Rise of Christianity: Power versus popularity

Introduction

Catholic teaching strives to avoid two pitfalls in the relation between faith and reason: an excessive rationalism that dismisses faith as superstition, and an excessive fideism that denies all power to natural reason to know God and God's attributes without the help of divine revelation. The faith-reason relation can be stated also as the relation between philosophy and theology, or faith and knowledge, or reason and revelation. This paper discusses the fundamental facts of the early rise of the Christian church, change in power to popularity of churches, and the effect of Christianity on goodness versus badness.

Rise of the Christian Church

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) traces its roots to the Restoration movement of the early 19th century. The Restoration movement, an outgrowth of the Second Great Awakening, was composed of diverse religious elements all seeking to reestablish the primitive Christianity of New Testament times. Restoration was marked by one primary goal: the reunification of all churches under the lordship of Jesus Christ and the absolute authority of the Bible (Boardman, 2). Although the Disciples for many years refused to call themselves a denomination, because they believed such a designation was unbiblical, they still became the fastest-growing church in America in the 19th century (Schwarz, 24). They competed with the Baptists and the Methodists in seeking the allegiance of common people on the western frontier. The sixth-largest religious body in the United States on the eve of the civil War, the Disciples contained 192,000 members in 1860 (Schwarz, 29).

The Christian Reformed Church was created out of the wave of Dutch immigrants who came to the American Midwest from 1840 to 1920 and were dissatisfied with the Dutch Reformed churches already established there (Stone, 45). In fact, the Disciples were one of the few American churches that did not split during the Civil War. However, a number of other factors, including continued growth, sociological diversity, and doctrinal disputes, soon threatened their unity after 1865. The inherent tension in the Restoration movement between primitivism, which demanded a literalistic interpretation of the Bible, and inclusivity, which allowed openness to the modern world, split the Disciples apart early in the 20th century (Tyron, 19).

Christian thinkers within the African-American community developed a particular appreciation for the insights of liberation theologians, beginning with the notion that the Christian message is shaped by one's location in life and that most Christian theology has been done by elite white males of European heritage (Locke, 4). Traditional theological affirmations have been shaped to reflect the experience and practice of this relatively small group. A later dispute within the Reformed Church in America over the propriety of its members being Freemasons led to another exodus of dissidents in 1882 (Boardman, 6). Finally, in 1890, both the True Dutch Reformed Church and the 1882 secession movement were subsumed into the Christian Church. Dutch immigration to the United States helped this united denomination grow steadily into the early 20th century (Boardman, 6).

Rise of Christian churches maintains a heartfelt piety mingled with strict adherence to the traditional confessions of Christianity. A strong emphasis on intellectual matters has led members to support both the largest Protestant private school system ...