Protestantism since the early 20th century

Mainstream Protestantism

World War I broke Europe’s waning self-confidence in the merits of its own civilization and, because it was fought between Christian nations, weakened worldwide Christianity. The seizure of power by a formally atheist government in Russia in 1917 brought negative pressure on Christendom and sharpened the social and working class conflicts of western Europe and the United States. During the following 40 years the Protestant churches in Europe suffered inestimable losses in adherents and formal influence.

In Germany Protestantism faced the challenges of Nazi totalitarianism after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and the tragedy of World War II. For the churches, which had historically been able to count on a neutral, if not benevolent state, this was a new situation. At first Nazi rule was welcomed by many Protestant church leaders and laity, since the Nazis seemed to share the conservative values which the churches also cherished. Quickly points of tension emerged, especially when the government prevented converted (and baptized) Jews from serving as clergy and when a liberal fringe group within German Protestantism, the so-called German Christians (Deutsche Christen) which advocated an Aryan, non-Semitic Christianity, began to enjoy subtle government support. The Confessing Church, a loose association of churchmen led by Martin Niemöller and others, emerged to stand for (or “confess”) the traditional teaching of the church. This opposition prompted the Nazis to withdraw their support from the German Christians by the mid-1930s. During the war Theophil Wurm of Württemberg protested against the government’s inhumane activities, and Pastor Heinrich Grüber, until his arrest, ran the Büro Grüber, which sought to evacuate and protect Jews. Some church leaders, notably the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, paid with their lives for their associations with resistance to the Nazi government. Despite the increasingly obvious character of the Nazi regime, the public protest of the churches against Nazism remained largely confined to issues affecting them directly.

At the end of the war Germany was divided, and Russian armies controlled eastern Europe. Although the situation for Protestant groups in some parts of eastern Europe, including Transylvania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia was less severe, all the churches in the area came under pressure. Most Germans were evacuated or deported from the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. Although Lutheran communities remained there, they were subjected to persecution, especially under the rule of Joseph Stalin. The greatest losses suffered by the Protestant churches were the result of the division of Germany. The settlement between the victorious powers gave large areas of former German-speaking (and largely Lutheran) portions to Poland, and many (approximately 8 million) Germans were expelled; most went to western Germany. East Germany (the German Democratic Republic), occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945, included Wittenberg and most of the original Lutheran homeland and was the sole Marxist country with a largely (70 percent) Protestant population. The Protestant churches were the chief link between East and West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany), and the annual meeting, or Kirchentag, was the single expression of a lost German unity. But construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 stopped this communication and isolated the East German churches. East German Protestants persevered despite governmental financial pressures, restrictions on church-building, and the establishment of the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend), a secular organization that competed for the attention of young people by offering members access to recreational facilities, organized holidays, and higher education. The vigorous way the Protestant churches in East Germany celebrated the 450th anniversary of the Reformation on October 31, 1967, demonstrated their strength in the communist state. The emergence of the peace movement in the German Democratic Republic in the late 1970s and 1980s, which could be seen as an opposition group to the communist regime, took place under the protection of the Protestant churches, and the churches were the rallying points for the demonstrations of 1989 that eventually led to the collapse of the communist regime and the unification of the two Germanies.

In Russia, a deeply Orthodox state before 1917, the Baptist community grew significantly in the generation after the revolution. The flexibility and simplicity of Baptist organization made it more suitable to activity under difficult legal conditions. After Stalin’s death in 1953, there was evidence of rapid advance; but after 1960 the Baptist communities, like Orthodox communities, again came under often severe pressure. The dissolution of the Soviet Union meant greater freedom and a greater public role for the Orthodox church. All the same, the Orthodox church stood behind legislation making missionary work by non-Orthodox churches in Russia virtually impossible.

The material losses that Great Britain suffered in World War II and the end of the British Empire in the years after 1947 had serious effects on the Protestant churches in former British territories. Britain could no longer fund overseas churches as it once had done, and, although Australia, Canada, and the United States provided financial support, change in the government of the local churches occurred with mixed results. In some areas the new leadership was ill-prepared for its role, but in others leaders had been gradually prepared to take control of church government (a process hastened by Britain’s changed circumstances). Thus the so-called younger churches came to be a new fact of world Christianity, led by people who no longer saw the history of Christianity solely through European eyes. This was to be of primary importance in the ecumenical movement. Meanwhile, the secularizing trend of a technological age assailed the old European churches and had an even greater effect upon the areas where the younger churches ministered.

The growth of Protestantism outside its traditional home—Lutheranism in Namibia, Anglicanism in South Africa, Pentecostal and Evangelical churches and sects in South America and Asia—helped compensate for losses in Europe and North America. Because of conversions and population growth, the Protestant church actually increased in size as it changed its scope and ethos in the postwar period.

There were also surprising survivals and reappearances of Protestantism in areas of the world where its demise had been predicted. In 1948–49 the communist seizure of power in China effectively ended Protestant missions there. By 1951 there were few European missionaries left in the country, and the Chinese churches were forced to exist without foreign aid. They came under severe pressure, especially during the so-called Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and ’70s, and could no longer evangelize. The partial reopening of China to the West and the cautious measures granting more freedom of religion and speech beginning in the late 1970s and the 1980s led to new contacts between Chinese Protestants and Westerners. Several million Protestants and other Christians are believed to have endured the persecution of the two previous decades, and, however uncertain their futures remained, they represented a vital group of believers.

Conservative and Evangelical forms of Protestantism

The most important movements in Protestantism since the early 20th century are usually called Pentecostalism, Fundamentalism, and Evangelicalism. Often characterized as conservative or reactionary, these traditions offer exuberant expressions of faith that are in some ways progressive. Moreover, these are important for their contribution to the expansion of Protestantism beyond its traditional geographic boundaries.