countries appealed urgently and repeatedly to King Sigismund to release Jan Hus, when news of his death at the Council of Constance in 1415 arrived, disturbances broke out, directed primarily against the clergy and especially against the monks. Even the Archbishop narrowly escaped from the effects of popular anger. The treatment of Hus was felt to be a disgrace inflicted upon the whole country, King Wenceslaus, prompted by his grudge against Sigismund, at first gave free vent to his indignation at the course of events in Constance. His wife openly favoured the friends of Hus, avowed Hussites stood at the head of the government. The university would arbitrate any disputed points, the entire Hussite nobility joined the league. Other than verbal protest of the treatment of Hus, there was little evidence of any actions taken by the nobility until 1417. The chalice of wine became the central identifying symbol of the Hussite movement, the prospect of a civil war began to emerge. Pope Martin V as Cardinal Otto of Colonna had attacked Hus with relentless severity and he energetically resumed the battle against Huss teaching after the enactments of the Council of Constance. He wished to completely the doctrine of Hus, for which purpose the co-operation of King Wenceslaus had to be obtained. In 1418, Sigismund succeeded in winning his brother over to the standpoint of the council by pointing out the inevitability of a war if the heretics in Bohemia found further protection. Hussite statesmen and army leaders had to leave the country and Roman Catholic priests were reinstated and these measures caused a general commotion which hastened the death of King Wenceslaus by a paralytic stroke in 1419. Hussism organised itself during the years 1415–1419, the moderate party, who followed Hus more closely, sought to conduct reform while leaving the whole hierarchical and liturgical order of the Church untouched. This required the removal of the hierarchy and the secularisation of ecclesiastical possessions. The radicals preached the sufficientia legis Christi—the divine law is the rule and canon for human society, not only in the church. But above all they clung to Wycliffes doctrine of the Lords Supper, denying transubstantiation, the radicals had their gathering-places all around the country. Their first armed assault fell on the town of Ústí, on the river Lužnice
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Waldensians
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The Waldensians are a Christian movement founded by Peter Waldo circa 1173. The Waldensian movement first appeared in Lyon in the late 1170s, today, the Waldensian movement is centered on Piedmont in northern Italy, while small communities are also found in southern Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, the United States, and Uruguay. Waldensian teachings quickly came into conflict with the Catholic Church, in the sixteenth century, Waldensian leaders embraced the Protestant Reformation and joined various local Protestant regional entities. Modern Waldensians share core tenets with Calvinists, including the priesthood of all believers, congregational polity, and they are members of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe and its affiliates worldwide. The main denomination within the movement was the Waldensian Evangelical Church, in 1975, it merged with the Methodist Evangelical Church to form the Union of Methodist and Waldensian Churches—a majority Waldensian church, with a minority of Methodists. Congregations continue to be active in Europe, South America, there are also the two reports written for the Inquisition by Reinerius Saccho, a former Cathar who converted to Catholicism, published together in 1254 as Summa de Catharis et Pauperibus de Lugduno. Waldensians held and preached a number of truths as they read from the Bible and they were accused, moreover, of having scoffed at the doctrine of transubstantiation, and of having spoken blasphemously of the Roman Catholic Church as the harlot of the Apocalypse. They rejected what they perceived as the idolatry of the Roman Catholic Church, the La nobla leyczon, written in the Occitan language, gives a sample of the medieval Waldensian belief. According to legend, Waldo renounced his wealth as an encumbrance to preaching, because of the shunning of the wealth of the Roman Catholic Church clergy, the movement was early known as The Poor of Lyon and The Poor of Lombardy. The Waldensian movement was characterized from the beginning by lay preaching, voluntary poverty, between 1175 and 1185, Peter Waldo either commissioned a cleric from Lyons to translate the New Testament into the vernacular—the Arpitan language—or was himself involved in this translation work. In 1179, Waldo and one of his disciples went to Rome, where Pope Alexander III, the Waldensians proceeded to disobey the Third Lateran Council and continued to preach according to their own understanding of the Scriptures. By the early 1180s, Waldo and his followers were excommunicated and forced from Lyon, the Roman Catholic Church declared them heretics, stating that the groups principal error was contempt for ecclesiastical power. Rome also accused the Waldensians of teaching innumerable errors, Waldo and his followers developed a system whereby they would go from town to town and meet secretly with small groups of Waldensians. There they would confess sins and hold service, a traveling Waldensian preacher was known as a barba. The group would shelter and house the barba and help make arrangements to move on to the town in secret. Waldo possibly died in the early 13th century, possibly in Germany, he was never captured, some historians feel their beliefs came from missionaries from the early church and their history is founded perhaps in the apostolic age. Though this idea itself stems from Baptist Successionism, an idea that was very popular among some 19th century Church historians, but has been largely discredited by modern scholars in the field. The Roman Inquisitor Reinerus Sacho writing c.1230 held the sect of the Vaudois to be of great antiquity, in the Waldensians, Sabbatati or Insabbatati, there was a more or less continuous tradition of Sabbath-keeping from the early church of the Apostles, throughout southern Europe
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Plymouth Brethren
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The Plymouth Brethren are a conservative, low church, nonconformist, Evangelical Christian movement whose history can be traced to Dublin, Ireland in the late 1820s, originating from Anglicanism. Among other beliefs, the group emphasizes sola scriptura, the belief that the Bible is the authority for church doctrine and practice over. Brethren generally see themselves, not as a denomination, but as a network of like-minded independent churches, the Brethren would generally prefer that their gatherings be referred to as assemblies, rather than churches but, in the interests of simplicity, this article uses both terms interchangeably. An influential figure among the early Plymouth Brethren was John Nelson Darby, the movement refused to take any denominational name to itself, a stance that some still maintain. Brethren assemblies are divided into two branches, the Open Brethren and the Exclusive Brethren, following a schism that took place in 1848. Both of these branches are themselves divided into several smaller streams, with varying degrees of communication. The best-known and oldest distinction between Open and Exclusive assemblies is in the nature of relationships among their local churches, Open Brethren assemblies function as networks of like-minded independent local churches. Exclusive Brethren are generally connexional and so feel under obligation to recognise, disciplinary action normally involves denying the individual participation in the breaking of bread or Lords Table. Generally, this is a weekly, Sunday morning, hour-long service of prayer, singing, teaching, exclusion from it is a major issue. Discipline may also involve formal social ostracism or shunning to varying degrees, a numerically small movement known as the Needed Truth Brethren emerged from the Open Brethren around 1892, partly in an attempt to address the problem of making discipline more effective. Being accused of irregular or illegal financial dealings may also result in being put under discipline, in Exclusive meetings, a member under discipline in one assembly would not be accepted in another assembly, as the Assembly generally respects the decisions made by the other Assembly. Exclusive assemblies have developed into a number of different branches, when there is not universal agreement among the assemblies in a specific case of discipline, a particular act of discipline may not be recognised by all assemblies. Exclusive assemblies are also much more adherent to the shunning of the party, using as guidance instructions given in Leviticus 14. In extreme cases, members may be asked to shun or divorce members of their immediate families, another less clear difference between assemblies lies in their approaches to collaborating with other Christians. Many Open Brethren will hold Gospel meetings, youth events, or other activities in partnership with non-Brethren Evangelical Christian churches, more conservative Open Brethren—and perhaps the majority of Exclusive Brethren—tend not to support activities outside their own meetings. This group practices extreme separation and other Brethren groups generally accuse it of being a cult, most other Exclusive groups prefer not to be known by any name and are only given such designations by non-members. There are some movements with strong Brethren connections that are easy to classify. The ecclesiology, however, has more in common with that of the Exclusive Brethren, the term Exclusive is most commonly used in the media to describe one separatist group known by other groups as Taylor-Hales Brethren, who now call themselves the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church
