In the second millennium, Christianity spread worldwide but experienced accelerating divisions. The Great Schism of 1054 split the universal Church into the Western and the Eastern Church. The Western Church gradually consolidated into the Catholic Church under the central authority of Rome, and the Eastern Church became known as the Orthodox Church with the Patriarch of Constantinople remaining the most honored bishop among its autocephalous churches. In the European Reformation of the 1520s, Protestants and numerous similar churches arose in objection to perceived abuses of growing Papal authority and to perceived doctrinal error and novelty in Rome. This sparked a vigorous struggle for the hearts and minds of Europeans.
Protestants arrived in North America (and later Australasia) with European settlement, but lacking any central authority in either Rome or a native national government, they worshipped in hundred, and later thousands, of independent denomionations (see Restorationism). Christianity was taken to South America and Africa by European colonists, especially in the 16th to 19th centuries. In the 19th and 20th centuries, many Christian-dominated nations (especially in Europe) became more secular (and most communist states were officially, if not practically, atheist). Adherents to Fundamentalist Christianity, particularly in the United States, also perceived threats from new scientific findings about the age of the Earth and evolution of life.
Christianity today
According to a 1993 estimate, Christianity was the world's most widely accepted religion, with 2.1 billion adherents (followed by Islam with 1.1 billion and Hinduism with 1.05 billion). Of these, 1 billion were Catholics, 500 million Protestants, 240 million Orthodox, and 275 million were of other denominations.
Christianity has many branches, including Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the various religious denominations of Protestantism. Other forms of Christianity have arisen that claim a separate history, such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Not all people identified as Christians accept all, or even most, of the theological positions that their particular church mandates. Like the Jewish people, Christians in the West were greatly affected by The Enlightenment in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Perhaps the most significant change for them was total or effective separation of Church and State, thus ending the state-sponsored Christianity that existed in so many European countries. Now one could be a free member of society and disagree with one's church on various issues, and one could even be free to leave the church altogether. Millions did take these paths, further developing belief systems such as Unitarianism, Universalism, Humanism, Atheism, Agnosticism, and Deism; others created liberal wings of Protestant Christian theology. The Enlightenment had a much less profound impact on the Eastern Churches of Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy.
In the United States and Europe, many secularized Christians have long since stopped participating in traditional religious duties, attending churches only on a few particular days per year or not at all. Many of them recall having highly religious grandparents, but grew up in homes where Christian theology was no longer a priority. They have developed ambivalent feelings towards their religious duties. On the one hand they cling to their traditions for identity reasons; on the other hand, the influence of the secular Western mentality, the demands of daily life, and peer pressure tear them away from traditional Christianity. Marriage between Christians of different denominations, or between a Christian and a non-Christian, was once taboo, but has become commonplace.
In Eastern Europe and Russia, a different trend is taking place. After decades of Communism and atheism, there is widespread renewed interest in Christianity, as well as religion in general. Many Orthodox churches and monasteries are being rebuilt and restored, filled beyond capacity; Protestants of many denominations are pouring in to evangelize and plant churches; and the Catholic church is revealing once secret dioceses and undertaking other steps to support Catholic churches more openly.
The changes to society brought about by The Enlightenment have triggered many responses within the Christian community. These include the development of literally thousands of Christian Protestant denominations, traditionalist splinter groups of the Catholic Church that do not recognize the legitimacy of many reforms the Catholic Church has undertaken, and the growth of hundreds of fundamentalist groups that interpret the entire Bible in a characteristically literal fashion.
The advent of Modernism in the late 19th century encouraged new forms of thought and expression that did not follow traditional lines; this brought with it a large-scale rejection of Christian belief altogether, often in favour of philosophies such as Communism, Humanism or Atheism.
As Modernism developed into Consumerism during the second half of the 20th century the Megachurch phenomenon developed – catering for skeptical non-Christians by providing "seeker sensitive" presentations of Christian belief. The Alpha Course can be viewed as an example one such presentation of Christianity.
Since the development of Postmodernism with its rejection of universally accepted belief structures in favour of more personalised and experiential truth, organized Christianity has found itself increasingly incompatible with peoples' desire to express faith and spirituality in a way that is authentic to them. What has thus far been known as the Emerging Church is a by-product of this trend, as many people who broadly accept Christianity seek to practice that faith while avoiding established Church institutions.
A large and growing movement within the Christian church, especially in the West and most visible in the United States, is the evangelical movement. Most mainstream protestant denominations have a significantly active evangelical minority, and, in some cases, a dominant majority. Evangelicals a "trans-denominational" and are more willing to have formal and informal relationships with evangelicals from outside their denomination than to have the same sort of relationship with non-evangelicals within their denomination. Many evangelicals have caused schism within various church organisations and have even formed their own denominations. Evangelicals claim that their beliefs are no less than true Christianity itself and that those within the church who differ from them may not be true believers. This attitude has led to much disunity amongst churches, especially those with a large modernist influence. Evangelicals cannot be easily categorised, but almost all will believe in the necessity of a personal conversion and acceptance of Jesus as saviour and Lord, the eventual literal return of Christ, a more conservative understanding of the Bible and a belief in the miraculous. There are many different types of Evangelicals including Dispensationists, Reformed Christians, Pentecostals, Charismatics and Fundamentalists.
1 -[Christianity]
2 -[Christianity : History of Christianity]
3 -[Christianity : Christian Doctrine]
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