The Twentieth Century

The twentieth century was a period during which professing Christians reacted to cultural and religious challenges stemming from the late nineteenth century and developed unique contours of faith and church life that are still prominent today. The rise of social and economic global connectivity during the twentieth century not only provided a test of faith through two World Wars, the Great Depression, and the heights of communism, but it also provided particular opportunities for the gospel of Jesus Christ to be spread throughout the world. Although the religious landscape looked considerably different at the end of the twentieth century than it did at the beginning, God continued to preserve the historic, biblical Christian faith among His people.

The twentieth century witnessed disparate reactions to the challenges to Christianity from the nineteenth century, including extrabiblical revivalism, the rise of religious cults, theological liberalism, challenges to the plenary inspiration and authority of Scripture, and the formulation of the theory of evolution. One of these reactions was neoorthodoxy, which included the prominent theologians Karl Barth (1886–1968), Emil Brunner (1889–1966), and Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971). Developed in the aftermath of World War I, neoorthodoxy, also known as dialectical theology, emphasized the transcendence of God as “wholly other.” In his reaction to theological liberalism, however, Barth—whose multivolume Church Dogmatics was one of the most significant theological works of the twentieth century—did not thoroughly maintain historic, confessional Christianity. Rather than viewing the Bible as God’s Word, he viewed it as a continual “becoming” of God’s Word with no inherent divine authority. Barth also had a profound effect on the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–45), who emphasized the cost of discipleship for Christians. Bonhoeffer was implicated in a plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler and subsequently executed.

A second reaction to the rise of theological liberalism and the nineteenth-century cults was fundamentalism. One articulation of fundamentalism was evident in the publication of The Fundamentals (1910–15), a multivolume collection of essays in support of historical Christianity on a wide range of topics. Harry Emerson Fosdick’s (1878–1969) contentious 1922 sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” and the ensuing controversy brought greater clarity to the division between fundamentalism and theological liberalism. The influence of fundamentalism is also seen in the prohibition movement of the 1920s and in the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tenn., in 1925. The Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy had a profound impact on the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, as is evident in J. Gresham Machen’s departure from Princeton Theological Seminary to help start Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in order to combat theological liberalism. Later, Machen would help establish the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

A third reaction to theological liberalism, modernism, and other problems was the rise of a new evangelicalism, championed by figures such as Billy Graham (1918–2018), publications such as Christianity Today, organizations such as the National Association of Evangelicals and the Evangelical Theological Society, and institutions such as Fuller Theological Seminary in California. In 1978, a group of nearly three hundred evangelical leaders—including R.C. Sproul (1939–2017), J.I. Packer (1926–2020), and Francis Schaeffer (1912–84)—met to draft the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy to provide clarity regarding the doctrine of Scripture and the veracity of God’s Word.

In addition to these reactions to various nineteenth-century trends, new contours of faith and church life also developed during the twentieth century. In 1906, an African American preacher, William Seymour (1870–1922)—a student of the well-known independent holiness preacher Charles Fox Parham (1873–1929)—sparked a three-year-long revival through his preaching during the Azusa Street Revival. Seymour was a leading figure in the emergence of Pentecostalism, which rapidly spread around the globe. Pentecostalism and its close cousin, the charismatic movement, remain two of the most popular and fastest-growing forms of Christianity in the world today.

Other developments affected the church during the twentieth century and still affect Christians today, including the spread of militant Islam (and the proliferation of terrorist groups), liberation theology, feminism, and the increasing social toleration of homosexuality. Roman Catholicism also responded to the modern context, changing in many ways as a result of the decisions and publications of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Despite showing a new openness to the world and to ecumenism, Rome did not revoke the Council of Trent’s anathemas against the Protestant affirmation that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and under the authority of Scripture alone. The twentieth-century church in America also addressed racism and racial segregation during the Civil Rights Movement (1954–68) and beyond. During the Civil Rights Movement, leaders such Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–68), Rosa Parks (1913–2005), and Malcolm X (1925–65) called attention to the injustices and abuses suffered by many African Americans. The movement brought to light many racial tensions in the church that still affect the church today.

Despite the many challenges of the twentieth century, God continued to raise up voices to defend the orthodox Christian faith. Reformed theology began to experience a resurgence in many denominations through the work of parachurch ministries, the publication of Puritan writings, and the training of ministers at conservative Bible schools and seminaries. Worldwide, global missions continued to expand, particularly as many Christians began to focus on unreached people groups among whom the church had little to no presence. By the end of the century, the number of people professing the Christian faith was rapidly increasing in Asia, Africa, and South America.