Recently I wrote a piece about how the secular developments in the Roman Empire, viz a viz the reign of Constantine, opened the way for the development of the Christian faith as we have come to know it. Now I would like to discuss yet another time when this dynamic played a crucial role, namely with the invention of the printing press by one Mr. Gutenberg around 1500. This invention enabled those who were now in charge of translating the Bible to print numerous copies of it for wide distribution.
Thus, when Martin Luther, in 1517, triggered the Protestant Reformation, which brought the Bible to play a central role in the transformation of Western society, Gutenberg’s secular invention came to play a central role. Now lay people could read the Bible, which was translated into German and French as well as English. This single secular invention opened the way for the plethora of Protestant denominations with which we are familiar today to populate geometrically.
First, of course, there were Lutherans, following the criticisms and insights of young Martin Luther, followed by what we call Episcopalians, the Church of England initiated by King Henry the 8th so he could divorce his wife and marry another, one Anne Boleyn. There was also John Calvin, who held forth in Geneva and not only spread his version of the Christian Faith throughout Western Europe but helped it be imported to the Americas largely as Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, and Methodists.
At the same time fresh interpretations of the Christian faith were being introduced by what are today called “Anabaptist” traditions, including Baptists, Methodists, and Congregationalists. This tradition has been labelled “Anabaptist” because by and large its followers practiced adult baptism rather than infant baptism. “Ana” is the Greek word for “again”, meaning that even if a child had been baptized by some more traditional Church, it would need to be baptized again when it was old enough to know what it was doing.
When this tradition reached the Americas, it quickly spread all over both continents, through revivalist movements and missionary-minded explorers. Over the decades the Roman Catholic Church continued to spread as well, especially among recent immigrants who had brought their faith with them from Europe. Then, around 1900 in a small congregation in Southern California the Pentecostal version of the Christian Church, involving the speaking in ecstatic tongues, came into being. This brand of the Christian Faith spread throughout denominations both North and South America.
While the denominations named in the first part of this piece have remained as the dominant versions of the Christian Faith in the Americas, those mentioned more recently above have spread and grown the fastest. The former, more formal denominations have established themselves with strong hierarchical organizations and involvements in the political and cultural life of their respective nations, while the latter have generally bypassed such concerns, remaining largely independent while out-numbering the more traditional denominations in membership.
In more recent decades an off-spring of the main line denominations has arisen, namely the contemporary phenomenon of the “Mega-Church.” These are huge, independent congregations which embrace people from all traditions who have largely given up on the standard denominations. These independent churches have no denominational ties and have congregations of many thousands. They are usually focused around a particular charismatic personality.
This mega-church movement is limited almost exclusively to North America, tend to be very rich, and are generally very conservative politically and culturally.