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Holiness movement
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The movement is defined by its emphasis on John Wesleys doctrine of a second work of grace leading to Christian perfection. As of 2015 Holiness-movement churches had an estimated 12 million adherents, though it became a multi-denominational movement over time and was furthered by the Second Great Awakening which energized churches of all stripes, the Holiness movement has its roots in Wesleyanism. The Methodists of the 19th century continued the interest in Christian holiness that had started by their founder. They continued to publish Wesleys works and tracts, including his famous A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, in 1835, Palmers sister, Sarah A. Lankford, started holding Tuesday Meetings for the Promotion of Holiness in her New York City home. In 1837, Palmer experienced what she called entire sanctification and had become the leader of the Tuesday Meetings by 1839, at first only women attended these meetings, but eventually Methodist bishops and hundreds of clergy and laymen began to attend as well. At the same time, Methodist minister Timothy Merritt of Boston founded a journal called the Guide to Christian Perfection and this was the first American periodical dedicated exclusively to promoting the Wesleyan message of Christian holiness. In 1865, the Palmers purchased The Guide which at its peak had a circulation of 30,000, at the Tuesday Meetings, Methodists soon enjoyed fellowship with Christians of different denominations, including the Congregationalist Thomas Upham. Other non-Methodists also contributed to the Holiness movement in the U. S. in 1836, Mahan experienced what he called a baptism with the Holy Spirit. Mahan believed that experience had cleansed him from the desire. Finney believed that experience might provide a solution to a problem he observed during his evangelistic revivals. Some people claimed to experience conversion but then slipped back into their old ways of living, finney believed that the filling with the Holy Spirit could help these converts to continue steadfast in their Christian life. This phase of the Holiness movement is referred to as the Oberlin-Holiness revival. Hannah Whitall Smith, an English Quaker, experienced a personal conversion. Sometime in the 1860s, she found what she called the secret of the Christian life—devoting ones life wholly to God and her husband, Robert Pearsall Smith, had a similar experience at the camp meeting in 1867. The couple became figureheads in the now-famous Keswick Convention, which rise to what is often called the Keswick-Holiness revival. Also representative was the revivalism of Rev. James Caughey, an American missionary sent by the Wesleyan Methodist Church to work in Ontario and he brought in the converts by the score, most notably in the revivals in Canada West 1851–53. Phoebe Palmers ministry complemented Caugheys revivals in Ontario circa 1857, at least two major Wesleyan denominations broke away from Methodism during this period. In 1843 Orange Scott organized the Wesleyan Methodist Connection at Utica, roberts and John Wesley Redfield founded the Free Methodist Church on the ideals of slavery abolition, egalitarianism, and second-blessing holiness
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Quakers
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Quakers are members of a historically Christian group of religious movements generally known as the Religious Society of Friends. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity, to differing extents, the different movements that make up the Religious Society of Friends/Friends Church avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2007, there were about 359,000 adult Quakers, in 2012, there were 377,055 adult Quakers. Some meetings of both types have Recorded Ministers in their meetings—Friends recognised for their gift of vocal ministry, the first Quakers lived in mid-17th century England. The movement arose from the Legatine-Arians and other dissenting Protestant groups, some of these early Quaker ministers were women. They emphasized a personal and direct experience of Christ, acquired through both direct religious experience and the reading and studying of the Bible. Quakers focused their private life on developing behaviour and speech reflecting emotional purity, in the past, Quakers were known for their use of thee as an ordinary pronoun, refusal to participate in war, plain dress, refusal to swear oaths, opposition to slavery, and teetotalism. & J. Clark and the big three British confectionery makers Cadbury, Rowntree and Frys, and philanthropic efforts, including abolition of slavery, prison reform, during and after the English Civil War many dissenting Christian groups emerged, including the Seekers and others. A young man named George Fox was dissatisfied with the teachings of the Church of England and he had a vision on Pendle Hill in Lancashire, England, in which he believed that the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered. Following this he travelled around England, the Netherlands, and Barbados preaching and teaching with the aim of converting new adherents to his faith, the central theme of his Gospel message was that Christ has come to teach his people himself. His followers considered themselves to be the restoration of the true Christian church, in 1650, Fox was brought before the magistrates Gervase Bennet and Nathaniel Barton, on a charge of religious blasphemy. According to George Foxs autobiography, Bennet was the first that called us Quakers and it is thought that George Fox was referring to Isaiah 66,2 or Ezra 9,4. Thus, the name Quaker began as a way of ridiculing George Foxs admonition, Quakerism gained a considerable following in England and Wales, and the numbers increased to a peak of 60,000 in England and Wales by 1680. This was relaxed after the Declaration of Indulgence and stopped under the Act of Toleration 1689, with the restructuring of the family and household came new roles for women, Fox and Fell viewed the Quaker mother as essential to developing holy conversation in her children and husband. Quaker women were responsible for the spirituality of the larger community, coming together in meetings that regulated marriage. The persecution of Quakers in North America began in 1656 when English Quaker missionaries Mary Fisher and they were considered heretics because of their insistence on individual obedience to the Inner Light. They were imprisoned and banished by the Massachusetts Bay Colony and their books were burned, and most of their property was confiscated. They were imprisoned in terrible conditions, then deported, in 1660, English Quaker Mary Dyer was hanged on Boston Common for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony
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Evangelicalism
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Its origins are usually traced back to English Methodism, the Moravian Church, and German Lutheran Pietism. While all these phenomena contributed greatly, John Wesley and other early Methodists were at the root of sparking this new movement during the First Great Awakening, today, Evangelicals are found across many Protestant branches, as well as in various denominations not subsumed to a specific branch. Among leaders and major figures of the Evangelical Protestant movement were John Wesley, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Billy Graham, Harold John Ockenga, John Stott and Martyn Lloyd-Jones. The movement gained momentum during the 18th and 19th centuries with the Great Awakenings in the United Kingdom. The Americas, Africa, and Asia are home to the majority of Evangelicals, United States has the largest concentration of Evangelicals in the world, its community forms a quarter of the population, is politically important and based mostly in the Bible Belt. In the United Kingdom, Evangelicals are mostly represented in the Methodist Church, Baptist communities, Evangelicalism, a major part of popular Protestantism, is among the most dynamic religious movements in the contemporary world, alongside resurgent Islam. While on the rise globally, the world is particularly influenced by its spread. The first published use of evangelical in English came in 1531 when William Tyndale wrote He exhorteth them to proceed constantly in the evangelical truth. One year later Sir Thomas More produced the earliest recorded use in reference to a theological distinction when he spoke of Tyndale his evangelical brother Barns, during the Reformation, Protestant theologians embraced the label as referring to gospel truth. Martin Luther referred to the evangelische Kirche to distinguish Protestants from Catholics in the Roman Catholic Church, into the 21st century, evangelical has continued in