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Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  
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4. The Eighteenth Century. From this time we see
the spread of unbelief amongst the intelligentsia, and
in the latter part of the eighteenth century the deism
is sometimes changing into atheism, though it is too
easily forgotten that the nineteenth century was still
to be a great epoch in the history of religion and that,
in England, for example, the churches still had a great
hold on the masses at the beginning of the twentieth
century. From this time, too, the Church—and partic-
ularly the Catholic Church—came to be afraid of
science and discovery, beginning what was to be a long
and unhappy rearguard action against the forces of
modernity. In France, where the philosophe movement
brought the Age of Reason to its climax, the conflict
between the Roman Catholic and the liberal or pro-
gressive sections of society seems to have produced an
almost permanent sundering of the national tradition.
In England the antithesis in the eighteenth century was
less severe, partly because the churchmen there proved
to be no mean antagonists, and partly because the
influence of nonconformity helped to bridge the gap
between religious conservatism and secular liberalism.
In Methodism a strong desire to awaken the social
conscience of the country was balanced by a moderate
political outlook which is sometimes regarded as hav-
ing helped to save the country from the turmoil of
a French Revolution. Protestantism, moreover, proved
more flexible than Catholicism at the critical period.
There emerges now a Protestantism in many ways
radically unlike that of the sixteenth century. It claims
to be the ally of humanism, rationalism, individualism,
and liberty.

At this point in the story a significant part was
played by that interesting figure, the “lapsed Chris-
tian”—the man who has thrown overboard the theo-
logical dogmas, but has not been able to jettison a host
of assumptions, mundane evaluations and ideals, views
about personality and the structure of the human
drama, which had been associated with the Christian
tradition. One aspect of the eighteenth century is the
more or less unconscious attempt to provide a counter-
system to Christianity—at least to fill the gap which
was left when the Church was taken out of the picture.
It showed itself in minor writings, provincial move
ments, local activity—an interesting attempt for ex-
ample to teach a secular morality, a kind of public
spirit, and to promote virtue by rewarding it with civic
prizes.

Sometimes the rivalry became conscious and the
enemies of the Church would claim that they were
the better Christians; they were solicitous for the hum-
ble and poor, while the church-people were intent
on mere ceremonies. Sometimes the critics were justi-
fied in their accusations and it would seem that they
themselves, by breaking with the Church, had disem-
barrassed themselves of conventions which hindered
the realization of what Christian charity really did
require. One enemy of the Church still made the curi-
ous note that it would be good for men to meet once
a week for a homily on morality. And the famous
“philosophies of history”—the attempts to lay out the
shape of the whole course of centuries—were (down
to the time of Hegel) a curious reflection of earlier
Christian attempts to lay out the plan of world history,
the design of Providence. A number of ideals—liberty,
democracy, egalitarianism, socialism, communism—
had been caught first from biblical sources and Chris-
tian principles by religious dissidents who, as a minor-
ity, could more easily dare to follow principles to their
logical conclusion. But the real battle for their actual
realization was often fought either by non-Christians
or by religious nonconformists, and by a curious para-
dox the official church sometimes seemed to be the
principal enemy that had to be fought. In this realm,
too, the churches too often committed themselves to
a lengthy rearguard action. Having imagined that
Christianity could not survive the destruction of the
Aristotelian cosmos, they easily convinced themselves
that it might not survive the destruction of a particular
kind of regime. In other words, they had tied their
religion too closely to various types of mundane sys-
tems. And the course of history drove them to enquire
more deeply into the question: What was the essential
thing in the Christian faith?

Protestantism fared better than Catholicism in the
eighteenth century; for in Britain's American colonies
the earlier half of the century saw a religious awaken-
ing in which Jonathan Edwards was a central figure;
it might be said that the Seven Years' War (1756-63)
decided that the northern continent of America should
be predominantly Protestant; and the rise of Prussia
and Russia added great weight to the non-Catholic part
of Europe. Even in the religious and devotional life,
it was Protestantism that showed itself the more dy-
namic throughout the period. On this side, the story
illustrates the point that one can hardly put limits to
the conditions which provoke a religious revival. The
thing can come by surprise at the moment which seems


403

the most unfavorable; and the weather that withers
the routine of religion in official churches may be just
the kind to bring out a spontaneous growth, a develop-
ment outside the recognized program.

In the later decades of the seventeenth century (just
as deism was coming to the front) there emerged in
Germany a pietism which may have had antecedents
in the later Middle Ages, and which, as it spread to
neighboring countries, may have owed something to
English Puritanism and to movements in Holland. It
first became important in the Lutheran church in
Germany, but in the Netherlands and then in Germany
it spread to the Reformed churches, and its influence
was increased by the ascendancy that it acquired in
the university of Halle. A similar movement was that
of the Moravians, who were established in the lands
of Count Zinzendorf and extended their influence
abroad, even to England and America; John Wesley
was one of the people who acknowledged a debt to
them.

Evangelicalism in the English-speaking world is in
fact a parallel phenomenon. It was an essential feature
of the movement that mere membership in organized
churches and the routine participation in the offices
of these were not sufficient for the authentic Christian.
The nominal believer still needed to be properly
“converted” and to bring the matter home to himself;
and the “conversion” should come after he had been
seized with a vivid conviction of his sinfulness. No
great interest was shown in theological discussions and
dogmatic controversy—there was just an insistence that
a man should be born again, and that he should have
a personal experience of Christ. At the same time Bible
reading was emphasized, there was a great love of
hymn singing, great importance was attached to
philanthropic work. One might remain a member of
the state-church, but in any case one would join little
informal groups which were meant for fellowship,
study, and prayer.

An important feature of eighteenth-century Protes-
tantism was the formation of religious societies, some
of which would comprise members of various denomi-
nations—societies which would promote foreign mis-
sions, educational work, the care of the poor, or a
particular measure of reform, and which became more
numerous as the century drew to its close. From evan-
gelical circles in England there arose the demand for
an improvement in prisons, the attack on slavery and
the slave-trade, and the later cry for industrial legisla-
tion. And from laymen who had been trained by their
activity in religious groups there emerged some of the
working-class leaders of the nineteenth century.