Chapter 49 Part II Results Chapter 12 Ideology: Religion 2

2 In numbers alone, it is evident that all religions, except those which are actually shrinking, are likely to increase with population.During the period under review, however, two religions displayed a particularly strong capacity for expansion: Islam and Protestant sectarianism.Although the missionary activities of other Christians (Catholic and Protestant) increased dramatically outside Europe and were increasingly supported by European military, political and economic expansion forces, they suffered obvious failures. The failure of the latter is even more striking.In fact, during the years of the French Revolution and the reign of Napoleon, systematic Protestant missionary activities were carried out under the leadership of the Anglo-Saxons.Baptist Missionary Society (1792), London Missionary Society (1795), Church Missionary Society (1799), British and Foreign Bible Society (British and Foreign Bible Society, 1804), were all recognized by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1810), American Baptists (American Baptists, 1814), Wesleyans (1813- 1818), the American Bible Society, the Church of Scotland (1824), the United Presbyterian Church (1835), the American Methodist Episcopal Church (1819), and others followed.Despite pioneers such as the Netherlands Missionary Society (1797) and the Basel Missionary Order (1815), Protestants on the Continent were somewhat behind in developing missionary activity.Religious societies in Berlin and the Rhine Valley did not start until as late as the 1820s, in Sweden, Leipzig, and Bremen in the 1830s, and in Norway until 1842.The Roman Catholic Church, whose missionary activity has always been sloppy, recovered even later.The reason why Christianity and trade flooded into pagan areas is not only related to the religion and society of Europe and the United States, but also related to its economic history.We suffice here to note that by 1848 its results were still insignificant, except in certain Pacific islands like Hawaii.It is only found in Sierra Leone (Sierra Leone, which attracted much attention in anti-slavery propaganda in the 1790s) and Liberia (founded here by freed American slaves in the 1820s) on the coast of Africa. There are few footholds.Around the European settlements of South Africa, missionaries abroad (but not the established Anglican and Dutch Protestant churches) had begun to convert certain numbers of Africans.But when the famous missionary and explorer David Livingstone sailed into the interior of Africa in 1840, the continent's native people were virtually untouched by any form of Christianity.

In contrast to the case of Christianity, Islam at this time was continuing its slow, silent but irreversible expansion.Behind this expansion there was no organized proselytizing effort and the military backing of forced conversions that has always been a hallmark of Islamic proselytizing.It did, however, spread eastward to Indonesia and northwestern China, westward from Sudan to Senegal, and, to a much lesser extent, inland from the coast of the Indian Ocean.When traditional societies change something as radical as religion, it is clear that they must face some major new problems.The Muslim merchants who monopolized and flourished Africa's foreign trade helped to bring Islam to the attention of new nations.The slave trade, which disrupted tribal life, made Islam all the more attractive as a powerful tool for recoiling the social fabric.At the same time, the religion created by Muhammad was also extremely attractive to the semi-feudal Sudanese military society; and its unique sense of independence, belligerence and superiority made it an effective force against slavery .Muslim blacks were usually unruly slaves.The African Haussa (and other Sudanese) imported into Brazil rebelled a total of nine times during the Great Revolt of 1807-1835, and in fact, until most of them were killed or sent back to Africa, they The rebellion ceased.Since then, slave traders have learned to avoid importing slaves from these newly opened slave trade areas.

While the Islamic world of Africa had little (almost nothing) resistance to whites, Islam was decisive in the tradition of resistance in Southeast Asia.In the Spice Islands of Southeast Asia, Islam (again pioneered by merchants) had already made headway against local religions and the declining Hinduism, and its success was largely due to its role as an effective weapon against the Portuguese and Dutch. Means represent a kind of pre-nationalism and a kind of people's counterweight to Hindu princes and nobles.As these princes became increasingly dependent or agents of the Dutch, the roots of Islam among the people deepened.Conversely, the Dutch also knew that with the cooperation of Islamic teachers, Indonesian princes could launch a general popular uprising, as in the Javanese War (1825-1830) launched by the Prince of Djogjakarta. an example.So they were forced time and time again to fall back on a policy of close alliance with local rulers or indirect rule.At the same time, with the growth of trade and shipping, the Muslims in Southeast Asia were more closely connected with Mecca, which not only contributed to the increase in the number of pilgrims, but also made Indonesian Islam more orthodox, and even allowed it to accept Arab Islam. The militant and revivalist influence of Wahhabiism.