use as a synonym for Protestant in continental Europe, and elsewhere. This usage is reflected in the names of Protestant denominations such as the Evangelical Church in Germany, the term may also occur outside any religious context to characterize a generic missionary, reforming, or redeeming impulse or purpose. For example, the Times Literary Supplement refers to the rise, one influential definition of Evangelicalism has been proposed by historian David Bebbington. Conversionism, or belief in the necessity of being again, has been a constant theme of Evangelicalism since its beginnings. To Evangelicals, the message of the gospel is justification by faith in Christ and repentance, or turning away. Conversion differentiates the Christian from the non-Christian, and the change in life it leads to is marked by both a rejection of sin and a corresponding personal holiness of life. A conversion experience can be emotional, including grief and sorrow for sin followed by great relief at receiving forgiveness, the stress on conversion is further differentiated from other forms of Protestantism by the belief that an assurance of salvation will accompany conversion. Among Evangelicals, individuals have testified to both sudden and gradual conversions, biblicism is reverence for the Bible and a high regard for biblical authority. All Evangelicals believe in inspiration, though they disagree over how this inspiration should be defined
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Arminianism
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Arminianism is based on theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius and his historic supporters known as Remonstrants. His teachings held to the five solae of the Reformation, but they were distinct from particular teachings of Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, Jacobus Arminius was a student of Theodore Beza at the Theological University of Geneva. Arminianism is known to some as a diversification of Protestant Calvinist Christianity. However, to others, Arminianism is a reclamation of early Church theological consensus, Dutch Arminianism was originally articulated in the Remonstrance, a theological statement signed by 45 ministers and submitted to the States General of the Netherlands. The Synod of Dort was called by the States General to consider the Five Articles of Remonstrance, must be more particularly determined from the Scriptures. These points, note Drs. Keith D. Stanglin and Thomas H. McCall, are consistent with the views of Arminius, indeed and those who signed this remonstrance and others who supported its theology have since been known as Remonstrants. Some falsely assert that Universalists and Unitarians in the 18th and 19th centuries were theologically linked with Arminianism. The original beliefs of Jacobus Arminius himself are commonly defined as Arminianism, but more broadly, the term may embrace the teachings of Hugo Grotius, John Wesley, and others as well. Classical Arminianism, to which Arminius is the contributor, and Wesleyan Arminianism. Wesleyan Arminianism is often identical with Methodism, some schools of thought, notably Semipelagianism—which teaches that the first step of salvation is by human will, —are confused as being Arminian in nature. But classical Arminianism holds that the first step of salvation is solely the grace of God, the two systems of Calvinism and Arminianism share both history and many doctrines, and the history of Christian theology. Arminianism is related to Calvinism historically, however, because of their differences over the doctrines of divine predestination and election, many people view these schools of thought as opposed to each other. In short, the difference can be seen ultimately by whether God allows His desire to save all to be resisted by an individuals will or if Gods grace is irresistible, put another way, is Gods sovereignty shown, in part, through His allowance of free decisions. Some Calvinists assert that the Arminian perspective presents a system of Salvation and therefore is not only by grace. Many consider the differences to be crucial differences in doctrine. Jacobus Arminius was a Dutch pastor and theologian in the late 16th and he was taught by Theodore Beza, Calvins hand-picked successor, but after examination of the scriptures, he rejected his teachers theology that it is God who unconditionally elects some for salvation. Instead Arminius proposed that the election of God was of believers, Arminiuss views were challenged by the Dutch Calvinists, especially Franciscus Gomarus, but Arminius died before a national synod could occur. Arminiuss followers, not wanting to adopt their leaders name, called themselves the Remonstrants, when Arminius died before he could satisfy Hollands State Generals request for a 14-page paper outlining his views, the Remonstrants replied in his stead crafting the Five articles of Remonstrance
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Pietism
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Pietism was an influential movement within Lutheranism that combined Lutheran emphasis on Biblical doctrine with the Reformed emphasis on individual piety and living a vigorous Christian life. Although the movement was active exclusively within Lutheranism, it had a impact on Protestantism worldwide, particularly in North America. Pietism spread from Germany to Switzerland and the rest of German-speaking Europe, Scandinavia and the Baltics, and it was further taken to North America, primarily by German and Scandinavian immigrants. The movement reached its zenith in the century, and declined through the 19th century. A substantial part of the Pietistic Protestants was formed by German Sectarians, Norwegian Lutherans, Swedish Lutherans, as the forerunners of the Pietists in the strict sense, certain voices had been heard bewailing the shortcomings of the Church and advocating a revival of practical and devout Christianity. The direct originator of the movement was Philipp Jakob Spener and he studied theology at Strasbourg, where the professors at the time were more inclined to practical Christianity than to theological disputation. In 1675, Spener published his Pia desideria or Earnest Desire for a Reform of the True Evangelical Church and this was originally a pejorative term given to the adherents of the movement by its enemies as a form of ridicule, like that of Methodists somewhat later in England. While large numbers of orthodox Lutheran theologians and pastors were deeply offended by Speners book, in 1686 Spener accepted an appointment to the court-chaplaincy at Dresden, which opened to him a wider though more difficult sphere of labor. In Leipzig, a society of young theologians was formed under his influence for the learned study, the theological chairs in the new university were filled in complete conformity with Speners proposals. Orthodox Lutherans rejected this viewpoint as a simplification, stressing the need for the church. Spener died in 1705, but the movement, guided by Francke and fertilized from Halle, spread through the whole of Middle, Spener stressed the necessity of a new birth and separation of Christians from the world. Many Pietists maintained that the new birth always had to be preceded by agonies of repentance, the whole school shunned all common worldly amusements, such as dancing, the theatre, and public games. Some believe this led to a new form of justification by works and its ecclesiolae in ecclesia also weakened the power and meaning of church organization. These Pietistic attitudes caused a counter-movement at the beginning of the 18th century, one leader was Valentin Ernst Löscher, a movement which cultivated religious feeling almost as an end itself. Yet some claim that Pietism contributed largely to the revival of Biblical studies in Germany and to making religion once more an affair of the heart and of life and it likewise gave a new emphasis to the role of the laity in the church. Then came a time when another intellectual power took possession of the minds of men, bonhoeffer denounced the basic aim of Pietism, to produce a desired piety in a person, as unbiblical. Pietism is considered the influence that led to the creation of the Evangelical Church of the Union in Prussia in 1817. The King of Prussia ordered the Lutheran and Reformed churches in Prussia to unite and this union movement spread through many German lands in the 1800s
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Puritans
