Religion in 19th Century

2002-11-09

I. The Churches in England

A. The Anglican Church

3 different factions. Evangelicals: John Newton, a man who was a slave trader. He became saved, wrote Amazing Grace. Pastor. Clapham Sect. A group of wealth laymen provided lay leaders for social reform and missionary support. Exeter Hall Group. Influential government people. Influenced government to pass legislation to support missionary work. Concerned on how they are treating the native peoples in the British Colonies. Key Statesman: William Wilberforce, opposed to the slave trade, led fight to abolish slavery in the English empire, 1807. 1833: Slavery abolished in the British Empire. Lord Shaftesbury. Noted for helping the poor, nobleman from England. Sponsored legislation to eliminate women/children labor in the mines. Protect the mentally handicap. Religious tract society and British and foreign bible society.

Broad Church Movement: Latitudinarians. Liberal section. Ca. 1830. Stressed the imminence of God, the goodness of man. Try to achieve Kingdom of God on earth with social reforms. Question the biblical records.

Oxford Movement: Center at the University. Importance of the church and ritual in one’s life. Clergyman afraid the church would be disestablished. Parliament was dominated by dissenters/non-conformists. The leaders of this movement went to apostolic succession. Stressed baptismal regeneration. Ritual in the services of the church important. John Henry Newman 1801-1890. Spiritual Pilgrimage that took him from Calvinism, to liberalism, to high church Anglicanism (Oxford movement), then to Roman Catholicism. Actually made a cardinal in the Catholic Church. A man of great intellect. He published a number of tracts in the Oxford Movement. Tracts for the Times.

Brought new emphasis on colorful ritual and Gothic architecture. Founding of some convents and monasteries. Deepened division between them and non-conformists. Anglicans were split.

B. The nonconformists churches.

Did not conform to the Anglican Church. Other churches are tolerated. Salvation Army. Founded in 1865 by William Booth. Methodist minister. Tried to reach the less fortunate of society by social work and evangelism.

Plymouth Brethren. This was founded by John Nelson Darby. Clergyman in Church of Ireland. 1831, started this new movement, started in Dublin. Plymouth was an early starting center. These emphasized bible study, priesthood of believers, and direct guidance from the Holy Spirit. Pushed dispensational theology. No ordained ministry. George Mueller, ministry in Bristol. OT Textual Critic, Samuel Tregelles. NT scholar, F.F. Bruce. Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). 1844, George Williams. Meet spiritual, physical, and social needs of young men. Introduced into USA 1851. Young Women’s started soon after. Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Famous of many English preachers. His ministry expanded (Baptist background) moved into the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. It held 4700 people, 1861. Developed pastor’s college to train preachers.

Keswick (pronounced Kesik) Movement. Official of Anglican Church started this, T.D. Harford-Battersby, 1875, interdenominational appeal. Victorious Christian living, instantaneous and progressive sanctification. Began in England, went to America, Canada.

C. English Missionary Efforts

Imperialism in Africa and Asia allowed for missionary work. India, the East India Company, who ruled there, they were forced to admit missionaries in 1813. China, English had some control, Chinese were forced to accept missionaries. Missionary leaders. William Carey went to India. Help to start the Baptists Missionary Society. George Grenfeld, missionary explorer in Africa. J. Hudson Taylor. (J for James). Missionary to China. Founded China Inland Mission. Robert Moffat, translator of the bible in South Africa. David Livingstone. Missionary explorer in Africa. Robert Morrison, missionary to China, translator. Adoniram Judson and Ann Judson (married) went to Burma and did translation work.

Translation of scriptures into many languages and dialects, many conversions and new churches. Many social improvements. Linking of missionary work with imperialism was a downside.

II. European Challenges to Christianity

A. Biblical Criticism

Humanistic climate of Enlightenment, and the Renaissance. German Philosophers also. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), believed that man cannot know religious truth through senses or reason. Starting point of religion is conscience and a sense of moral obligation. Not Bible, but internal. Bible is only a human book of history. Friederich Schleiermacher. Subjective feelings are the basis for religious feelings. Man is in a big universe, feeling of smallness and hopelessness in a large universe. No need to historical revelation of God’s will. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel saw God as ‘the absolute’. He sought to manifest Himself through history through the resolution of contradictory ideas, in which people moved to a higher level.

Thesis → Clash→ Synthesis→ New Synthesis.
Antithesis→ New Antithesis→

Progress happens through this. No place for an infallible bible. Amounts to evolution.

Albrecht Ritschl. Lived in latter part of 19th Cent. Religious feeling as a starting point. Social emphasis. Religion is a social consciousness of the individual. Bible is religious consciousness.

Biblical criticism is not in itself destructive. Lower criticism, which is textual criticism. This tries to find the best texts/manuscripts, to establish the accuracy. Literary and historical criticism, or higher criticism: Studies the historical background and their literary style. In the hands of unbelievers, this latter type destroys faiths of others. French critic: Genesis divided into 2 documents. Based on Yahweh and Elohim, names of God. German critic: divided into the Hexateuch. Included Joshua, divided this into literary documents. Very elaborate system, Julius Wellhausen, and Graff. Graff-Wellhausen Theory of the Pentateuch, Documentary Hypothesis. Denied Mosaic authorship. 4 documents. J, E, P, D. They were put together at a late time, after the Jewish exile. Isaiah taken apart. 2 or 3 different authors. Late date for Daniel. Religion in the bible evolved from polytheistic religion. NT also, denied miracles, reason supercedes. Dating scheme of the epistles. Denied reality of Christ’s deity. Starting with presuppositions, not supernatural.

B. The evolutionary theory

Charles Darwin made this famous by explaining on how this might have happened. Wrote in 1859 Origin of the Species. He proposed theory called Natural Selection. Nature itself selected certain favored species to live, some to die. Some develop with mutations that they might survive. Did not believe that nature had any purpose to it. 1871, the Descent of Man. Applied this to man. Contradicts special creation in bible. This was also applied to religion. God and the bible came to be products of our evolving religious consciousness. Biblical eschatology replaced by gradual human improvement, reaching a golden age. Applied this to society. Took form of survival of the fittest, Herbert Spencer. Takes place in the struggle for wealth and status. Racial superiority, some nations have evolved farther than others. Wage war to take over other people, to show themselves the fittest. Other implication: Determine ethical standards as ‘what is good for society at this time?’

C. Materialism

2 forms. Materialistic capitalism. Industrial Revolution made the accumulation of goods more efficient. People became rich. People wanted higher levels of living in Europe and America. Justifies any technique to multiply wealth. Pursuit of wealth for its own sake is against the biblical teaching, a ‘snare of the devil’. It dominates everything that one does. Does not value human beings for what they are, but what they can do for you. People are things to be manipulated.

Materialistic communism. Karl Marx, 1818-1888. Economic philosophy. Reality consists of matter in motion. Everything that people have done in history is determined by economics, and the way people make a living. Religion has economic twist. They do not have ideas, an opiate of the people, that they will not realize how bad things are in this life. Religious motivation always have an economic motivation behind. Economic Determinism. Marx believed man shall live be bread alone. No absolute standards. Marxist socialism has a difficult time living with the Christian faith.