HIST 202 — Church History II: Reformation to the Present
HIST 201 ended with a fractured Western Christendom: Luther, Calvin, the Anabaptists, the English Reformation, and the Council of Trent had drawn lines that would define Christianity for centuries. HIST 202 picks up the story at the point where those lines hardened into institutions and follows the Christian movement through four centuries of consolidation, crisis, expansion, and transformation that brought it to its present global shape. The period 1600 to the present contains as much ground as the first sixteen centuries. Protestantism fractured into hundreds of traditions. The Catholic Church reformed itself, defined papal infallibility, and then reformed itself again at Vatican II. The Orthodox Church survived four centuries of Ottoman and Soviet oppression. Christianity crossed the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the equator. The Enlightenment challenged Christianity's intellectual foundations; Schleiermacher, Barth, and others rebuilt them on new ground. Pentecostalism emerged at the start of the twentieth century and became, by demographic measures, the most significant Christian development since the Reformation. And the church faced moral reckonings over slavery, colonialism, Nazism, racism, and sexual abuse. The course assumes the student has completed HIST 201 and at least one of the theology courses (THEO 201 or THEO 202). Primary-source engagement matches HIST 201: the student encounters Spener's Pia Desideria, Edwards's Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Schleiermacher's On Religion, Barth's preface to The Epistle to the Romans, Bonhoeffer's writings from prison, the Barmen Declaration, Vatican II documents, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail, and Gutierrez's A Theology of Liberation. Multi-tradition sensitivity is at its most demanding in this period. HIST 202 gives proportional attention to Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant, evangelical, Pentecostal, and Global South developments. The difficult history is presented honestly.
Learning outcomes
- Describe the post-Reformation consolidation of Protestant traditions (confessionalism, the Thirty Years' War, Puritanism, Pietism) and the Orthodox Church's survival under Ottoman rule, engaging primary sources (Westminster Confession, Pia Desideria)
- Describe the Enlightenment's challenge to Christianity and the major theological responses (Schleiermacher, liberal theology, the Great Awakenings, the missionary movement), distinguishing between accommodation and renewal
- Describe Christianity's engagement with modernity (Darwinism, higher criticism, fundamentalism, the social gospel, Catholic responses from Vatican I through Rerum Novarum) from multiple tradition perspectives
- Describe the impact of the World Wars on Christian theology and institutions, engaging Barth, Bonhoeffer, the Barmen Declaration, and the German church's complicity and resistance under Nazism
- Describe Vatican II and its significance for modern Catholicism, engaging conciliar documents (Lumen Gentium, Nostra Aetate) and presenting both reformist and traditionalist perspectives
- Describe the Pentecostal and charismatic movements from Azusa Street through their global spread, articulating why Pentecostalism is the most significant Christian development of the twentieth century by demographic measures
- Describe the rise of liberation theology, the Civil Rights movement as a theological event, and Christianity's relationship with colonialism, slavery, and racism, engaging primary sources (King's Letter from Birmingham Jail, Gutierrez)
- Describe the shift of Christianity's demographic center from Europe and North America to the Global South (Africa, Asia, Latin America), engaging the scholarship of Philip Jenkins and Lamin Sanneh
- Engage primary historical sources from the post-Reformation period through the present (confessional documents, Enlightenment responses, conciliar texts, protest theology) and follow their arguments in historical context
- Articulate how the developments of the last four centuries produced the denominational, theological, and cultural Christianity that the student encounters today, and identify the trajectories that will shape Christianity's future
Post-Reformation Consolidation (1600-1750)
Module 1 covers the period between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, when the divisions of the sixteenth century hardened into confessional identities backed by state power. Three lessons trace the consolidation of Protestant traditions through confessional documents (Westminster Confession, Canons of Dort, Thirty-Nine Articles), the Thirty Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia, Puritanism and the English Civil War, Pietism as a renewal movement (Spener, Francke, Zinzendorf and the Moravians), and the Orthodox Church's survival under Ottoman rule.
The Age of Reason and Revival (1700-1850)
Module 2 covers the Enlightenment's challenge to Christianity (Deism, Kant, Hume), Schleiermacher and the birth of liberal theology, the Great Awakenings (Edwards, Whitefield, Wesley), the Methodist movement, and the rise of the modern missionary movement (Carey) with its colonial entanglement. Three lessons trace how the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries forced Christianity to confront both intellectual critique from above and popular revival from below.
Christianity and Modernity (1850-1914)
Module 3 covers the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the eve of World War I, when Christianity faced two simultaneous challenges: the external pressure of Darwinian science and the internal pressure of higher criticism applied to Scripture. Two lessons trace the divergent responses of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions. The first lesson examines Darwin's impact on the faith-science relationship, the Documentary Hypothesis, liberal theology, and the social gospel. The second lesson examines the Catholic Church's defensive posture under Pius IX, the definition of papal infallibility at Vatican I, Leo XIII's turn toward social engagement in Rerum Novarum, and the Orthodox Church's complex position in the Russian Empire.
The World Wars and the Crisis of Christendom (1914-1965)
Module 4 covers the half-century from the outbreak of World War I to the close of Vatican II, a period in which the assumptions of nineteenth-century Christian civilization collapsed and the church was forced to rebuild its theology, its institutions, and its moral credibility. Three lessons trace the arc: the shattering of liberal optimism by war and the rise of dialectical theology, the German church crisis under Nazism and the witness of Bonhoeffer, and the Catholic Church's dramatic self-reinvention at the Second Vatican Council.
Pentecostalism, Liberation, and the Civil Rights Movement (1900-1980)
Module 5 covers the twentieth century's two most consequential grassroots Christian movements. The first lesson traces Pentecostalism from its origins in Topeka and Azusa Street through its global spread to 600-700 million adherents, including the charismatic renewal in mainline and Catholic churches and the contested rise of the prosperity gospel. The second lesson examines the Civil Rights movement as a theological event rooted in the Black church, Martin Luther King Jr.'s synthesis of Black church tradition with Gandhi and Niebuhr, and the emergence of liberation theology in Latin America and Black theology in the United States.
Global Christianity and the Present (1970-Today)
Module 6 examines Christianity as a global religion in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The first lesson traces the shift of Christianity's demographic center from the Global North to the Global South, engaging Philip Jenkins's The Next Christendom and Lamin Sanneh's Translating the Message. The second lesson addresses contemporary challenges including secularization, mainline decline, sexual ethics debates, the Catholic abuse crisis, and Christianity under authoritarian regimes. The third lesson synthesizes the entire course by identifying five trajectories shaping Christianity's future.