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Puritanism in this sense was founded as an activist movement within the Church of England. The founders, clergy exiled under Mary I, returned to England shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, Puritanism played a significant role in English history during the first half of the 17th century. One of the most effective stokers of anti-Catholic feeling was John Pym, Puritans were blocked from changing the established church from within and were severely restricted in England by laws controlling the practice of religion. They took on distinctive beliefs about clerical dress and in opposition to the episcopal system and they largely adopted Sabbatarianism in the 17th century, and were influenced by millennialism. Consequently, they became a political force in England and came to power as a result of the First English Civil War. Almost all Puritan clergy left the Church of England after the Restoration of 1660, the nature of the movement in England changed radically, although it retained its character for a much longer period in New England. Puritans by definition were dissatisfied with the extent of the English Reformation. They formed and identified with various groups advocating greater purity of worship and doctrine, as well as personal. Puritans adopted a Reformed theology and, in sense, were Calvinists. In church polity, some advocated separation from all other established Christian denominations in favor of autonomous gathered churches. The Puritans were never a formally defined sect or religious division within Protestantism, the Congregationalist tradition, widely considered to be a part of the Reformed tradition, claims descent from the Puritans. Historically, the word Puritan was considered a term that characterized Protestant groups as extremists. According to Thomas Fuller in his Church History, the dates to 1564. Archbishop Matthew Parker of that used it and precisian with the sense of the modern stickler. In modern times, the word puritan is often used to mean against pleasure, in this sense, the term Puritan was coined in the 1560s, when it first appeared as a term of abuse for those who found the Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1559 inadequate. The term Puritan, therefore, was not intended to refer to strict morality, a common modern misunderstanding, the word Puritan was applied unevenly to a number of Protestant churches from the late 16th century onwards. Puritans did not originally use the term for themselves, the practitioners knew themselves as members of particular churches or movements, and not by a single term. Precise men and Precisians were other early derogatory terms for Puritans, seventeenth century English Puritan preacher Thomas Watson used the godly to describe Puritans in the title of one of his more famous works The Godly Mans Picture
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Nondenominational Christianity
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Nondenominational churches are those which typically distance themselves from the confessionalism and/or creedalism of other Christian communities by calling themselves non-denominational. Often founded by individual pastors, they have little affiliation with historic denominations, there is no identifiable standard among such congregations. Some nondenominational churches explicitly reject the idea of a formalized denominational structure as a matter of principle and this is a main feature of the congregational polity. Many of the nondenominational churches trace their origins back to the United States and their history is often associated with American Protestantism, even though nondenominationals emphasize their Christian identity above all others. A2012 Gallup survey reported that 10 percent of U. S. adults identify as non-specific Christian, Nondenominational churches are on the rise. According to some, who classify nondenominationals alongside other Protestants, they constitute a part of Protestantism. According to James Walker, The visible churches, in the idea of the Scottish theologians, is catholic, the visible church is not a genus, so to speak, with so many species under it. It is thus you may think of the State, but the church is a totum integrale. This conception of the church, of which, in at least some aspects, in some countries where the Protestant Reformation took place, the founders claimed that the result was not a new denomination but a reformation of a supposedly pre-existing national church. Denominationalism was accelerated in the aftermath of the Westminster Assembly convened by the English Parliament to formulate a form of religion for the churches of England and Scotland. These two parties were not reconciled and following the Assembly the Independents formed their own independent church, thus, instead of a united expression of the Catholic Church in England, there were now two churches. Each denomination maintains to differing degrees some form of organizational and visible unity with its member churches, ordination and education standards in non-denominational church are very diverse. A local Christian Leader must sign the local non-denominational ordination, altar calls and appeals to personal conversion replace the sacraments as the means of grace. Baptism is a symbol of personal conversion, nothing more. Community Church movement Jesuism Non-church movement Non-denominational Muslims Non-denominational Judaism Postdenominationalism Sunday Christian Nondenominational Congregations Study
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House church
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A house church or home church is a label used to describe a group of Christians who regularly gather for worship in private homes. The group may be part of a larger Christian body, such as a parish, sometimes these groups meet because the membership is small, and a home is the most appropriate place to assemble, as in the beginning phase of the British New Church Movement. Sometimes this meeting style is advantageous because the group is a member of a Christian congregation which is banned from meeting as is the case in China. Some recent Christian writers have supported the view that the Christian Church should meet in houses, some believe small churches were a deliberate apostolic pattern in the first century, and they were intended by Christ. Christians who meet together in homes have often done so because of a desire to return to early Church style meetings as found in the New Testament. The New Testament shows that the Early Christian church exhibited a richness of fellowship and they believe that Christians walked closely with each other and shared their lives in Christ together. Others believe that the church met in houses due to persecution. Several passages in the Bible specifically mention churches meeting in houses, the churches of Asia greet you, especially Aquila and Priscilla greet you much in the Lord, along with the church that is in their house. The church meeting in the house of Priscilla and Aquila is again mentioned in Romans 16,3,5. The church that meets in the house of Nymphas is also cited in the Bible, Greet the brethren in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the church which is in her house. The first house church is recorded in Acts 1,13, clement of Alexandria, an early church father, wrote of worshipping in a house. At many points in subsequent history, various Christian groups worshipped in homes, according to some proponents, many churchgoers are turning to house churches because many traditional churches fail to meet their relational needs. Other titles which may be used to describe this movement are simple church, relational church, primitive church, body life, the church represented in the New Testament is based on this principle, and traditional, contemporary Christianity has reversed this order. The origins of the house church movement in North America. Others believe the House Church movement was pioneered by people like the Revd Ernest Southcott in the 1950s, Southcott believed that if people would not come to church, the church must go to the people, and his book The parish comes alive spread these ideas widely among Anglicans. During a struggling economy, churches can face financial challenges forcing them to make cuts in funding to missions. A traditional church that is required to support the church infrastructure including a building or campus can face financial pressures if it faces a significant drop in membership. Limited financial resources can encourage church leaders to rethink the pattern of ministry, House churches are already in a more favorable financial position due to the limited expenditures required to facilitate the functionality of the church
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Protestantism in the United States
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Protestantism is the largest group of Christianity in the United States, with its combined denominations accounting for about half the countrys population. The United States is also the home for 20% of the worlds Protestants, or some 150 million people, baptists account for about one third of American Protestants. Southern Baptist Convention is the largest single Protestant denomination in the United States, Protestants are divided into many different denominations, which are generally classified as either mainline or evangelical, although some may not fit easily into either category. Protestantism had undergone an unprecedented development on American soil, diversifying into multiple denominations, overall,84. 2% of all the Nobel Prizes awarded to Americans in Chemistry, 60% in Medicine, and 58. 