The reformation and revival movements within Islam which, during the period covered by this book, endowed the religion with much of its popular power, may be seen as a reflection of the shock.The force of the shock came from the expansion of Europe, but also from the crisis of the ancient societies of Islam (especially the Turkish and Persian empires), and perhaps the deepening crisis of the Chinese empire. In the middle of the 18th century, the strictly disciplined Wahhabi sect emerged in Arabia. In 1814, they had conquered all of Arabia and were about to enter Syria. Although they were finally blocked by the combined forces of Ali, the ruler of Egypt who was westernizing, and the Western army, their teachings had spread eastward to Persia, Afghanistan, and India.An Algerian saint, Ali el Senussi, inspired a similar movement inspired by Wahhabism, which gradually spread from Tripoli to the Sahara from the 1840s.Abdul Kadir in Algeria and Shamir in the Caucasus each launched religious-political movements against the French and Russians (see Chapter 7) that heralded the birth of a pan-Islamism that sought not only Returning to the original purity of the Prophet's era, it also attempted to absorb Western innovations.In Persia, an even more pronounced nationalist and revolutionary heresy arose in the 1840s in the Bab movement led by Ali Muhammad.One of the attempts of the movement is to restore some ancient Persian Zoroastrian customs and require women not to wear veils.

From the perspective of purely religious history, the turbulent expansion of Islam in 1789-1848 was enough to make this period be positioned as a worldwide Islamic revival.No similar mass movement took place in any other non-Christian religion, although towards the end of this period the great Taiping Rebellion was imminent, in which we can see many of the features of a religious mass movement .The small-scale religious reform movements under the rule of the big powers first launched attacks in British India, the most famous of which was the Brahmo Samaj movement of Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833).In the United States, defeated Indian tribes began to launch religious social movements against whites, such as the Indian Union War under the leadership of Tecumseh in the first decade of the 19th century, and the Hansen Lake (Handsome Lake) religious movement ( 1799).The former was the largest Union war ever fought by the Plains Indians; the latter was to preserve the life of the Iroquois from the destruction of white society.Jefferson, who was almost untouched by the Enlightenment, deserved much credit for supporting with official force the Indian prophet who had adopted some Christian, especially Quaker, qualities.However, there is still not enough direct contact between advanced capitalist civilizations and animistic peoples to produce the typical prophetic and millennial movements of the 20th century.

Unlike the case of Islam, the expansionary movement of Protestant sectarianism was almost entirely confined to the advanced capitalist countries.The extent of this cannot be measured, since some of these movements (such as German Pietism or English Evangelicalism) still exist within the framework of established state churches.However, its scale is beyond doubt. In 1851, almost half of the Protestants in England and Wales attended religious services other than those of the Church of England.This extraordinary triumph of the various sects is largely a natural consequence of the development of religion since 1790, or more precisely since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1790 there were only 59,000 communicative members of the British Wesleyan order, but in 1850 the number of members of the order and its various branches was almost ten times that number.In America, a very similar process of mass conversion also increased the number of Baptists or Wesleyans, and to a lesser extent Presbyterians, all by weakening the previously dominant at the expense of the church. In 1850, almost three-quarters of the American church belonged to these three denominations.The disintegration of the state church and the emergence and rise of various sects also characterized this period in the religious history of Scotland (the "Great Crash" of 1843), the Netherlands, Norway, and other countries.

The reasons for the geographical and social constraints of Protestant sectarianism are obvious.It is impossible for a Roman Catholic state to provide space and tradition for public denominations.Locally, dissociation from the state church or dominant religion is likely to take the form of a mass de-Christianization (especially among men) rather than a form of sectarian secession (in contrast, Protestantism in Anglo-Saxon countries Anti-clericalism is often the exact equivalent of atheist anti-clericalism in continental European countries).Revivalism thus tended to employ some form of sensual worship, or some form of miracle-working saints or pilgrimages, within the accepted framework of Roman Catholicism.One or two of these saints were well known at the time of this book, such as the Curé d'Ars (Cure d'Ars, 1789-1859), France.The Greek Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe is more suitable for sectarianism. In Russia, a backward society that has gradually collapsed since the late 17th century, a large number of sects have already emerged.Some of these are products of the late 18th century and the Napoleonic period, such as the Skoptsi, the Ukrainian Doukhobors, and the Molokens; others date from the 17th century, such as the "Old Believers".However, on the whole, most of the classes appealing to such sectarianism are petty craftsmen, merchants, commercial farmers, and other bourgeois pioneers, or awakened peasant revolutionaries. The number of these classes is still not large enough to produce a A massive sectarian movement.

In Protestant countries the situation is different.These were the countries most impacted by commercial and industrial society (at least in Britain and the United States) and where sectarian traditions were well established.Protestantism's exclusivity and insistence on personal communication between man and God, as well as its moral seriousness, attracted or taught budding entrepreneurs and small proprietors.And its harsh hell condemnation and simple personal salvation theory attracted those who lived a hard life in harsh environments-pioneers and sailors, small farmers and miners, exploited artisans and so on.Such denominations are easily transformed into a democratic and egalitarian representation of the faith, and because they have no social or religious hierarchy, they are quite attractive to ordinary people.With its abhorrence of red tape and esoteric teachings, it gave rise to amateur prophecies and sermons.The long millennial tradition helps to show social rebellion in an original way.In the end, it went hand in hand with an intensely personal "conversion," and together it paved the way for an impassioned mass religious "revival."In it, men and women can find a welcome relief from the repressions of a society that has failed to provide any new outlets for mass emotions, and has even destroyed old ones.

