A History of Christianity - S1.E5 ∙ Protestantism The Evangelical Explosion
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00:00It's 8 o'clock in the morning in Seoul, Korea, and I'm between crowds at the first and second
00:22services in the Yeouido Full Gospel Church.
00:29This is Protestantism at the beginning of the 21st century.
00:50In the fifth part of my history of Christianity, I'm tracing the growth of an exuberant expression
00:56of faith that has spread across the globe, evangelical Protestantism.
01:04Today, it's associated with full-blooded emotion, and by some, with conservative politics.
01:13But the whole story is not what you might expect.
01:18In my previous program, I showed how the Protestant faith broke away from medieval
01:23Catholicism to build a Protestant homeland in Europe.
01:29Now I'll follow the events that led it to burst its boundaries, America, Africa, even
01:38Asia.
02:04Protestantism was born out of a religious revolution in the 16th century, the Reformation.
02:15For a hundred years, it made great strides across Europe with an explosion of new Protestant
02:20churches, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Anglicans.
02:31The response of the Catholic Church culminated in the Thirty Years' War.
02:37That left Protestantism severely bruised.
02:44And by the end of the 17th century, it was largely confined to northern Europe.
02:51It looked as though the Reformation had been stopped in its tracks.
02:57From 1700, the story of Protestantism is one of relentless expansion.
03:01So what happened?
03:02What's the power of Protestantism that's made it circle the world?
03:14This is Herrenhut on the far eastern border of Germany.
03:20The Protestant explosion might never have happened without a small group of Christians
03:25who settled here in 1722.
03:30And these are their gravestones, the Moravian Brethren.
03:35They had been persecuted by Catholics in their homeland, the modern-day Czech Republic.
03:41So they fled 250 miles west to safe Protestant Saxony.
03:48Once here, a Lutheran nobleman, Count Simzendorf, headstrong, charismatic, rich, offered them
03:54his land and leadership for a new community.
04:03Simzendorf loved his Lutheran roots, but he was seeking something more.
04:06What made his new Moravian community stand out from other Protestants was its intensely
04:10personal, emotional relationship with God.
04:17It was a rediscovery of the historical heart of the Christian faith, eternal salvation
04:23through a personal experience of Jesus Christ.
04:37There's still a strong Moravian community here.
04:41I joined them on one of their big days, the Advent service.
04:46In their new home, the Moravians worshipped several times a day, every day.
04:52And they sang, sometimes for days on end.
05:02The Protestant Reformation had certainly told human beings that they stood alone before
05:06God's judgment.
05:09But the Moravians were saying they could stand in a direct emotional relationship with God.
05:16Less of the head, more of the heart.
05:19It was an idea that would revolutionize Protestantism.
05:34And there was another innovation of the Moravians which breathed new life into Protestantism.
05:42In Germany today, they're famous for their Christmas stars.
05:47But in the 18th century, they pioneered something far more significant.
05:54Christianity had always been a missionary faith, but that job was normally carried out
05:59by professional clergy.
06:03Ordinary Moravians took the unprecedented step of conducting missionary work themselves.
06:10And they weren't just interested in taking the message out to Europe.
06:15In fact, the very first Moravian missionary headed straight for the New World.
06:20I looked through the Moravian archives with its director, Dr. Rüdiger Krieger.
06:25We have here the diary of the first missionary, Lennart Dober, who went to St. Thomas in 1732.
06:33And St. Thomas is in the West Indies?
06:35It's in the West Indies, in the Caribbean, yes.
06:38And for example, we have in this diary an entry from early January, 1733, that reads
06:44He went to the plantation to establish his profession as a potter.
06:49But the work was not very successful because of the bad condition of the clay.
06:54But they were using the time to speak to the slaves, to the local people there.
06:59And that is what the Moravians were looking for, a possibility to talk with the people
07:04about their religious feelings.
07:07I think it's extraordinary that this humble working man crosses the seas to share his
07:12faith with other humble working people.
07:15What is it about the Moravians which impels them to do this?
07:19The Moravians have the duty for everyone to talk about the faith, to talk about the gospel
07:26and to help people learning, being free to practice their faith.
07:32And you don't need being a pastor.
07:35It's a new way of seeing living together in Christianity.
07:52The Moravian archives are bursting with stories like Leonard Dober's.
07:58Immortalised in paintings, these pioneering missionaries spread the good news of Christianity
08:03as far as Africa and Greenland.
08:08It's why they are called evangelical, from the Greek word evangelion, meaning good news.
08:16Evangelical Christianity was on the march.
08:19But it wasn't quite the finished product.
