Christianity in the 19th century
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Characteristic of Christianity in the 19th century were Evangelical revivals in some largely Protestant countries and later the effects of modern scientific theories such as Darwinism on the churches (Modernist theology was one consequence of this). In Europe the Roman Catholic Church suffered a schism after the first Vatican Council leading to the founding of Old Catholic churches. In Europe there was a general move away from religious observance and belief in Christian teachings and a move towards secularism. The "secularization of society", attributed to the time of the Enlightenment and its following years, is largely responsible for the spread of secularism. For example the Gallup International Millennium Survey [1] showed that only about one sixth of Europeans attend regular religious services, less than half gave God "high importance", and only about 40% believe in a "personal God". Nevertheless the large majority considered that they "belong" to a religious denomination. Numbers show that the "de-Christianization" of Europe has slowly begun to swing in the opposite direction. Renewal in certain quarters of the Anglican church, as well as in pockets of Protestantism on the continent attest to this initial reversal of the secularization of Europe, the continent in which Christianity originally took its strongest roots and world expansion.