6% in Physics between 1901 and 1972 were won by Protestants. Baptists are the largest Protestant grouping in the United States, prior to 1845, most white Baptist churches were loosely affiliated as the Triennial Convention. In that year, most southern congregations left to form a new Southern Baptist Convention, the remaining members organized what is now American Baptist Churches USA and includes 1.3 million members and 5402 congregations. Baptists have been present in the part of North America that is now the United States since the early 17th century, both Roger Williams and John Clarke, his compatriot in working for religious freedom, are credited with founding the Baptist faith in North America. In 1639, Williams established a Baptist church in Providence, Rhode Island and Clarke began a Baptist church in Newport, exact records for both congregations are lacking. The Handbook of Denominations in the United States identifies and describes 31 Baptist groups or conventions in the United States, the ELCA tends to be more involved in ecumenical endeavors than the LCMS. When Lutherans came to North America, they started church bodies that reflected, to some degree, many maintained their immigrant languages until the early 20th century. They sought pastors from the old country until patterns for the education of clergy could be developed in America, eventually, seminaries and church colleges were established in many places to serve the Lutheran churches in North America and, initially, especially to prepare pastors to serve congregations. The LCMS sprang from German immigrants fleeing the forced Prussian Union, the LCMS is the second largest Lutheran church body in North America. It identifies itself as a church with an emphasis on biblical doctrine and it does, however, encourage its members to be politically active, and LCMS members are often involved in political organizations such as Lutherans for Life. The earliest predecessor synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was constituted on August 25,1748 and it was known as the Ministerium of Pennsylvania and Adjacent States. The ELCA is the product of a series of mergers and represents the largest Lutheran church body in North America, the ALC and LCA had come into being in the early 1960s, as a result of mergers of eight smaller ethnically-based Lutheran bodies. The ELCA, through predecessor church bodies, is a member of the Lutheran World Federation, World Council of Churches. The LCMS, maintaining its position as a church body emphasizing the importance of full agreement in the teachings of the Bible. However, it is a member of the International Lutheran Council, made up of over 30 Lutheran Churches worldwide that support the confessional doctrines of the Bible, the WELS, along with the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, are part of the international Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference
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Modernism
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Among the factors that shaped modernism were the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by reactions of horror to World War I. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious belief, the poet Ezra Pounds 1934 injunction to Make it new. Was the touchstone of the approach towards what it saw as the now obsolete culture of the past. In this spirit, its innovations, like the novel, atonal and twelve-tone music, divisionist painting and abstract art. Modernism explicitly rejected the ideology of realism and makes use of the works of the past by the employment of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision, others focus on modernism as an aesthetic introspection. While J. M. W. Art critic Clement Greenberg describes the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as proto-Modernists, There the proto-Modernists were, of all people, the Pre-Raphaelites actually foreshadowed Manet, with whom Modernist painting most definitely begins. They acted on a dissatisfaction with painting as practiced in their time, rationalism has also had opponents in the philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and later Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom had significant influence on existentialism. A major 19th-century engineering achievement was The Crystal Palace, the huge cast-iron, Glass and iron were used in a similar monumental style in the construction of major railway terminals in London, such as Paddington Station and Kings Cross Station. These technological advances led to the building of structures like the Brooklyn Bridge. The latter broke all previous limitations on how tall man-made objects could be and these engineering marvels radically altered the 19th-century urban environment and the daily lives of people. Arguments arose that the values of the artist and those of society were not merely different, but that Society was antithetical to Progress, the philosopher Schopenhauer called into question the previous optimism, and his ideas had an important influence on later thinkers, including Nietzsche. Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection undermined religious certainty and the idea of human uniqueness, in particular, the notion that human beings were driven by the same impulses as lower animals proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling spirituality. Karl Marx argued that there were fundamental contradictions within the capitalist system, historians, and writers in different disciplines, have suggested various dates as starting points for modernism. Everdell also thinks modernism in painting began in 1885–86 with Seurats Divisionism, the poet Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, and Flauberts novel Madame Bovary were both published in 1857. In the arts and letters, two important approaches developed separately in France, the first was Impressionism, a school of painting that initially focused on work done, not in studios, but outdoors. Impressionist paintings demonstrated that human beings do not see objects, the school gathered adherents despite internal divisions among its leading practitioners, and became increasingly influential. A significant event of 1863 was the Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor Napoleon III to display all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon. While most were in standard styles, but by artists, the work of Manet attracted tremendous attention
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Christianity in the 19th century
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Characteristic of Christianity in the 19th century were Evangelical revivals in some largely Protestant countries and later the effects of modern Biblical scholarship on the churches. Liberal or modernist theology was one consequence of this, in Europe, the Roman Catholic Church strongly opposed liberalism and Georgia culture wars launched in Germany, Italy, Belgium and France. In Europe there was a move away from religious observance and belief in Christian teachings. In Protestantism, pietistic revivals were common, in reaction to these developments, Christian fundamentalism was a movement to reject the radical influences of philosophical humanism, as this was affecting the Christian religion. Although both movements primarily originated in the English speaking world, the majority of Evangelicals now live elsewhere in the world, after the Reformation, Protestant groups continued to splinter, leading to a range of new theologies. The Enthusiasts were so named because of their emotional zeal and these included the Methodists, the Quakers, and the Baptists. Another group sought to reconcile Christian faith with modernist ideas, sometimes causing them to reject beliefs they considered to be illogical, including the Nicene creed, a major issue for Protestants became the degree to which people contribute to their salvation. The debate is often viewed as synergism versus monergism, though the labels Calvinist and Arminian are more frequently used, the 19th century saw the rise of Biblical criticism, new knowledge of religious diversity in other continents, and above all the growth of science. This led many Christians to emphasize the brotherhood, to seeing miracles as myths, liberal Christianity—sometimes called liberal theology—reshaped Protestantism. Liberal Christianity is a term covering diverse, philosophically informed movements. Despite its name, liberal Christianity has always been thoroughly protean, the word liberal in liberal Christianity does not refer to a leftist political agenda but rather to insights developed during the Age of Enlightenment. Generally speaking, Enlightenment-era liberalism held that people are political creatures, the development of liberal Christianity owes a lot to the works of theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher. As a whole, liberal Christianity is a product of a philosophical dialogue. Historian Kenneth Scott Latourette argues that the outlook for Protestantism at the start of the 19th century was discouraging and it was a regional religion based in northwestern Europe, with an outpost in the sparsely settled United States. It was closely allied with government, as in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Prussia, the alliance came at the expense of independence, as the government made the basic policy decisions, down to such details as the salaries of ministers and location of new churches. The dominant intellectual currents of the Enlightenment promoted rationalism, and most Protestant leaders preached a sort of deism, intellectually, the new methods of historical and anthropological study undermine automatic acceptance of biblical stories, as did the sciences of geology and biology. Industrialization was a negative factor, as workers who moved to the city seldom joined churches. The gap between the church and the unchurched grew rapidly, and secular forces, based both in socialism and liberalism undermine the prestige of religion, despite the negative forces, Protestantism demonstrated a striking vitality by 1900
