Entering the 20th c.

From 19th - 20th c.

Fundamentalism

Existentialism's impact

• Bultmann's “left-wing” followers, like the American Schubert Ogden, have concluded that Christianity concerns only the possibility of a new way of existing.
• From both the "left" and the "right" there was a critique of "Americanized" Christianity

American response

Christian Realism (Reinhold Niebuhr)

• Reinhold Niebuhr: Christian realism "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

cf. https://en.wikipedia.md/wiki/Serenity_Prayer

Christ and culture (Richard Niebuhr)

Richard Niebuhr: Christian ethicist: Christ and Culture

• Christ against Culture: For the exclusive Christian, history is the story of a rising church or - Christian culture and a dying pagan civilization.
• Christ of Culture: For the cultural Christian, history is the story of the Spirit's encounter with nature.
• Christ above Culture: For the synthesist, history is a period of preparation under law, reason, gospel, and church for an ultimate communion of the soul with God.
• Christ and Culture in Paradox: For the dualist, history is the time of struggle between faith and unbelief, a period between the giving of the promise of life and its fulfillment.
• Christ Transforming Culture: For the conversionist, history is the story of God's mighty deeds and humanity's response to them.

Evangelical

• United States. Evangelical theology, with a renewed emphasis on the authority and often the literal inspiration of the Bible, also continues to be an important force in American theology, but it has generally reaffirmed the views Charles Hodge and Benjamin B. Warfield developed in the nineteenth century rather than producing new ideas.

Catholic developments

Vatican II was a watershed for the Catholic church. It was both the culmination of developments of the previous century and it set in motion things that changed the Church

• Rahner said that there is a fundamental mystery, a matter of religious faith, at the heart of all human understanding.
• Vatican 2: Pilgrim people: define “the church” not as the hierarchy of pope and bishops but as the whole “Pilgrim People of God.”

• Lonergan: It's all about the method

  The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Gaudium et Spes ¹