08:23That would happen in England.
08:29The Moravians had the gift of turning people's emotions into faith.
08:33They helped change the life of one young Englishman, an Anglican priest who then seized
08:37the future of Protestantism.
08:39His name was John Wesley.
08:40Very shortly, we will be turning past the White House and talking.
08:57Bristol, in the west of England, is one of the founding centres of a denomination which
09:01helped turn the Moravian dream into reality, Methodism.
09:09Its founder, John Wesley, started out as an Anglican clergyman, but one who appreciated
09:15the intense richness of Catholicism.
09:19Wesley met the Moravians in 1735 on board ship.
09:24He'd set sail from England with his brother Charles to take up a new job in America.
09:30The brothers were already out of step with the established Church of England because
09:33they were high churchmen who emphasised the Catholic side of Anglicanism.
09:38At university in Oxford, they'd been part of a group of students who'd formed a holy
09:41club which brought a sort of counter-Reformation Catholic intensity to low-temperature English
09:47Protestantism.
09:48They fasted, they went to communion as often as possible, they worked to help the poor.
09:53It was a very methodical way of trying to achieve holiness.
09:58And early on, someone, without apparently any friendly intent, called them Methodists.
10:08The Methodists were not yet a new denomination.
10:12But the Wesleys' chance meeting with the Moravians would take them a step closer, especially
10:17as the brothers were heading for personal crisis in America.
10:21They fell out with local colonists.
10:24John had a disastrous love affair.
10:27They sailed home defeated and depressed.
10:39But back in England, they kept in touch with the Moravians.
10:44One night in 1738 in London, John attended Anglican Evensong and then a Moravian prayer
10:50meeting.
10:52It was a powerful combination that would change both him and Protestantism.
10:58Something new happened to John Wesley that night.
11:03In a phrase now famous, he felt his heart strangely warmed.
11:09While the solemn music of Evensong was still ringing in his memory, he listened to Martin
11:14Luther's restatement of Paul's message to the Romans, we're saved by faith alone.
11:19The Reformation came alive for him.
11:21A new fire, a new urgency came in his religion.
11:25And it burst through the hymns of the Moravians to create a new message for his generation.
11:39For both Wesley brothers, what mattered in their faith now was a direct relationship
11:44with God.
11:46They wanted to spread this message of salvation, just as the Moravians had done.
12:05But the Wesleys also brought a new element to Protestantism that helped it reach out
12:09to millions more around the world.
12:13They saw that society was being transformed around them, and they hurried to bring frightened
12:18and bewildered folk the gospel good news in the middle of huge social change.
12:34In the 18th century, industrialisation displaced millions from the countryside to new population
12:40centres such as the modern day outskirts of Bristol.
12:48But the Church of England had no buildings here.
12:52For a rather prissy parson, John Wesley found a surprising solution.
12:59An old friend from Oxford, George Whitfield, had taken to preaching in the open air.
13:05John decided to give it a go at Hannam Mount, then close to a large mining community.
13:12According to local Methodist Colin Craddock, it was a risky choice of venue.
13:18Cock Road, which is close by here, was a notorious area for lawlessness and so on.
13:27And then there were the miners themselves who, in 18th century society, they must have
13:33been the real lowest of the artisans, I imagine.
13:37So the sort of place your mother tells you not to go?
13:39Well, it was, definitely.
13:40I don't think anybody of any respectability would come out here, and for Wesley to do
13:47it was just absolutely astounding.
13:49And the effect he had on people?
13:51He had a dramatic effect on them.
13:53The miners' wet, these black, sooty faces had white lines down them.
14:00Amazing.
14:17For the first time, someone cared enough to come looking for the miners, to save their
14:22souls.
14:24It's often forgotten that a concern for social justice is part of the original DNA of evangelical
14:30Christianity.
14:34The Methodists went on to build their own chapels that were quite separate from the
14:38Church of England.
14:40This was their first, John Wesley's own headquarters in Bristol, his new room.
14:49But it wasn't just the words of John Wesley that moved people.
14:52It was also the magnificent hymns of his brother Charles.
14:57Strange, it's so cool and classical and ordered, yet in 1739 it would have been deafening in
15:09services here, with shouts of joy and repentance, and the roar of Charles's new hymns about
15:15Christ's blood and sacrificial death.
15:27Maybe that initial intensity has cooled for many Methodists today.
15:36But you can still get a glimpse of the fervour of those early meetings, all over the modern
15:43evangelical world.
16:14By 1800, around half a million people in Britain attended Methodist worship.
16:20That's over 5% of the population grown from nothing in 60 years.
