Читать книгу The World's Christians - Douglas Jacobsen - Страница 64

Before 1800 very few Protestants had an interest in global missions. After 1800, the evangelization of the world became a central Protestant concern. The publication of William Carey’s book, Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (1792), was one trigger that helped to spur the modern Protestant missionary movement. Before Carey’s book, the common assumption was that God would redeem “the heathen” when God decided to do so, and God would do that without any human assistance. Carey argued that instead of passively waiting for God to act, Protestants should energetically “use means” (intelligent strategizing and planned action) to spread the gospel around the world. This new missionary vision reflected Protestantism’s slide toward Arminianism, but it was also encouraged by the modern notion that society can be changed by human effort (in contrast to the older view that human social relations were largely fixed and inflexible). A third trigger for Protestant global missions was Europe’s heightened awareness of the world’s cultural and religious diversity. This consciousness was sketchy, often inaccurate, and frequently condescending, but it led Protestants in the West to see the rest of the world as in need of help and assistance.

The modern Protestant missionary movement helped to spread Christianity around the world, and it also had a major impact on the institutional structure of Protestantism. Up until 1800, most of Protestantism was housed in churches, and most of those churches were government‐controlled state churches. Protestantism’s new passion for missions gave rise to an entirely different kind of institutional structure: the trans‐denominational (or non‐denominational) voluntary association. These associations were not churches, they were not organized into congregations, and their main purpose was not worship. Instead, they were organized around one particular Christian purpose. Examples include the London Missionary Society (begun in 1795) and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1810). Later examples would include groups like the American Anti‐Slavery Society (1833) and the Women’s Christian Temperance Society (1874). These voluntary Protestant parachurch organizations tended to be theologically inclusive, espousing Protestant Christianity in general, and they drew support from individuals belonging to a variety of different denominations. They also gave women, who were denied ordination by most Protestant denominations, new opportunities for leadership within the movement.

During the same time that Protestantism was spreading confidently and rapidly around the world, it was increasingly being challenged “back home” in Europe and North America. Questions came from new ideas emerging in science (Darwinian evolution), from new thoughts about society and economics (Marxism), from new views of human psychology (Freudianism), and from new interactions with other cultures. Social developments within the western world, including the end of slavery, the industrial revolution, western colonialism, new forms of communication, and the rise of modern medicine, were also forcing Protestants to rethink some of their beliefs and practices. Protestant “modernists” generally viewed these new ideas and social developments in the best light possible, as offering new ways to improve Christianity and to cleanse it from the faulty and old‐fashioned ways of thinking it had accumulated over the centuries. Protestant “fundamentalists” viewed these developments more defensively, seeing them as attacks on the core principles of Protestantism and biblical Christianity. Tensions between the more liberal and more conservative wings of Protestantism, which emerged in the early twentieth century, have divided the movement ever since.