The greatest influence of the "Renaissance Movement" is to promote the spread of sects.The impetus for the revival and expansion of Protestant heresy came from John Wesley (John Wesley, 1703-1791) and his followers, who had a strong emotional color and believed in irrational personal salvation, at least in Britain.For this reason, new sects and trends of this kind were originally very apolitical, even (like the Wesleyans) very conservative, since they advocated separation from the evil external world and turned to individual salvation or a group life of self-repression. That is, they resist collective change in their secular arrangements.Their "political" energy is generally used in moral and religious aspects, such as promoting overseas missions, opposing slavery, and promoting abstinence from alcohol.Politically active during the American Revolution and the French Revolution.The radical denominations were mostly the earlier, more serious and calmer heretic and Puritan groups.They are the remnants of the seventeenth century, whose claims either stagnated or, under the influence of eighteenth-century rationalism, moved toward an intellectual deism—Presbyterian, Congregational, Unitarian, Quaker —Closer.Sectarianism, in the form of the new Wesleyan Church, was counter-revolutionary, and some even mistakenly believe that England's escape from the flames of revolution in the period under consideration was due to the development of such counter-revolutionary sects.

However, the social characteristics of these new denominations made it difficult for their theological theories to be divorced from the world.They spread fastest in the middle ground between the wealthy and the aristocracy and the traditional commoners, such as those on the verge of rising to the middle class, or those on the verge of falling into the proletariat, and all kinds of humble but independent people in between. the masses.The political attitudes of these people are basically inclined to Jacobin or Jeffersonian progressiveism, or at least a moderate middle-class liberalism.Therefore, "Nonconformism" in Britain (Nonconformism) and the popular Protestant churches in the United States tended to adopt a left-wing political stance, although the Wesleyans in the United Kingdom did not end in 1848 and ended in 1848. Only after the crisis did it formally abandon the royalist stance of its founder.

Only among those who are extremely poor or have suffered great shocks do we see the early rejection of the existing world.But there is often a primordial revolutionary repulsion in the form of millennial prophecies, and post-Napoleonic sufferings that seem (in line with the Apocalypse) to herald the imminent end of the world.The British Irvingites announced that the end will come in 1835-1838; Miller (William Miller), the founder of the American "Seventh Day Adventists" (Seventh Day Adventists), predicted that the end will come in 1843-1844 At that time, it is said that 50,000 people will follow him and 3,000 preachers will support him.This millennial doctrine was especially agitated in those areas of stable small individual agriculture and small business that were directly impacted by the capitalist economy, such as upstate New York.Its most dramatic outgrowth was the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), founded by the prophet Joseph Smith.After receiving his revelation near Palmyra, New York in the 1820s, Smith led a large group of his followers in search of a distant kingdom of heaven, and finally took them into the Utah desert. It is also usually in such groups that the collective frenzy of mass evangelistic meetings holds the greatest appeal, whether because the meetings relieve their hard, monotonous lives ("The evangelistic meeting sometimes takes the place of entertainment when no other status', one woman said of the girls in the Essex mills), or that religious collectivity creates a temporary community among disparate individuals.Religious revivalism in its modern form is a product of the American frontier. The Great Awakening unfolded in Appalachia around 1800 and featured grand "camp rallies" and unimaginable carnival enthusiasm.At one camp meeting at Kane Ridge, Kentucky (1801), a crowd of 10,000 to 20,000 was assembled under the leadership of 40 priests.Devotees of both sexes "wiggled" and danced to the point of exhaustion, and thousands were in a state of ecstasy, "talking with their tongues" or barking like dogs.The sense of alienation in remoteness and the harsh natural and social environment promoted this type of religious revival movement, and the wandering priests brought it to Europe, because it led to the separation of proletarian democrats from the Methodist sect after 1808 (the so-called Proto-Wesleyans), miners, small farmers in the north of England, fishermen of the North Sea.This faction is particularly popular among hired laborers and domestic workers in central China.Religious fanaticism of this kind has sprung up periodically during the period in question - in South Wales, for example, in 1807-1809, 1828-1830, 1839-1842, 1849, 1859. Explosions—and the various sects are also growing rapidly in number.This phenomenon cannot be attributed to any single hair breaking factor.Some are coincidences of sharp periods of intense turmoil (which coincided, with one exception, with several peaks of Wesleyan extravagance during the period under consideration), but also coincidences with rapid recoveries after depressions, and occasionally, It can also be stimulated by social disasters like the cholera plague.Such catastrophes have produced similar religious phenomena in other Christian countries.