Church History in Plain Language

Era 8 · 1914 – present

The Age of Ideologies

World wars, totalitarian ideologies, and the astonishing transformation of Christianity into a faith of the Global South.

Shelley calls the period since 1914 "the Age of Ideologies." Christianity faced powerful secular faiths that demanded total loyalty: nationalism, fascism, Nazism, Communism, and later consumerism and secular individualism. Christians collaborated with some and resisted others, often heroically. More Christians were killed for their faith in the 20th century than in any earlier one.

Yet the century also brought dramatic renewal:

  • The ecumenical movement began healing the divisions of centuries.
  • The Catholic Church's Second Vatican Council (1962–65) transformed its relationship to the modern world, other Christians and other religions.
  • Pentecostalism, born in a Los Angeles mission in 1906, grew into a movement of perhaps 600 million people.
  • Above all, Christianity's center of gravity shifted south. In 1900 most Christians lived in Europe and North America. Today most live in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

MacCulloch's book ends with what he calls "culture wars" and the uncertain future of a faith that is declining in its old European heartland while booming in the Global South. That is the story of this final era, which brings us up to the present.

Timeline: The Age of Ideologies (1914 – present)

195020001910 World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh1910 The Fundamentals published1913 William Wadé Harris's preaching tour convert…1914 First World War begins; German theologians b…1914 Assemblies of God founded1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia1937 Pius XI's encyclical Mit brennender Sorge co…1945 Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt1948 World Council of Churches founded in Amsterd…1949 Communist victory in China; Cardinal Mindsze…1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott1958 Yoido Full Gospel Church founded in Seoul1958 John XXIII elected pope1964 Lumen Gentium; Decree on Ecumenism1971 Gutiérrez's A Theology of Liberation1978 Pontificate of John Paul II1979 Moral Majority founded1988 Archbishop Lefebvre excommunicated1990 Pentecostal boom in Latin America, Africa an…1991 Soviet Union collapses2013 First Latin American pope elected2013 Benedict XVI resigns; Francis elected2017 Catholics and Lutherans commemorate the Refo…2025 Pope Francis dies; Leo XIV elected; 1,700th …
Selected key dates from each chapter of this era. Click an event to read its chapter, or see every date in this era on the master timeline.

Chapters in this era

  1. 1World Wars and the Confessing ChurchThe First World War, Barth and neo-orthodoxy, the churches under Nazism, the Barmen Declaration, Bonhoeffer, the Holocaust, and the Armenian genocide.
  2. 2Christianity Under CommunismPersecution in Soviet Russia, Eastern Europe and China; the underground churches; John Paul II and the fall of Communism; and Christianity in China today.
  3. 3The Ecumenical MovementThe origins of ecumenism, the World Council of Churches, church unions, Catholic and Orthodox involvement, and major agreements.
  4. 4The Second Vatican CouncilJohn XXIII, the four great constitutions, the vernacular Mass, religious freedom, Nostra Aetate, and debates over the council's legacy.
  5. 5Pentecostals and CharismaticsOrigins in the Holiness movement, Azusa Street, speaking in tongues, healing, the charismatic renewal, and Pentecostalism in the Global South.
  6. 6Evangelicals and FundamentalistsThe Fundamentals, the Scopes trial, Billy Graham, Lausanne, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black church, the Religious Right, and global evangelicalism.
  7. 7The Global SouthThe southward shift of Christianity, African Initiated Churches, liberation theology, the Korean and Chinese churches, and the "next Christendom."
  8. 8Christianity Today and TomorrowSecularization in the West, the "nones," the abuse crisis, debates over sexuality and women, persecution, interfaith relations, and what comes next.