Christianity in the 18th century is marked by the
First Great Awakening in the
Americas, along with the expansion of the Spanish and Portuguese empires around the world, which helped to spread
Catholicism.
Protestant Pietism, evangelicalism
Historian
Sydney E. Ahlstrom identified a "great international Protestant upheaval" that created
Pietism in Germany and Scandinavia, the
Evangelical Revival, and
Methodism in England, and the
First Great Awakening in the American colonies.[1] This powerful grass-roots evangelical movement shifted the emphasis from formality to inner piety. In Germany it was partly a continuation of mysticism that had emerged in the Reformation era. The leader was
Philipp Spener (1635–1705), They downplayed theological discourse and believed that all ministers should have a conversion experience; they wanted the laity to participate more actively in church affairs. Pietists emphasized the importance of Bible reading.
August Hermann Francke (1663–1727) was another important leader who made
the University of Halle the intellectual center.[2][3] Pietism was strongest in the Lutheran churches, and also had a presence in the Dutch Reformed church. In Germany, however, reformed Reformed Church's work closely under the control of the government, which distrusted Pietism. Likewise in Sweden, the Lutheran Church of Sweden was so legalistic and intellectually oriented, that it brushed aside pietistic demands for change. Pietism continues to have its influence on European Protestantism, and extended its reach through missionary work across the world.[4]
The same movement toward individual piety was called
evangelicalism in Britain and its colonies.[5] The most important leaders included Methodists
John Wesley,
George Whitefield and hymn writer
Charles Wesley.[6][7][8] Movements occurred inside the established state churches, but there was also a centripetal force that led to partial independence, as in the case of the Methodist and
Wesleyan revivals.
The American Great Awakening
The
First Great Awakening was a wave of religious enthusiasm among Protestants that swept the
American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, leaving a permanent impact on American religion.
Jonathan Edwards, perhaps most powerful intellectual in colonial America, was a key leader. George Whitefield came over from England and made many converts. The Great Awakening emphasized the traditional Reformed virtues of Godly preaching, rudimentary liturgy, and a deep sense of personal guilt and redemption by Christ Jesus. It resulted from powerful preaching that deeply affected listeners with a deep sense of personal guilt and salvation by Christ. Pulling away from ritual and ceremony, the Great Awakening made religion personal to the average person.[9]
It had a major impact in reshaping the
Congregational,
Presbyterian,
Dutch Reformed, and German Reformed denominations, and it strengthened the small
Baptist and
Methodist denominations. It brought Christianity to the
slaves and was an apocalyptic event in
New England that challenged established authority. It incited rancor and division between the new revivalists and the old traditionalists who insisted on ritual and doctrine. It had little impact on
Anglicans and
Quakers.
Unlike the
Second Great Awakening that began about 1800 and which 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. The new style of sermons and the way people practiced their faith breathed new life into
religion in America. People became passionately and emotionally involved in their religion, rather than passively listening to intellectual discourse in a detached manner. Ministers who used this new style of preaching were generally called "new lights", while the preachers of old were called "old lights". People began to study the Bible at home, which effectively decentralized the means of informing the public on religious manners and was akin to the individualistic trends present in Europe during the
Protestant Reformation.[10]
Roman Catholicism
Europe
Across Europe the Catholic Church was in a weak position. In the major countries, it was largely controlled by the government. The Jesuits were dissolved in Europe. Intellectually, the Enlightenment attacked and ridiculed Catholic Church, and the aristocracy was given very little support. In the Austrian Empire, the population was a heavily Catholic one, but the government seized control of all the Church lands. The peasant classes continue to be devout, but they had no voice. The French Revolution of the 1790s had a devastating impact in France, essentially shutting down the Catholic Church, seizing and selling its properties, closing its monasteries and schools and exiling most of its leaders.[11]
Jesuits
Throughout the
inculturation controversy, the very existence of Jesuits were under attack in Portugal, Spain, France, and the
Kingdom of Sicily. The inculturation controversy and the Jesuit support for the native Indians in South America added fuel to growing criticism of the order, which seemed to symbolize the strength and independence of the Church. Defending the rights of native peoples in South America, hindered the efforts of European powers, especially Spain and Portugal to maintain absolute rule over their domains.[12] Portugal's
Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquis of Pombal was the main enemy of the Jesuits.