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Bible
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The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures that Jews and Christians consider to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans. Many different authors contributed to the Bible, what is regarded as canonical text differs depending on traditions and groups, a number of Bible canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents. The Christian Old Testament overlaps with the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint, the New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be mostly Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. These early Christian Greek writings consist of narratives, letters, among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about the contents of the canon, primarily the Apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect. Attitudes towards the Bible also differ amongst Christian groups and this concept arose during the Protestant Reformation, and many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only source of Christian teaching. With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the book of all time. It has estimated sales of 100 million copies, and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West. The English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin. Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra holy book, while biblia in Greek and it gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. Latin biblia sacra holy books translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ta biblia ta hagia, the word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of paper or scroll and came to be used as the ordinary word for book. It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, Egyptian papyrus, possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece, the Greek ta biblia was an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books. Christian use of the term can be traced to c.223 CE, bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer to use the Greek phrase ta biblia to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. The division of the Hebrew Bible into verses is based on the sof passuk cantillation mark used by the 10th-century Masoretes to record the verse divisions used in oral traditions. The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, the oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin Bible is the Codex Amiatinus and he states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from traditions in the second half of the first century CE. Riches says that, Scholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, the period of transmission is short, less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Marks Gospel. This means that there was time for oral traditions to assume fixed form
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Catholicism
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The use of terms catholicism and catholicity is closely related to the use of term Catholic Church. The earliest evidence of the use of term is the Letter to the Smyrnaeans that Ignatius of Antioch wrote in about 108 to Christians in Smyrna. In 380, Emperor Theodosius I limited use of the term Catholic Christian exclusively to those who followed the faith as Pope Damasus I of Rome. Numerous other early writers including Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine of Hippo further developed the use of the term catholic in relation to Christianity. In Christian theology, and specially in ecclesiology, terms Catholicism, when used with small c, terms catholicism and catholicity generally designate theological doctrine of the catholicity of the Church without denominational connotations. A common belief in Catholicism is institutional continuity with the early Christian church founded by Jesus Christ, many churches or communions of churches identify singularly or collectively as the authentic church. The Bishop of Rome was also considered to have the right to convene ecumenical councils, when the Imperial capital moved to Constantinople, Romes influence was sometimes challenged. The first great rupture in the Church followed this Council and they are often called Ancient Oriental Churches. The next major break was after the Council of Chalcedon and this Council repudiated Eutychian Monophysitism which stated that the divine nature completely subsumed the human nature in Christ. This Council declared that Christ, though one person, exhibited two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation and thus is both fully God and fully human, the next great rift within Christianity was in the 11th century. This division between the Western Church and the Eastern Church is called the East–West Schism, several eastern churches reunited, constituting some of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Liturgical and canonical practices vary between all these particular Churches constituting the Roman and Eastern Catholic Churches, in all these cases the beliefs and practices of Catholicism would be identical with the beliefs and practices of the Church in question. However, in Roman Catholicism, the term catholic is understood as to cover those who recognize and are in standing with the Magisterium. The sense given to the word by those who use it to distinguish their position from a Calvinistic or Puritan form of Protestantism. It is then meaningful to attempt to draw up a list of common characteristic beliefs, the Roman Catholic Church includes the 23 rites who recognize the Magisterium. Belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the belief that Christ is made manifest in the elements of Holy Communion, possession of the threefold ordained ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons. Belief that the Church is the vessel and deposit of the fullness of the teachings of Jesus and this teaching is preserved in both written scripture and in unwritten tradition, neither being independent of the other. A belief in the necessity and efficacy of sacraments, liturgical and personal use of the Sign of the Cross The use of sacred images, candles, vestments and music, and often incense and water, in worship
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Christian fundamentalism
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Christian fundamentalism began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and American Protestants as a reaction to theological liberalism and cultural modernism. Fundamentalists are almost always described as having an interpretation of the Bible. A few scholars regard Catholics who reject modern theology in favor of traditional doctrines as fundamentalists. Scholars debate how much the terms evangelical and fundamentalist are synonymous, interpretations of Christian fundamentalism have changed over time. Fundamentalism is a movement manifested in various such as Pentecostalism or Roman Catholicism with various theologies. The movement became more organized in the 1920s within U. S. Protestant churches, especially Baptist, many such churches adopted a fighting style and combined Princeton theology with Dispensationalism. The term fundamentalism was coined by Baptist editor Curtis Lee Laws in 1920 to designate Christians who were ready to do battle royal for the fundamentals, the term was quickly adopted by all sides. Laws borrowed it from the title of a series of essays published between 1910 and 1915 called The Fundamentals, A Testimony to the Truth, the term fundamentalism entered the English language in 1922, and is often capitalized when referring to the religious movement. The term fundamentalist is controversial in the 21st century, as it can carry the connotation of religious extremism, some who hold these beliefs reject the label of fundamentalism, seeing it as too pejorative, while to others it has become a banner of pride. Such Christians prefer to use the fundamental, as opposed to fundamentalist. The term is confused with Christian legalism. Fundamentalism came from streams in British and American theology of the 19th century. Modernists attempted to update Christianity to match their view of science and they denied biblical miracles and argued that God manifests himself through the social evolution of society. These latent tensions erupted to the surface after World War I in what came to be called the fundamentalist/modernist split, however, the split does not mean there are just two groups, modernists and fundamentalists. There are also people who considered themselves to be neo-evangelicals, separating themselves from the components of fundamentalism. These neo-evangelicals also wanted to separate themselves from the fundamentalist movement and they in turn had been influenced by the Pietism movement in Germany. A second stream was Dispensationalism, a new interpretation of the Bible developed in the 1830s in England, John Nelson Darbys ideas were disseminated by the notes and commentaries in the widely used Scofield Reference Bible, published in 1909. Dispensationalism was a theory that divided all of time into seven different stages, called dispensations
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Jesus in Christianity