16:40The heartfelt Protestant religion was hugely popular in Wales, and spread among Scottish
16:45and Irish Presbyterians too.
16:48It was an evangelical revival.
16:53The evangelical message reached all levels of society.
16:57Like the Moravians in Germany, the evangelicals discovered an intensely personal reformation.
17:02They reached into their Bibles to meet Christ, but they also reached into the depths of their
17:06own souls to make that meeting complete, and they hungered to get others to do the
17:11same.
17:22Up till now, the Catholic Church had set the pace for Western Christian missionary work.
17:30But that was about to change, with a religious revival across the Atlantic.
17:36In the New World, Protestantism would triumph.
17:59In America, there's a bewildering range of Protestant denominations.
18:03Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Unitarian, Episcopalian, Seventh-day Adventist, you
18:09name it.
18:13Does that mean Protestants constantly flounce off and start something new?
18:17Well, they do.
18:19But that's also really the key to the exuberance of American religion.
18:25The first shoots of American diversity lie in an outburst of heartfelt religion in New
18:30England in the 1730s.
18:36At the start of the revival was a brilliant scholar, a congregational minister in Northampton,
18:41Massachusetts.
18:43His name was Jonathan Edwards.
18:47Edwards insisted that we must worship God with the whole person, mind and emotion.
18:52From the greatest philosopher to the smallest child, we must love God in simplicity.
18:57He once said in a sermon, if ever you arrive at heaven, faith and love must be the wings
19:02which must carry you there.
19:04It was Edwards's congregation which first experienced revival in America.
19:12But there was more to come, the rousing spirit which Europe was now experiencing.
19:18It was brought by an Evangelical Englishman Edwards invited to address his congregation,
19:24George Whitefield, the same man who inspired John Wesley to preach outdoors.
19:29He's buried in the Old South Church in Newburyport.
19:34And that's where I met an American church historian who believes that Edwards got more
19:38than he bargained for.
19:42While Edwards welcomed the message, he didn't really like Whitefield's manner of delivery.
19:49Whitefield, of course, brought this new style of preaching that was dramatic, it was extemporaneous,
19:56that is he didn't use any manuscripts.
19:57He would rely on inspiration, moving back and forth, using gesture, enacting scenes
20:03from the Bible.
20:05It's said that, you know, people would faint when he pronounced the word Mesopotamia.
20:11It seems to me as if Whitefield would be a welcome visitor for Edwards, but not necessarily
20:15a welcome colleague.
20:17Tell me about it.
20:18After Whitefield leaves, his congregation is a wreck.
20:21So Edwards tries to separate the physical from the spiritual.
20:26And he says to his congregation, what were you more impressed by?
20:30Were you more impressed by the eloquence of the preacher?
20:34And what was more lasting for you?
20:35Was it his message, the message of the new birth?
20:39And did it have any difference in your heart?
20:42The reality is that the revival unfolding in New England needed a bit of what both men
20:47had to offer.
20:49The intellect and considered argument of Edwards balanced the crowd's emotional response to
20:55Whitefield's challenges.
20:58Well, this is the grave of George Whitefield.
21:02It actually feels remarkably like the shrine of a Catholic saint, until you realise that
21:06he's actually sharing the basement of this church with the church heating system.
21:11He was an extraordinary preacher.
21:13In the open air, his voice could carry so 10,000 or more people could hear him.
21:18And he came to this country to a movement which is already springing up in all sorts
21:23of churches, the movement we collectively call the Great Awakening.
21:31In the 18th century, emotional preachers like Whitefield stirred passions as never
21:36before.
21:37He demanded that people made choices.
21:44Protestant churches like the Presbyterians and Baptists were turned into missionary powerhouses.
21:49Thank you, Joe.
21:50All right, we're on our way.
21:51Now, a little bit about Boston.
21:53This was the birthplace of the American Revolution, our struggle for freedom from British rule.
22:06Evangelical Protestantism now swept through much of America.
22:09Here in Boston, you can always tell you're on land filled with the streets of Boston.
22:14And it did so for very special, very American reasons.
22:17All right, here we go.
22:18Into the Pearl River.
22:29Now, in the 1760s, a group of Boston citizens who called themselves the Sons of Liberty
22:36began rioting in the streets to protest British rule and British taxes.
22:42The spread of Evangelicalism was an accidental side effect of the American Revolution, sparked
22:47by a famous incident here in Boston.
22:50In the course of the next few hours, we took 342 chests of tea, threw it in the harbor.
23:02King said we had to pay the tax when it hits the dock.
23:05He didn't say anything about when it hits the water.