Pope Clement XIII attempted to keep the Jesuits in existence without any changes: Sint ut sunt aut not sint ("Leave them as they are or not at all.")[13] In 1773, European rulers united to force
Pope Clement XIV to dissolve the order officially, although some chapters continued to operate.
Pius VII restored the Jesuits in the 1814 papal bull
Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum.[14][15]
French Revolution
Matters grew still worse with the violent anti-clericalism of the
French Revolution.[16] Direct attacks on the wealth of the Catholic Church and associated grievances led to the wholesale nationalisation of church property and attempts to establish a state-run church.[17] Large numbers of priests refused to take an oath of compliance to the
National Assembly, leading to the Catholic Church being outlawed and replaced by a new religion of the worship of "
Reason"[17] along with a new
French Republican Calendar. In this period, all monasteries were destroyed, 30,000 priests were exiled and hundreds more were killed.[17]
When
Pope Pius VI sided against the revolution in the
First Coalition,
Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy. The 82-year-old pope was taken prisoner to France in February 1799 and died in
Valence August 29, 1799 after six months of captivity. To win popular support for his rule, Napoleon re-established the Catholic Church in France through the
Concordat of 1801.[18] All over Europe, the end of the
Napoleonic wars signaled by the
Congress of Vienna, brought Catholic revival, and renewed enthusiasm and respect for the papacy following the depredations of the previous era.[19]
In the Americas, the Roman Catholic Church expanded its missions but, until the 19th century, had to work under the Spain and Portuguese governments and military.[20]Junípero Serra, the Franciscan priest in charge of this effort, founded a series of missions which became important economic, political, and religious institutions.[21]
China
The bull of
Pope Benedict XIVEx Quo Singulari from July 11, 1742, repeated verbatim the bull of
Clement XI and stressed the purity of Christian teachings and traditions, which must be upheld against all heresies. Chinese missionaries were forbidden to take part in honors paid to ancestors, to
Confucius, or to the emperors. This bull virtually destroyed the Jesuit goal to Christianize the influential upper classes in China.[22] The Vatican policy was the death of the missions in China.[23] Afterwards the Roman Catholic Church experienced missionary setbacks, and in 1721 the
Chinese Rites controversy led the
Kangxi Emperor to outlaw Christian missions.[24] The Chinese emperor felt duped and refused to permit any alteration of the existing Christian practices. He told the visiting papal delegate: "You destroyed your religion. You put in misery all Europeans living here in China."[25]
Korea
In contrast to most other nation, Catholicism was introduced into Korea in 1784 by Koreans themselves without assistance of foreign missionaries.[26] Some
Silhak scholars devoted themselves to an intensive study of various philosophical and scientific texts written by Chinese and European scholars. Among those texts were Catholic theological books published in China by Jesuits. They believed Catholicism complements what was lacking in Confucianism. These noble intellectuals became the first Christians in Korea.
