In the 20th century the experiences of two world wars, the devastation that was the Holocaust, the shadow of the atomic cloud over Hiroshima, and the end of colonialism shaped both theology and moves towards ecumenism where all churches were concerned.
Perhaps its most influential theologian was the Swiss-born Karl Barth (1886-1968). A product of the great liberal schools of theology developed in the 19th-century Germanspeaking world, Barth was influenced at an early age by his readings of Kirkegaard and Dostoevsky. He trained at Bern, Berlin, Tubingen and Marburg, but none of these prepared him for his experiences as a war-time chaplain. The horrors of the first World War forced him to challenge the dominant assumptions of liberal theology and the close links between church and state which are cemented during any major war.
His first book, a commentary on The Epistle to the Romans, (1919), "landed like a bombshell in the playground of the theologians". His Church Dogmatics,(1932) is without parallel in length and thoroughness, dwarfing even Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae. With the rise of the Nazis, Barth and Martin Niemoller formed the Pastors' Emergency League, which later became the Confessing Church. In 1934 they adopted the Barmen Declaration, which challenged proNazi elements in the churches but also became one of the seminal documents of 20th century theology.
Heroes of the resistance included a young pastor from a secular family, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged in April 1945. His best-known prewar book, The Cost of Disciple- ship, made the distinction between "cheap grace" and "costly grace", and along with his Letters and Papers from Prison and Ethics had a profound influence on post-war theology.
At the same time in America, Bonhoffer's friend, Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) of Detroit, was drawing attention to the injustices of capitalism in a modern, technical society. Rejecting liberal optimism also, he developed the concepts of social and historical sin. In England, Archbishop William Temple expressed the need for social and economic justice in any post-war society.
However, in the Vatican, modernism and liberalism, and later communism, were seen as the greatest threats facing the world. Although papal encyclicals in 1937 condemned both Nazism and communism, Pope Pius XII would be accused of not having done enough to resist the evils of fascism and Nazism, and of not speaking out loud enough against the Holocaust.
Post-war theology was shaped by the evil of the Holocaust and the potential for nuclear annihilation. Jews, such as Martin Buber and Elie Wiesel, would influence future generations of theologians and liberal theology found it hard to regain ground.
The international ecumenical movement traces its origins to the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910. This initiative was interrupted by the first World War. However, the impetus from Edinburgh led to the formation of two movements, "Life and Work" in 1925 and "Faith and Order" in 1927. These merged after the second World War into the World Council of Churches, formed at Amsterdam in 1948.
The declaration of the Assumption of Mary as an infallible dogma by Pius XII in 1950 seemed to point to a Catholic church not yet open to ecumenical developments. Then Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council and the world was surprised by its ecumenical focus. Tridentine Catholicism came to an end, liturgical reform was sweeping, and doors to dialogue opened. Decolonisation hastened self-government and indigenousness in the churches. It inspired renewed ecumenical moves, with the formation of united churches in northern and southern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In the west, the Congregational Church and the Presbyterian Church in England joined in 1972 to form the United Reformed Church.
Although the Church of England and the Methodists failed to unite despite numerous attempts, and the Vatican appeared to reject various reports of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commissions (ARCIC), the Anglican and Lutheran Churches came closer to forming one communion with the Meissen and Porvoo agreements. Recently US Episcopal and Lutheran Churches united.
In the 1960s, Billy Graham became the most recognised evangelical preacher, while Pentecostal and Charismatic movements grew rapidly. There was also a renewed interest in liberal theology. In 1963 John Robinson's Honest to God was a bestseller, while the "God is Dead" controversy made the front cover of Time magazine.
The civil rights movement in the US was led by a black Baptist pastor from Alabama, the Rev Martin Luther King. In Europe, issues such as environment and nuclear disarmament came to the fore, with Canon John Collins leading the first generation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Monsignor Bruce Kent and Canon Paul Oestreicher were to the fore in a second generation. In America, the Jesuit Berrigan brothers were among the leaders of Vietnam War protests.
There was an explosive growth of churches in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In Latin America liberation theology was boosted by the meeting of Latin America bishops in Medellin in 1968. Its principal proponent was Gustavo Gutierrez, author of A Theology of Liberation (1971). Hans Kung's On being a Christian (1974) proved that theology could sell.
BY the 1980s and 1990s, it would have been easy to accuse European and North American churches of being more concerned with internal agendas - liturgical reform, the ordination of women, or the disciplining of prophetic theologians such as Hans Kung, Leonardo Boff and Lavinia Byrne. But there were also signs of an outward-looking church in agencies such as Christian Aid, Cafod and Trocaire. Nuclear pacifism had become the accepted Christian stand on war in the nuclear age - expressed in Archbishop Robert Runcie's controversial sermon at the Falklands memorial service which angered Margaret Thatcher.
Pax Christi and the Fellowship of Reconciliation flourished alongside the ministries of the Corrymeela Centre, Coventry Cathedral, and George McLeod's Iona Community. In East Germany and Poland, the churches were catalysts in the fall of communism. In South Africa they played a crucial role in bringing down apartheid, symbolised in Bishop Desmond Tutu receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
Reaction and retrenchment in the Vatican under Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, symbolised in the efforts to ban the use of the term "sister churches", caused many to wonder whether the churches were entering an ecumenical winter.
Despite this, the enduring memories of late 20th-century Christianity may well be the vivid images of Pope John Paul and Archbishop Robert Runcie kneeling together in prayer at Canterbury Cathedral.
Rev Patrick Comerford is a writer on theology and church history and an Irish Times journalist. Contact: theology@ireland.com
The concluding page in this series will appear on December 18th.