23:08In 1773, the Boston Tea Party launched a series of clashes that led to American independence
23:15from Britain.
23:17To the consternation of many Christians, the founding fathers decided to separate church
23:23from state in their new republic's federal constitution.
23:28In time, the privileges of established churches in individual states also ended.
23:35After centuries as an official religion tied to the state, Christianity was cut free.
23:43All the gains of Evangelical Protestantism might seem to have been at risk.
23:50The separation of church and state was an historic moment for the Christian faith.
23:54Since the 4th century, mainstream Western Christianity had been an arm of government.
23:59Now it stood alone.
24:01You might think that this would be devastating for churches.
24:04In fact, it was quite the opposite.
24:13The historic decision to separate church and state had a wholly unexpected effect
24:18on the future of Protestantism.
24:20It let people choose.
24:26You can see the results of that decision in the huge number of denominations
24:30that still sprout and flourish right across the United States.
24:36In exchange for breaking all federal ties with the church,
24:39the founding fathers gave Americans religious liberty.
24:45And that meant the freedom to choose any Christianity, no matter how emotional.
24:52It unleashed another Evangelical revival, a second Great Awakening,
24:58this time on America's western frontier.
25:03In 1800, Kentucky was in the Wild West.
25:11It's not surprising that some of the wilder manifestations of modern Evangelical Christianity
25:16found a home here.
25:19An annual gathering marks the events.
25:24Remember, this was a frontier.
25:27All sorts of people were chancing their luck.
25:32Many of them came from Britain.
25:37That was really important for what happened here,
25:40because among them were Scottish Protestants,
25:43whose people had already moved to England.
25:46That was really important for what happened here,
25:48because among them were Scottish Protestants,
25:51whose people had already moved once,
25:54to settle in Ulster, in Ireland.
25:58Frontier Ulster had the same sense of danger, excitement, limitless potential
26:02as the Wild West frontier in Hollywood movies.
26:05It was actually in Ulster that Protestants first gathered in huge numbers
26:08for open-air Holy Communion services.
26:10And when they came to North America, they brought that memory with them.
26:15It was on this new frontier that the idea of open-air revival
26:19gained a new lease of life.
26:33This particular communion, there was service late in the weekend,
26:37and during the sermon, one woman spoke out, cried out,
26:42seeking assurance of her salvation.
26:44Which, of course, that disrupted the service.
26:46And at the end of the sermon, the organising ministers left the church.
26:50But the congregation stayed inside.
26:52They seemed to be waiting, if you will, for what God was going to do next.
26:57Well, this must have been actually quite troubling for the ministers.
27:00Oh, absolutely.
27:01And I've read that they held a small conference outside the building
27:04to decide what they should do.
27:06And their decision was, and I think a very wise one,
27:09is they would not interrupt what was happening inside.
27:12In fact, I believe they may have gone back in and joined.
27:15And that's when they saw God's spirit fall.
27:17People were falling out.
27:19Slain in the spirit would be a term that we would call it in modern times.
27:23It sounds as if people are trying to find ways of expressing what they feel
27:27beyond what they can normally do in church.
27:29Oh, absolutely.
27:30You had the running exercise where people would be so enthralled
27:34with what they felt God doing in them that they would literally run.
27:37I don't know, circles, run around the camp.
27:39I'm not sure.
27:40But then you had the barking exercise.
27:43You had a laughing exercise.
27:46When the power of God comes upon you,
27:48sometimes it has to come out in some way or you feel like you may burst.
27:55God so loved the world, yea, the ungodly world,
27:59which had no thought of desire or need.
28:02Praise God!
28:04Praise God!
28:06Hallelujah!
28:08You can follow the spirits of people.
28:21The emotion raced across the new republic.
28:33CHEERING
28:45The white-hot religion of the Second Great Awakening
28:48lasted almost 50 years,
28:51and it helped create something new.
28:56Corrugations that up till now had remained offshoots of European churches
29:00and had fresh choices.
29:02You might almost say consumer choices.
29:12Christianity was marketed with all the flair
29:15and swashbuckling enterprise
29:17that the United States showed in its commerce and industry.
29:22Frontier Protestantism had become not only popular,
29:26but distinctly American.
29:31MUSIC
29:40The energy of the revivals led to new identities for Christianity.
29:46From Seventh-day Adventists and Millerites to Mormons,
29:50the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
29:53they saw America at the centre of God's purposes.
29:58It's easy to stress the emotional side of American Evangelicalism.
30:03But we need to remember that many of them were also socially radical.
30:09Like Methodists, American Evangelicals offered marginal groups fresh hope.