Yi Seung-hun, the first Korean who was christened Peter in Beijing, on his return from China in September 1784, and formed a Christian community. The Christian community developed rapidly thanks to their ardent dedication to the mission. They translated books on Catholicism from Chinese into Korean for Koreans and constantly appealed to the
Holy See to send priests for Korean people. As a result,
Pope Leo XII established the Korea Apostolic Vicariate and to delegate the missionary work to the
Paris Foreign Missions Society in 1828. Since then French missionaries came to Korea secretly.[27] In 1846,
Andrew Kim Taegon was ordained and became the first Korean priest.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Serbian Church
During the
Austro-Turkish war (1683–1699) years, relations between Muslims and Christians in European provinces of the Turkish Empire were greatly radicalized. As a result of Turkish oppression, destruction of monasteries and violence against the non-Muslim civilian population,
Serbian Christians and their Church leaders headed by Serbian Patriarch
Arsenije III sided with Austrians in 1689 and again in 1737 under Serbian Patriarch
Arsenije IV.[28] In the following punitive campaigns, Turkish armies conducted many atrocities against local Christian populations in Serbian regions, resulting in
Great Migrations of the Serbs.[29]
Consequent Serbian uprisings against the Turks and involvement of Serbian Patriarchs in anti-Ottoman activities, led to the political compromise of the Patriarchate in the eyes of the Turkish political elite.[30] Instead of Serbian bishops, Turkish authorities favored politically more reliable Greek bishops who were promoted to Serbian eparchies and even to the Patriarchal throne in Peć.[31][32] In the same time, after 1752 a series of internal conflicts arose among leading figures in the Serbian Patriarchate, resulting in constant fights between Serbian and Greek pretenders to the Patriarchal throne.[33] Finally, the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć collapsed in 1766, when it was abolished by the Turkish Sultan
Mustafa III (1757–1774).[34] The entire territory of the Serbian Patriarchate under Ottoman rule was placed under the jurisdiction of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.[35][36] The throne of Peć was suppressed and eleven remaining Serbian eparchies were transferred to the throne of Constantinople.[37]
Russian Church
In 1721, Tsar
Peter I abolished completely the patriarchate and so the
Russian Orthodox Church effectively became a department of the government, ruled by a Most Holy Synod composed of senior bishops and lay bureaucrats appointed by the Tsar.
1706 - Irish-born
Francis Makemie, who has been an itinerant Presbyterian missionary among the colonists of America since 1683, is finally able to organize the first American presbytery
1709 - Experience Mayhew, missionary to the
Martha's Vineyard Indians, translates the
Psalms and the
Gospel of John into the
Massachusett language. It will be a work considered second only to John Eliot's Indian Bible in terms of significant Indian-language translations in colonial
New England
1710 - First modern Bible Society founded in Germany by Count Canstein
[1]
1711 - Jesuit
Eusebio Kino, missionary explorer in southern
Arizona and northern Sonora, dies suddenly in northern
Mexico. Kino, who has been called "the cowboy missionary", had fought against the exploitation of
Indians in Mexican silver mines.
1717 - Chen Mao writes to the Chinese Emperor about his concerns over
Catholic missionaries and Western traders. He urgently requested an all-out prohibition of Catholic missionaries in the
Qing provinces.
1718 -
Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg constructs a church building in India that is still in use today
1718-22 - orthodox Lutheran
Valentin Ernst Löscher publishes The Complete Timotheus Verinus against Pietism
1719 -
Isaac Watts writes missionary
hymn "Jesus Shall Reign Where'er the Sun"[42]
1720 - Missionary Johann Ernst Gruendler dies in India. He had arrived there in 1709 with the sponsorship of the Danish Mission Society
1721 - Mission San Juan Bautista Malibat in
Baja California is abandoned due to the hostility of the Cochimi Indians, as well as to the decimation of the local population by epidemics and a water shortage. Chinese
Kangxi Emperor bans Christian missionaries as a result of the
Chinese Rites controversy.
1723 -
Robert Millar publishes A History of the Propagation of Christianity and the Overthrow of Paganism advocating prayer as the primary means of converting non-Christians[44]
1729 -
Roman Catholic missionary Du Poisson becomes the first victim in the Natchez massacre. On his way to
New Orleans, he had been asked to stop and say Mass at the
Natchez post. He was killed in front of the altar
1730 - Lombard, French missionary, founds a Christian village with over 600 Indians at the mouth of Kuru river in
French Guiana. A Jesuit, Lombard has been called the most successful of all missionaries in
converting the Indians of
French Guiana
1738 -
Moravian missionary George Schmidt settles in Baviaan Kloof (Kloof of the Baboons) in the Riviersonderend valley of
South Africa. He begins working with the
Khoikhoi people, who were practically on the threshold of extinction.
1744 - Thomas Thompson resigns his position as dean at the
University of Cambridge to become a missionary. He was sent by the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to
New Jersey. Taking a special interest in the slave population there, he would later request to begin mission work in Africa. In 1751, Thompson would become the first S.P.G. missionary to the Gold Coast (modern-day
Ghana)
1745 -
David Brainerd, after preaching to Native Americans in December, wrote about the response: "They soon came in, one after another; with tears in their eyes, to know, what they should do to be saved. . . . It was an amazing season of power among them, and seemed as if God had bowed the heavens and come down ... and that God was about to convert the whole world."
