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The church’s own painful history of internal division—and even violence (such as the ongoing Northern Ireland conflict, civil war in the Balkans, and Arab-Israeli unrest in the Middle East)—made a clear word of faith difficult to hear. Theologians helped the church embrace increasingly bold resistance to totalitarianism, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s struggle against the Nazis and his stinging rejection of "cheap grace." The struggle of many others against evil for the sake of God’s kingdom. All these events heralded a church that was to be an instrument of justice. The Church couldn’t pretend, as Robert Browning wrote, "God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world." Nor could it serve well as private chaplain or spiritual smorgasbord for the casually interested. The first half of the century saw a reassertion of ethnic and denominational religious ties along with a reassertion of orthodoxy that paralleled a growing influence of social ministry. By century’s end, an ecumenical openness for mission was evident in the face of wide-spread secularism.
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The
combination of 20th-century revolutions, fascism, communism,
the Holocaust, oppressive colonialism, and societal injustice presented
major challenges to the Church. Did it have a credible voice to oppose
violence and oppression, injustice and moral compromise—particularly
because of its own complicity during the world wars? 