30:14MUSIC
30:27MUSIC
30:33The message entranced African-Americans,
30:36most of whom were still enslaved.
30:40Evangelicalism offers a choice to turn to Jesus.
30:45These people had never had a choice in their whole lives.
30:50They went on to found their own churches.
30:54Bell Mead Plantation near Nashville
30:57couldn't have functioned without slaves.
31:00On its gracious lawns,
31:02I talked about the importance of Evangelical revival for African-Americans
31:06with scholar Dennis Dickerson.
31:09In these camp-meeting venues,
31:11persons high and low, black and white, rich and poor,
31:15were invited to hear the Gospel.
31:17And many of the scriptures that were preached
31:19obviously were heard by African-Americans
31:22as ensuring their equality.
31:24For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
31:27God hath made of one blood all people to dwell upon the earth.
31:31But many slave owners were Evangelical Protestants
31:34and many Evangelical Protestants justified slavery in reference to the Bible.
31:38Were they just being stupid and selfish?
31:41The slaves knew that the Bible had competing themes.
31:45Those who wanted to justify slavery
31:47often had to appeal to those many, many instances
31:51in the scriptures, particularly in the Old Testament,
31:54sometimes in the New Testament,
31:56that there was hierarchy, there were servants, there were slaves
32:00that seemingly were sanctioned by religious authorities.
32:03The slaves themselves, however, developed their own interpretation.
32:07They could easily cite that same God who had liberated the Hebrews
32:11and had brought them through an exodus experience
32:16would also do the same for them in the United States.
32:22MUSIC PLAYS
32:33There was another important and unexpected reason
32:37why Bible-believing African-Americans
32:39accepted the religion of their oppressors.
32:43Some white Evangelicals came to see slavery as evil and anti-Christian
32:48and they campaigned alongside the enslaved for abolition.
32:54In our present age, it's worth remembering that together
32:58Evangelical Christians once led this great rebellion
33:01against the common understanding of the Bible,
33:03overturning the moral assumptions of their time.
33:06APPLAUSE
33:19By the mid-19th century,
33:21the most dynamic and expansionist society in the world
33:24was a Protestant great power, the United States.
33:30I think that we should forget old clichés about a Protestant work ethic,
33:34contrasting somehow with Catholicism.
33:36We're looking here at a huge historical coincidence.
33:41Circumstances converged
33:43to make the world's leading industrial nation Protestant.
33:47And so its brand of Protestant culture
33:50also became a world-conquering force.
33:54Even non-Christian Japanese hurried to copy American capitalism.
34:03In fact, you could say mission had been thrust upon us
34:07In fact, you could say mission had been thrust upon Protestants now
34:11by a dramatic turn of events in the heartland of Catholicism in Europe.
34:18From 1789, the French Revolution signalled the end of the old world.
34:22The French monarchy collapsed, the Roman Catholic Church was tottering.
34:25Surely, these were the signs of the end of the world.
34:28Now was the time for Protestants to proclaim the truth before it was too late.
34:32So, just at the moment when Catholic missions were faltering,
34:35Protestants set out to conquer the world.
35:06Africa was not only a long way from the Protestant heartlands
35:10of America and Europe,
35:12it was also culturally very distant.
35:16Counter-Reformation Catholicism
35:18had tried and failed to make serious inroads here.
35:23And on the West African coast, the reason is still plain to see.
35:29This is one of the many forts where captured Africans were held
35:32before being shipped to the New World as slaves.
35:37Not surprising, then, that few West Africans
35:39listened to any talk of Christianity from Europeans.
35:46For three and a half centuries,
35:48the slave trade had poisoned relations between Europe and Africa.
35:51Now, the campaign for its abolition proved vital
35:54for the success of African Protestantism.
36:03This is the Anglican cathedral in the Ghanaian capital, Accra.
36:09Christianity here descends from Africans
36:12who, freed from slavery, returned to Africa.
36:19They were mostly fervent evangelicals,
36:21impatient to help their fellow Africans choose salvation.
36:26And this gave a new idea
36:28to the British Anglican Church Missionary Society, the CMS.
36:32Self-governing churches overseas.
36:40The Society began looking to these West African settlements
36:43for local leadership, and they found one outstanding candidate.
36:47He was a man who had a great deal of faith in God.
36:50They began looking to these West African settlements
36:52for local leadership, and they found one outstanding candidate.
36:56A young man who had been rescued from slavers
36:58and who'd settled in Sierra Leone.
37:00His name was Ajayi, but he took two English names.
37:03In fact, the names of a committee member of the CMS, Samuel Crowther.