1746 - From
Boston, Massachusetts a call is issued to the Christians of the
New World to enter into a seven-year "Concert of Prayer" for missionary work[52]
1747 -
Jonathan Edwards appeals for prayer for world missions; birth of
Thomas Coke, the "Father of Methodist Missions"
1748 -
Roman Catholic Pedro Sanz and the four other missionaries are executed, together with 14 Chinese Christians. Prior to his death, Sanz reportedly converted some of his prison guards to Christianity.
1752 - Thomas Thompson, first
Anglican missionary to Africa, arrives in the Gold Coast (now
Ghana)[55]
1753 - Searchers in
Labrador looking for
Moravian Johann Christian Erhardt finds the body of one of his traveling companions. The disappearance of Erhardt and six companions had led to temporary abandonment of
Moravian missionary initiatives in
Labrador.
1754 -
Moravian John Ettwein arrives in America from
Germany as a missionary. Preaching to Native Americans and establishing missions, Ettwein will travel as far south as
Georgia. Eventually, he will become head of the
Moravian Church in what is now the United States.
1755 - The
Mahican Indian settlement at Gnadenhutten, Pa. is attacked and destroyed.
Moravian missionary
Johann Jacob Schmick who pastors a group of Indian converts, will remain with the Mahicans through exile and captivity despite almost constant threats from white neighbors. Schmick will join his
Indian congregation as they seek refuge in Bethlehem, follow them as captives to Philadelphia, and remain with them after they settle in
Wyalusing, Pennsylvania.
1756 - Civil unrest forces
Gideon Halley away from his missionary work among the
Six Nations on the
Susquehanna River where he has been working for four years under the supervision of
Jonathan Edwards with an appointment from the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians.
1758 -
John Wesley baptizes two
African-American slaves, thus breaking the skin color barrier for Methodist societies
[4]
1759 - Native American Samson Occom, direct descendant of the great
Mahican chief Uncas, is ordained by the
Presbyterians. Despite poor eyesight, Occom became the first
American Indian to publish works in English. These included sermons, hymns and a short autobiography.[56]
1760 - Adam Voelker and Christian Butler arrive in
Tranquebar as the first
Moravian missionaries to India
1761 - The first
Moravian missionary in
Ohio, Frederick Post, settles on the north side of the Muskingum in what is now Bethlehem township
1763 - The Presbyterian Synod of New York orders that a collection for missions be taken. In 1767 the
Synod will ask that this collection be done annually.
1764 - The
Moravians make a decision to expand and begin publicizing their missionary activity, particularly in the British colonies;
Moravian Jens Haven makes the first of three exploratory missionary journeys to
Greenland
1765 -
Suriname Governor General Crommelin convinces three
Moravian missionaries to work near the head waters of the Gran Rio. They settle among the
Saramaka near the Senthea Creek in Granman Abini's village where they are received with mixed feelings.
1768 - Five United Brethren missionaries from
Germany, invited by the Danish Guinea Company, arrive in the Gold Coast (now
Ghana), to teach in the Cape Coast Castle schools
1768 -
Reimarus dies without publishing his radical critic work distinguishing Historical Jesus versus Christ of Faith
1770 - John Marrant, a free black from New York City, begins ministering cross-culturally, preaching to the American Indians. By 1775 he had carried the gospel to the
Cherokee and
Creek Indians as well as to groups he called the Catawar and Housaw peoples.[58]
1771 -
Emanuel Swedenborg, published his "Universal Theology of the True Christian Religion" which would later be used by others to found
Swedenborgianism[59]
1772 - After visiting Scilly Cove in
Newfoundland, Canada, missionary James Balfour describes it as a "most Barbarous Lawless Place"
1774 -
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing starts publishing Reimarus works on historical Jesus as Anonymous Fragments, starting Liberal Theology Era (in
Christology)
1776 - Cyril Vasilyevich Suchanov builds first church among
Evenks of
Transbaikal (or Dauria) in (Siberia); The first
baptism of an
Eskimo by a Lutheran pastor takes place in
Labrador.
