This is a collection of documents on church-state relations in modern history. All material is associated with the evolution of the post-Reformation churches - Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox - in their relationship to the simultaneously developing moder

Fatima, war, Vatican II, St. John Paul II, and the clerical sex abuse crisis: These are just a few of the people and events that helped define the Catholic Church in the modern era. In The Church and the Modern Era (1846–2005), author David Wagner explores how the Church maintained its core beliefs while meeting the challenges of the industrial age, world wars, the sexual revolution, and technological advancement in an increasingly secular world. The “modern era” of the Catholic Church began with the election of Blessed Pius IX in 1846 and ends with the death of St. John Paul II in 2005, the last pope to have served as a council father at Vatican II. With monarchies falling, nation-states rising, and industrialization and mass migration underway, the world changed more during this period than any other, Wagner contends. While the Church may feel more user-friendly and less formal than ever before, what we believe has been handed down from the beginning. Wagner reintroduces you to some of the era’s most powerful examples of virtue and faith such as St. John Henry Newman, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Josephine Bakhita, St. Faustina, and St. Maximillian Kolbe. He will also dispel some of the long-held misconceptions about the Church that span the 160-year period. In this book, you will learn: The Catholic Church is the world’s most powerful advocate for workers, the poor, and human rights. The Church’s social teaching does not endorse any economic or political systems. The Second Vatican Council did not change Catholic teaching on faith or morals. The Church has been an advocate for raising the status of women, championing women’s rights to education, to work, and to equal pay. Books in the Reclaiming Catholic History series, edited by Mike Aquilina and written by leading authors and historians, bring Church history to life, debunking the myths one era at a time.

"Women in Christianity in the Modern Age examines the role of women in Christianity in the 20th and early 21st Centuries. This edited volume includes eight important contributions from academics in the field. The modern era has been an age of social and religious upheaval, and the ravages of global warfare and changes to women's role in society have made the examination of the place of women in religion a key question in theology. From theological concerns - engagements with the biblical texts by feminist and anti-feminist theologians, the modern role of Mary and women saints - to political and social debates on women's ministry and place in society, and cultural shifts as expressed through theologically inspired artwork by women, Women in Christianity in the Modern Age provides an overview and in-depth studies of a tumultuous and changing era. This insightful text will be of key interest to students and scholars in Religion and Cultural Studies"--

Gaudium et Spes, Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, marked fundamental shifts in ethical methodology, in how we do ethics in the Catholic tradition, and in how we think about ethical and ecclesial issues in the Catholic Church in the modern world. On the document’s fiftieth anniversary, this book explores the historical origins of Gaudium et Spes, its impact on the Church’s ecclesial self-understanding, and its implications for doing Catholic theological ethics for the specific ethical issues of marriage, social justice, politics, and peacebuilding.The book engages in the ongoing communal discernment of the aggiornamento sought by the council’s convener, Pope John XXIII, seeking to bring the Church up to date in the twenty-first century.

Given the diversity and complexity of developments in the twentieth century, a history of the Christian Church in the modern period is in some ways the most challenging volume of all to write. But Jeremy Morris succeeds in presenting a coherent account of the Church. He emphasises the changing relationship of Western churches to the many forms of Christianity in other parts of the world, while also departing from the Eurocentric worldview of previous histories. His volume offers three major perspectives. The first is political, in which the history of the modern Church is assessed through a prism of international conflicts and international relations. The second perspective is regional, in which coverage is given not only to Europe and the Americas, but to Christianity in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific Rim and Australasia. The author's third major perspective is institutional, in which he discusses particular Christian traditions and their relationships with each other, with other faiths and with wider cultures. An epilogue evaluates the future and prospects for Christianity in the new millennium.

The years 1450-1650 were a momentous period for the development of Christianity. They witnessed the age of Reformation and Counter-Reformation: perhaps the most important era for the shaping of the faith since its foundation. C Scott Dixon explores how the ideas that went into the making of early modern Christianity re-oriented the Church to such an extent that they gave rise to new versions of the religion. He shows how the varieties and ambivalences of late medieval theology were now replaced by dogmatic certainties, where the institutions of Christian churches became more effective and 'modern', staffed by well-trained clergy. Tracing these changes from the fall of Constantinople to the end of the Thirty Years' War, and treating the High Renaissance and the Reformation as part of the same overall narrative, the author offers an integrated approach to widely different national, social and cultural histories. Moving beyond Protestant and Catholic conflicts, he contrasts Western Christianity with Eastern Orthodoxy, and examines the Church's response to fears of Ottoman domination.