37:07So, Samuel Ajayi Crowther came to England,
37:11trained for the ministry, and was ordained an Anglican priest.
37:15I want you to give God a mighty clap of praise.
37:21And this, a mighty clap of praise.
37:34Crowther set about sowing the seeds of African Anglicanism
37:38with a distinctly evangelical flavour.
37:41He saw that to succeed, Protestantism would have to adapt to African culture.
37:47He translated the Bible into his native Yoruba language.
37:52And was successful enough to be given the post of Bishop of Western Africa.
38:04But Crowther's initiatives were ahead of the times,
38:07and his impact was limited.
38:11He wanted authority over both black and white missionaries in West Africa,
38:15but his English white superiors had a problem.
38:19Kwabena Azamor Giyadu, a Ghanaian church historian, told me what it was.
38:25When I was a boy, I collected stamps, and I have vivid memories
38:28of the stamp commemorating Bishop Crowther,
38:30and I saw it as a great success story,
38:32that there should be a bishop from West Africa.
38:34Was it such a success story?
38:37Yes and no.
38:40For an African with a slave past to rise to the level that Crowther did
38:46was by itself an achievement.
38:48But he was betrayed because they wanted to put an African
38:53at the forefront of the mission work.
38:55But I think when it came to the point where they then had to
38:58hand the destiny of the church into African hands, then they had a problem.
39:02So they wanted their cake and eat it.
39:04You may well put it that way.
39:11White European missionaries did try to evangelise this vast continent.
39:17The most famous attempt was that of David Livingstone
39:20in southern and central Africa.
39:24But his was actually a heroic failure.
39:27He made only one recorded convert,
39:30who later fell out with him and formed his own church.
39:34The missionaries were forced to leave,
39:36This was the same lesson that Crowther had taught the church.
39:41Christianity could take root in Africa,
39:43but only if it was led by African missionaries.
39:48And eventually, it was.
39:52What was happening quietly through the 19th century
39:54was that Africans themselves were doing missionary work.
39:58They were doing missionary work.
40:00They were doing missionary work.
40:02What was happening quietly through the 19th century
40:04was that Africans themselves were doing mission
40:07in ways that Europeans hardly noticed.
40:10So young men would travel, they'd go to services in new places,
40:13they'd learn new hymns, and they'd bring them home.
40:16Market women would sell Christianity, using their sales skills.
40:20Teachers would be taught by the missionaries,
40:22and when the missionaries moved on, they'd go on teaching.
40:24They'd be able to tell Africa about Christianity in African terms.
40:32At the start of the 20th century, perhaps 10% of Africans were Christian.
40:39Today, it may be half the continent.
40:43Astonishing.
40:45How has it happened?
40:51One curious catalyst was the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
40:57Many European missionaries left,
41:00and the ghastliness of the war
41:02didn't say much for the Christianity of Europe.
41:05Two good reasons for Africans to take control.
41:18One of the greatest pioneering African missionaries
41:21was William Wade Harris.
41:24He was a political activist in prison here in West Africa,
41:28when in 1913 he had a revelation that he'd been chosen as a prophet.
41:33Once released, he set out to convert Africans to Christianity.
41:39You have to picture Harris striding through the villages of the Ivory Coast
41:43and here in Ghana.
41:44He's dressed in a simple white robe,
41:46he's carrying a six-foot cross and holding a gourd of water.
41:49With him are his team of two or three women
41:52who are singing, playing the calabash
41:54to bring up the spirits of the guardian angels and the Holy Spirit,
41:58while Harris is exhorting people to give up traditional religion.
42:10But his converts didn't want to join the established European churches
42:14because their services just didn't celebrate God
42:17in the way Africans wanted.
42:22Worse still, European-run churches condemned African practices like polygamy.
42:29So Harris's followers chose to form their own network of churches.
42:41The Church of the Twelve Apostles is one descendant.
42:45This is a Friday service for healing.
42:49The congregation is mainly made up of women market traders.
42:53They've taken the day off,
42:55leaving the men to work on while they worship.
43:08This seems a million miles from the churches I know back in Oxford.
43:12But that's the great strength of Christianity,
43:15its ability to adapt and assimilate.
43:22Behind this very African experience,
43:25I can see features which all communities value.
43:31In Western Europe, all these things that we've got here are elsewhere.
43:35They're on the dance floor in a nightclub,
43:37they're in a football stadium, they're in the therapy room.
43:40Here, it's all brought together into one.
43:43You're worshipping God within a very tight system.
43:46It looks spontaneous, but of course it isn't.