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Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah and believe that through his death and resurrection, humans can be reconciled to God and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life. The choice Jesus made thus counter-positions him as a new man of morality and obedience, most Christians believe that Jesus was both human and divine—the Son of God. Jesus, having become fully human in all respects, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, as fully God, he defeated death and rose to life again. According to the Bible, God raised him from the dead and he ascended to heaven to sit at the Right Hand of God, and he will return to earth again for the Last Judgment and the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the World to Come. Although Christian views of Jesus vary, it is possible to summarize key elements of the shared beliefs among major denominations based on their catechetical or confessional texts. Christian views of Jesus are derived from biblical sources, particularly from the canonical Gospels. Christians predominantly hold that these works are historically true and those groups or denominations committed to what are considered biblically orthodox Christianity nearly all agree on the following points, Christians believe that the mother of Jesus was a virgin. Christians believe that Jesus was a human being who was also fully God, Christians believe that Jesus came into the world as the son of only one earthly parent, Mary. Christians believe that Jesus never sinned or did anything wrong, Christians believe that Jesus was eventually martyred, was buried in a tomb, and then on the third day came back to life. Christians believe that because he rose from the tomb on the third day, Christians believe that Jesus eventually ascended back to God the Father. Christians believe that Jesus will come back to earth a second time, the five major milestones in the gospel narrative of the life of Jesus are his Baptism, Transfiguration, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension. These are usually bracketed by two episodes, his Nativity at the beginning and the sending of the Paraclete at the end. The gospel accounts of the teachings of Jesus are often presented in terms of specific categories involving his works and words, e. g. his ministry, Christians not only attach theological significance to the works of Jesus, but also to his name. Devotions to the name of Jesus go back to the earliest days of Christianity and these exist today both in Eastern and Western Christianity—both Catholic and Protestant. Christians predominantly profess that through Jesus life, death, and resurrection and his death on a cross is understood as a redemptive sacrifice, the source of humanitys salvation and the atonement for sin which had entered human history through the sin of Adam. But who do you say that I am, only Simon Peter answered him, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God — Matthew 16, 15-16 Jesus is mediator, but…the title means more that someone between God and man. He is not just a third party between God and humanity…, as true God he brings God to mankind. As true man he brings mankind to God, most Christians generally consider Jesus to be the Christ, the long awaited Messiah, as well as the one and only Son of God
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Second Coming
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The Second Coming is a Christian concept regarding the future return of Jesus to Earth after his first coming and ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago. The belief is based on messianic prophecies found in the gospels and is part of most Christian eschatologies. Views about the nature of Jesus Second Coming vary among Christian denominations, most English versions of the Nicene Creed include the following statements. he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Several different terms are used to refer to the Second Coming of Christ, In the New Testament, the Greek New Testament uses the Greek term parousia twenty-four times, seventeen of them concerning Christ. The word is used six times referring to individuals and one time referring to the coming of the lawless one. The etymology of the Greek word parousia is related to para beside ousia presence, in English parousia always has a special, Christian meaning. The Bauer-Danker Lexicon provides the definition. of Christ, and nearly always of his Messianic Advent in glory to judge the world at the end of this age. The Catholic Encyclopedia article on the General judgment states, In the New Testament the second Parousia, the Saviour Himself not only foretells the event but graphically portrays its circumstances. The Apostles give a most prominent place to this doctrine in their preaching, besides the name Parusia, or Advent, the second coming is also called Epiphany, epiphaneia, or Appearance and Apocalypse, or Revelation. The time of the second coming is spoken of as that Day the day of the Lord, the day of Christ, the day of the Son of Man, and the last day. Children, it is the last hour, and just as you heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared, from this we know that it is the last hour. The position associating the Second Coming with 1st century events such as the destruction of Jerusalem, some Preterists see this coming of the Son of Man in glory primarily fulfilled in Jesus death on the cross. They believe the signs are already fulfilled including the sun will be dark. Will be shaken, and then they will see, moreover, Jesus was reported to have told his disciples, Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Some, such as Jerome, interpret the phrase this generation to mean in the lifetime of the Jewish race, however, other scholars believe that if Jesus meant race he would have used genos not genea. Most English versions of the Nicene Creed in current use include the statements about Jesus. he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come
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Social movement
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Social movements are a type of group action. They are large, sometimes informal, groupings of individuals or organizations which focus on political or social issues. In other words, they carry out, resist, or undo a social change, modern Western social movements became possible through education and increased mobility of labor due to the industrialization and urbanization of 19th century societies. However, others point out many of the social movements of the last hundred years grew up, like the Mau Mau in Kenya. Either way, social movements have been and continued to be connected with democratic political systems. Occasionally, social movements have been involved in democratizing nations, over the past 200 years, they have become part of a popular and global expression of dissent. Modern movements often utilize technology and the internet to people globally. Adapting to communication trends is a theme among successful movements. Research is beginning to explore how advocacy organizations linked to social movements in the U. S. and Canada use social media to facilitate civic engagement, the systematic literature review of Buettner & Buettner analyzed the role of Twitter during a wide range of social movements. Political science and sociology have developed a variety of theories and empirical research on social movements, there is no single consensus definition of a social movement. For Tilly, social movements are a vehicle for ordinary peoples participation in public politics. Sidney Tarrow defines a social movement as collective challenges by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interactions with elites, opponents and he specifically distinguishes social movements from political parties and advocacy groups. The first mass social movement catalyzed around the political figure. Charged with seditious libel, Wilkes was arrested after the issue of a general warrant, as a result of this episode, Wilkes became a figurehead to the growing movement for popular sovereignty among the middle classes - people began chanting, Wilkes and Liberty in the streets. After a later period of exile, brought about by further charges of libel and obscenity, Wilkes stood for the Parliamentary seat at Middlesex, where most of his support was located. When Wilkes was imprisoned in the Kings Bench Prison on 10 May 1768 and this was the first ever sustained social movement, -it involved public meetings, demonstrations, the distribution of pamphlets on an unprecedented scale and the mass petition march. The force and influence of social movement on the streets of London compelled the authorities to concede to the movements demands. Wilkes was returned to Parliament, general warrants were declared as unconstitutional, the Association had the support of leading Calvinist religious figures, including Rowland Hill, Erasmus Middleton, and John Rippon
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Christian denomination
