Adolf Hitler greeting Catholic leaders during a Nazi rally.

We will finish up the rest of Chapter 24 and discuss the impact World War II had upon Christendom.

Please read the last three sections: The Churches and Nazism: The Second World War, World Christianity Realigned: Ecumenical Beginnings, and World Christianity Realigned: Pentecostals and New Churches.

Please write on one of the following questions:

1. Discuss why some prominent liberal German Protestant theologians sided with the Nazi Party in Germany. Who were the ‘German Christians‘ and what were its aims and some theological positions it had? How did other theologians, like Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, react toward this alliance between the Church and the Nazi Party? What were the ‘Confessing Church‘ and the ‘Barmen Declaration‘?
2. Discuss how puppet regimes set up by the Nazis in France, Slovakia, Croatia, and Slovenia were lead by Catholic leaders. What role did they play in the deportation of Jews and other groups to concentration camps? What reason does MacCulloch give for thousands of European Christians being facilitators and bystanders of the Holocaust?
3. What saved the Russian Orthodox Church from extinction under Josef Stalin?
4. Discuss the rise of Liberal Protestantism after 1900.  What was the Ecumenical Movement? How did J.H. Oldham influence this movement and missionary work (especially in India)?  What was his greatest triumph?
5. Discuss the rise of Pentecostalism in America after 1916. What events led to the formation of the Assemblies of God and Oneness Pentecostals. What did Pentecostals have in common with Evangelicals? What were some issues Evangelicals had with Pentecostals? Discuss the development of the ‘Prosperity Gospel‘ through figures such as Kenneth E. Hagin and Oral Roberts.
6. Discuss the impact of the Scopes’ Trial that involved teaching evolution in schools.  Who was involved in this trial?
7. Discuss the Church’s involvement with the Prohibition movement and the passing of the 18th Amendment.
8. Discuss how Christianity in Africa was impacted when Europe lost a lot of control of African nations after WWII. How did women’s role in African society change?
9. Discuss how and why Christianity spread so rapidly in Korea, especially during and after the Korean War (1950-1953).

We will post our responses in the coming weeks.