43:48It's got its own rules, it builds up, it dies back.
43:51There are people to help you find your way through it.
43:54They push you even into it.
43:56And it's about healing.
43:58All around you, the power of God is pushing out of a community
44:02which has dressed up to be like you,
44:04to be with you in your time of trouble,
44:07in your everyday boredoms, your frustrations.
44:09You bring them here, you dump them and you dance on them.
44:14DRUMMING
44:38You know, in Africa, or in Ghana, we believe that every sickness
44:42is caused, or is a curse, or is caused by the devil.
44:47So we believe that once the problem is spiritual,
44:51it should be solved spiritually.
44:53And when the music happens, that's part of the healing?
44:56The music invokes the spirit, the Holy Spirit,
44:59to come upon the leaders, or the healers.
45:01And when even the music is going on, some are even healed.
45:05When the music is going on, you hear people shouting,
45:08they are getting healed.
45:10No, they are not touched, but they are getting healed by the music.
45:13And that is why people come to us.
45:15We are always the last to be approached,
45:17the last to be approached and the first to solve their problems.
45:34Local leaders across the continent
45:36led a quite breathtaking growth in this new African Christianity.
45:42From the nine million Christians in Africa in 1900,
45:46there's now more than 380 million.
45:51And half of those are Protestant.
45:59It marks the biggest ever shift in the centre of gravity of Christianity.
46:072,000 years ago, it was in Jerusalem.
46:09Later, Constantinople.
46:11By 1600, it had shifted to Spain.
46:13Today, the midpoint of Christianity is Saharan Africa.
46:17There are as many Christians to the south and east of Timbuktu
46:20as there are to the north and west.
46:26The key to Protestant expansion has been the willingness to change.
46:31This direct, heartfelt encounter with God
46:34started with the Moravians.
46:38It was boosted by Methodism and evangelical revival.
46:43The message swept across America in the Great Awakenings.
46:48And it spread across Africa.
46:51With each new setting came new Protestant churches.
46:55By the 20th century, they even challenged the history of Christianity.
47:00The historic ascendancy of Roman Catholicism in Latin America.
47:07It's taken the number of Christian denominations worldwide
47:10to more than 30,000.
47:13But now it's expanding even further.
47:17And it may be that Protestantism is moving too far
47:21away from the teachings of Jesus.
47:31HONKING HORN
47:44Today, South Korea is a prosperous nation with a thriving economy.
47:50It's hard to imagine that only 60 years ago,
47:53this was a traumatised and impoverished country,
47:56reeling from the effects of Japanese occupation.
48:01Throughout the Japanese occupation,
48:03the churches were prominent in the struggle for freedom.
48:06It meant that Christianity was identified with national suffering
48:09and national pride.
48:11After liberation, it became involved in another struggle,
48:14rebuilding a shattered Korea.
48:19Here, it produced one of the most dramatic success stories
48:22in modern Christian history.
48:24Korean Pentecostalism.
48:31The Yeouido Full Gospel Church
48:33started with five Koreans meeting in a tent.
48:39Now it has over three quarters of a million members worldwide.
48:49The hymns might be in Korean,
48:51but the tunes are straight out of the evangelical revivals.
48:55In fact, Pentecostalism has built on a 19th century
48:59American tradition.
49:01It was called the Holiness Movement.
49:03It harked back to the revivals of Wesley's Methodism.
49:15At its heart is the same emotional side of faith,
49:19the direct personal choice for God.
49:30What's new is that Pentecostals have found God
49:33in a way with very little precedent in Christian history.
49:36They've met the Holy Spirit,
49:38who's often seen as the Cinderella of the Trinity.
49:48The Bible says that 50 days after the death of Jesus,
49:51the Holy Spirit descended upon the world
49:54and made it a place of worship.
49:5650 days after the death of Jesus,
49:58the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles
50:01at the Jewish Feast of Pentecost.
50:05It was a life-changing experience.
50:08The disciples are said to have spoken in tongues,
50:12an unknown but sacred language which all present could understand.
50:17LAUGHTER
50:23They were filled with such energy,
50:25they chose to spread the message of Jesus to the world.
50:30Pentecostals believe present-day Christians
50:33can also receive those gifts of the Spirit.
50:36And that's what you're seeing here today.
50:42But there's another aspect to the success of Korean Pentecostalism,
50:45which is far more controversial.
50:47It's the promise of good fortune and prosperity for believers.
50:52That's been christened, by those who mistrust it,
50:55the Prosperity Gospel.
50:59It came out of the interwar years in America.
51:02Capitalism in the service of Jesus.
51:05American consumer choice for God.