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A Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity, identified by traits such as a name, organisation, leadership and doctrine. Individual bodies, however, may use alternative terms to describe themselves, groups of denominations—often sharing broadly similar beliefs, practices, and historical ties—are sometimes known as branches of Christianity or denominational families. Individual Christian groups vary widely in the degree to which they recognize one another, several groups claim to be the direct and sole authentic successor of the church founded by Jesus Christ in the 1st century AD. Others, however, believe in denominationalism, where some or all Christian groups are legitimate churches of the same regardless of their distinguishing labels, beliefs. Because of this concept, some Christian bodies reject the term denomination to describe themselves, however, the Catholic Church does not view itself as a denomination, but as the original pre-denominational church. This view is rejected by other Christian denominations, Protestant denominations account for approximately 37 percent of Christians worldwide. Together, Catholicism and Protestantism comprise Western Christianity, Western Christian denominations prevail in Western, Northern, Central and Southern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas and Oceania. The Eastern Orthodox Church, with an estimated 225–300 million adherents, is the second-largest Christian organization in the world, unlike the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church is itself a communion of fully independent autocephalous churches that mutually recognize each other to the exclusion of others. The Eastern Orthodox Church, together with Oriental Orthodoxy and the Assyrian Church of the East, Eastern Christian denominations are represented mostly in Eastern Europe, North Asia, the Middle East and Northeast Africa. Christians have various doctrines about the Church and about how the church corresponds to Christian denominations. Both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox hold that their own organizations faithfully represent the One Holy catholic and Apostolic Church to the exclusion of the other, sixteenth-century Protestants separated from the Catholic Church because of theologies and practices that they considered to be in violation of their own interpretation. But some non-denominational Christians do not follow any particular branch, though regarded as Protestants. Each group uses different terminology to discuss their beliefs and this section will discuss the definitions of several terms used throughout the article, before discussing the beliefs themselves in detail in following sections. A denomination within Christianity can be defined as an autonomous branch of the Christian Church, major synonyms include religious group, sect, Church. Some traditional and evangelical Protestants draw a distinction between membership in the church and fellowship within the local church. Becoming a believer in Christ makes one a member of the universal church, a related concept is denominationalism, the belief that some or all Christian groups are legitimate churches of the same religion regardless of their distinguishing labels, beliefs, and practices. Protestant leaders differ greatly from the views of the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, each church makes mutually exclusive claims for itself to be the direct continuation of the Church founded by Jesus Christ, from whom other denominations later broke away. These churches, and a few others, reject denominationalism, Christianity can be taxonomically divided into five main groups, the Church of the East, Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism
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Religious denomination
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A religious denomination is a subgroup within a religion that operates under a common name, tradition, and identity. The term refers to the various Christian denominations and it is also used to describe the four branches of Judaism. Within Islam, it can refer to the branches or sects, as well as their various subdivisions such as sub-sects, schools of jurisprudence, schools of theology, the worlds largest religious denomination is Sunni Islam, followed by Roman Catholicism. A Christian denomination is a term for a distinct religious body identified by traits such as a common name, structure, leadership. Individual bodies, however, may use alternative terms to describe themselves, groups of denominations often sharing broadly similar beliefs, practices, and historical ties are known as branches of Christianity. Jewish religious movements, sometimes called denominations or branches, include different groups which have developed among Jews from ancient times, today, the main division is between the Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative lines, with several smaller movements alongside them. This threefold denominational structure is present in the United States. The movements differ in their views on various issues and these issues include the level of observance, the methodology for interpreting and understanding Jewish law, biblical authorship, textual criticism, and the nature or role of the messiah. Across these movements there are marked differences in liturgy, especially in the language in services are conducted. In Hinduism, the deity or philosophical belief identifies a denomination. The major denominations include Shaivism, Shaktism, Vaishnavism and Smartism, historically, Islam was divided into three major sects well known as Sunni, Khawarij and Shī‘ah. Nowadays, Sunnis constitute more than 85% of the overall Muslim population while the Shias are slightly more than 12%, today, many of the Shia sects are extinct. The major surviving Imamah-Muslim Sects are Usulism, Nizari Ismailism, Alevism, on the other hand, new Muslim sects like African American Muslims, Ahmadi Muslims, non-denominational Muslims, Quranist Muslims and Wahhabis were later independently developed. The term multi-denominational may describe an event that includes several religious denominations from sometimes unrelated religious groups. Many civic events include religious portions led by representatives from several denominations to be as inclusive or representational as possible of the expected population or audience. Schools of Buddhism Christian denomination Hindu denominations Islamic denominations Jewish denominations Non-denominational Schism Sociological classifications of religious movements
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Christian apologetics
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Christian apologetics is a field of Christian theology that presents historical, reasoned, and evidential bases for Christianity, defending it against objections. Beyond Europe and North America Christian apologetics is less popular and not so widely publicized, the original Greek apologia was a formal verbal defense, either in response to accusation or prosecution in a court of law. The Christian apologists of the early Church did not reject Greek philosophy, apologetics might also be directed to Christians already within the community explain their beliefs and justify positions. Apologetic literature was an important medium for the formation of early Christian identity, in addition to Origen and Tertullian, early Christian apologists include Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and the author of the Epistle to Diognetus. Augustine of Hippo was a significant apologist of the Patristic era, some scholars regard apologetics as a distinct literary genre exhibiting commonalities of style and form, content, and strategies of argumentation. Others viewed it as a form of discourse characterized by its tone, several biblical passages historically motivated Christian apologetics. Sproul, quoting the First Epistle of Peter, writes that The defense of the faith is not a luxury or intellectual vanity. It is an appointed by God that you should be able to give a reason for the hope that is in you as you bear witness before the world. Another passage sometimes used as a Biblical basis for Christian apologetics is Gods entreaty in the Book of Isaiah, Come now, let us reason together. Thomas Aquinas, an influential Catholic philosopher, presented five ways, or arguments for Gods existence, in the Summa Theologica, Blaise Pascal outlined an approach to apologetics in his Pensées, Men despise religion, they hate it and fear it is true. Christian apologetics continues in modern times in a variety of forms. The Roman Catholics, Bishop Robert Barron, G. K. Chesterton, Ronald Knox, Karl Keating, Peter Kreeft, Frank Sheed, and Dr. Scott Hahn, the Anglican C. S. Lewis. Others include Douglas Groothuis, Josh McDowell, Ravi Zacharias, Hugh Ross, Lee Strobel, Hugo Anthony Meynell, Timothy J. Keller, R. C. Sproul, Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, Francis Collins, Vishal Mangalwadi, Richard Bauckham, Craig Evans, Darrell Bock, Gary Habermas, James White, there are a variety of Christian apologetic styles and schools of thought. A variety of arguments have been forwarded by legal scholars such as Simon Greenleaf and John Warwick Montgomery, warner Wallace, and academic historical scholars, such as Edwin M. Yamauchi. These arguments present a case for the historicity of the resurrection of Christ per current legal standards of evidence or undermining the pagan myth hypothesis for the origin of Christianity. Evidence for the historicity of the A. N. Sherwin-White states, For Acts, yet Acts is, in simple terms and judged externally, no less of a propaganda narrative than the Gospels, liable to similar distortions. But any attempt to reject its basic historicity, even in matters of detail, Roman historians have long taken it for granted
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