1779 -
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, "Jesus never coerced anyone to follow him, and the imposition of a religion by government officials is impious"
1780 - August Gottlieb Spangenberg writes An Account of the Manner in Which the Protestant Church of the Unitas Fratrum, or United Brethren, Preach the Gospel, and Carry On Their Missions Among the Heathen. Originally written in the
German language, the book will be translated into English in 1788.
1781 - In the midst of the
American Revolutionary War, the British so feared
Moravian missionary
David Zeisberger and his influence among the
Lenape (also called Delaware) and other Native Americans that they arrested him and his assistant, John Heckewelder, charging them with treason,
1783 - Moses Baker and George Gibbions, both former slaves, leave the U.S. to become missionaries in the West Indies
1784 -
Thomas Coke (Methodist) submits his Plan for the Society for the Establishment of Missions Among the Heathen. Methodist missions among the "heathen" will begin in 1786 when Coke, destined for
Nova Scotia, is driven off course by a storm and lands at
Antigua in the
British West Indies.[62]
1784 - Roman Catholicism is re-introduced in
Korea and disseminates after almost 200 years since its first introduction in 1593.
1785 - Joseph White's sermon titled "On the Duty of Attempting the Propagation of the Gospel among our Mahometan and Gentoo Subjects in India" is published in the second edition of his book Sermons Containing a View of Christianity and Mahometanism, in their History, their Evidence, and their Effects. The sermon was first preached at the
University of Oxford.
1791 - One hundred and twenty Korean Christians are tortured and killed for their faith. It began when Paul Yun Ji-Chung, a noble who had become a Christian, decided not to bury his mother according to traditional Confucian custom.
1792 -
William Carey writes An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the
heathen and forms the
Baptist Missionary Society to support him in establishing missionary work in India[64]
1792 -
William Carey writes An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the
heathen and forms the
Baptist Missionary Society to support him in establishing missionary work in India[64]
1793 -
Stephen Badin ordained in U.S. Although much of Badin's ministry was pastoral work among his own countrymen, he did some outreach among the
Potawatomi Indians
[7]
1796 - Scottish and Glasgow Missionary Societies established;[67] In India, Johann Philipp Fabricius' translation of the Bible into
Tamil is revised and published
[8]
1796 -
Treaty with Tripoli (1796), article 11: "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion"
1797 - Netherlands Missionary Society formed;[68] The Duff, carrying 36 lay and pastoral missionaries, sails to three islands of the South Pacific;[69] The first Christian missionary (from the
London Missionary Society) visits Hiva on the Pacific island of
Tahuata; he is not well received.
1798 - The Missionary Society of Connecticut is organized by the Congregationalists to take the gospel to the "heathen lands" of Vermont and Ohio. Its missionaries evangelized both European settlers and Native Americans.[70]
^Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972) p. 263
^F. Ernest Stoeffler, German Pietism During the Eighteenth Century (Brill Archive, 1973)
^Richard L. Gawthrop, Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-century Prussia (Cambridge UP, 1993)
^Kenneth Scott Latourette, Christianity in a Revolutionary Age. Vol. I: The 19th Century in Europe; Background and the Roman Catholic Phase (1958) pp 74-89
^Mark A. Noll, et al. eds. Evangelicalism: Comparative studies of popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and beyond 1700-1900 (Oxford University Press, 1994)
^Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and the people called Methodists (2013).
^Frank Lambert, "Pedlar in divinity": George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals, 1737–1770 (1993)
^Nicholas Temperley and Stephen Barfield, eds., Music and the Wesleys (2010)
^John Howard Smith, The First Great Awakening: Redefining Religion in British America, 1725–1775 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015)
^Thomas S. Kidd, The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America (Yale University Press, 2009)
^Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity (1976) pp 353 -54
^Thwaites, Reuben Gold. The Revolution on the Upper Ohio, 1775-1777: Compiled from the Draper Manuscripts in the Library of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Genealogical Publishing Company, 2002, p. 45.
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Hope, Nicholas. German and Scandinavian Protestantism 1700-1918 (1999)
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