Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Introduction
- Part I The Christian revolution: ascent to power
- Part II The modern revolution: compromises with power
- 4 The Reformation in context
- 5 Protestant pathways into the modern world
- 6 Catholic and Orthodox negotiations with modernity
- 7 Twentieth-century fortunes
- Conclusion
- Chronology
- Notes
- Index
- References
7 - Twentieth-century fortunes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Introduction
- Part I The Christian revolution: ascent to power
- Part II The modern revolution: compromises with power
- 4 The Reformation in context
- 5 Protestant pathways into the modern world
- 6 Catholic and Orthodox negotiations with modernity
- 7 Twentieth-century fortunes
- Conclusion
- Chronology
- Notes
- Index
- References
Summary
Historians of the twentieth century in the third millennium will probably see the century's major impact on history as the one made by and in this astonishing period [its second half]. For the changes in human life it brought about all over the globe were as profound as they were irreversible. Moreover, they are still continuing.
Though a final verdict will be possible only when the passage of time allows us to take a longer perspective, the final part of the twentieth century may be judged one of the most momentous in the history of Christianity. For in just three decades, between 1970 and 2000, Christianity collapsed in parts of the northern hemisphere, and gained new vitality in much of the south.
It was not just Christianity that changed; the world changed too. Eric Hobsbawm is not alone in noting the historical significance of the changes that took place in the second part of the twentieth century. The widespread sense that something of such magnitude had occurred that it constituted a break with what had gone before was signalled by the use of terms such as ‘postmodern’, ‘post-industrial’, ‘post-Christian’ and ‘post-colonial’. Though these terms are much debated, few disagree that the last part of the twentieth century witnessed an erosion of long-established forms of social order and moral control. Negatively, such collapse involved a dissatisfaction with established, hierarchical orders, and may be characterised as a ‘flight from deference’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- An Introduction to Christianity , pp. 333 - 403Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004