51:08In the past, Protestantism offered hope of eternal salvation,
51:12regardless of problems in the here and now.
51:17In Korea, that assurance has become more immediate.
51:21You no longer need to wait for the hereafter
51:24to reap the benefits of the Christian faith.
51:28Is this one adaptation too far?
51:31That's certainly what I heard from a Korean Presbyterian theologian,
51:35Professor Sung Yun Kim.
51:39It's as simple.
51:42If you go to church and give offering, you'll be blessed.
51:47Your economic success is guaranteed.
51:50So this really is prosperity.
51:52That's right.
51:53Can you see problems in the Bible with this message?
51:56Yes.
51:58It is very hard to a rich man to get into heaven.
52:05You know, from that passage, I think sooner or later,
52:11you are not able to see any Koreans in heaven.
52:16Because, you know, Prosperity Gospel
52:20had a positive contribution during the 1970s and 80s.
52:28It provided a new set of hope.
52:31But nowadays, ordinary Koreans or society think that
52:37Korean Protestants are a little bit selfish
52:41to ask more offerings, bigger churches, bigger buildings.
52:49But people think that that is not the basic tenet of religion.
53:01The Yoedo style of Pentecostalism
53:04has all the glitz of a Hollywood musical from the 1950s.
53:08I was intrigued to meet the man behind the phenomenon.
53:18Pastor David Yonggi Cho is now retired,
53:21but I asked him about his memories of those earlier days.
53:25He said that he was a Christian,
53:28When I went to preach gospel to the poor people,
53:31their suffering was enormous.
53:34And many of them said, we don't need any religion.
53:37If you have such a wonderful heaven,
53:40why don't you give a part of heaven right now here?
53:43We need a real God who helps us.
53:46So I really prayed to God, and I found out that
53:50there is a real God who helps us.
53:54So I really prayed to God, and I found out that
53:57in the redemption of Jesus Christ,
54:00I could find the redemption of spirit, life, and physical body.
54:07Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross,
54:09redeeming us from sin, sickness, and curse.
54:13So I call that triple gospel of Jesus Christ.
54:18And I began to really build up hope in the heart of people
54:22that it is not just a religion beyond death,
54:25but a religion now, here.
54:28And that really moved the heart of people to come to Pentecostal Church.
54:33Does this mean that salvation will always lead to worldly success and wealth?
54:40When they are saved, they stop smoking, they stop drinking,
54:44they begin to save money, they stop gambling,
54:47they don't waste money.
54:48Naturally, by doing that kind of life, they are becoming wealthy.
55:03The Juido congregation is one of the most spectacular faces
55:07of evangelical Protestantism in the 21st century.
55:11So it was interesting that I heard quite a sober tone
55:15in Pastor Cho's reflections on his lifetime of success,
55:20but not actually a rejection of the link between worldly success and salvation.
55:34Korean Pentecostals are doing what Christians have always done,
55:38reflect on a host of voices within the Bible,
55:42and make their own choices.
55:46Is it fair to accuse them of throwing away core values?
55:50On the question of wealth, they'd be entitled to point out
55:53that the New Testament is ambiguous.
55:58Do you reject riches, or work hard and use them well?
56:03Jesus and the Apostle Paul give you different answers.
56:07And Pentecostals may well be a pointer to the Christian future.
56:16At the moment, they look and sound like evangelical Protestants,
56:20but I wonder if that's where they'll stay.
56:25This is a religion blown by the Holy Spirit,
56:28and you never know where that'll end up.
56:30The Spirit doesn't hide in the pages of a book,
56:33even when the book is the Bible.
56:38Protestantism has come a long way since the first Moravian missionaries
56:41were inspired to go out into the world and tell others about their faith.
57:01Protestantism succeeded because it gave a new identity
57:04to people facing new situations.
57:06In the process, it changed as much as its converts.
57:09But as strange things happened,
57:11the Protestant faith now faces its greatest challenge ever,
57:14not from some distant culture, but from the Protestant homeland, Europe.
57:26Today, the mood in Europe seems full of religious indifference.
57:31Not even hostility, just indifference.
57:35In my final episode,
57:37I want to examine what this will mean for the Christian faith.
57:44Why does Christianity, of all major world religions,
57:47question itself in the peculiar fashion of Western Europe?
57:53Should God be worried?
57:55Why not take part in the Open University's online survey,
57:59What Does It Mean To Be A Christian Today?
58:02at bbc.co.uk
58:05slash historyofchristianity
58:07and follow the links.
58:14And Dermot's History of Christianity continues next Thursday at 11 o'clock.
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