At the beginning of the 20th century, there was great optimism in some parts of Christendom

that modern science, communication, deeper cultural understanding, and a global network of missionaries,

as well as a more enlightened and tolerant Christendom, had brought the world to the threshold of something revolutionary.

One sign of this optimism is an American magazine, founded in 1884 as the Christian Oracle.

In 1900, flush with anticipation over what the coming hundred years would bring, it bravely renamed itself.

It has been known ever since as the Christian century.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Music The

The Episode 13, The Christian Century

Century.

Docturninal disputes within Christianity are nothing new.

If you've listened to the History of Rome podcast, or the History of Byzantium podcast, for instance,

you know that there have been doctrinal disputes among Christians for as long as there have been Christians.

You also know that doctrinal disputes don't stay contained within the church. They tend to overflow and affect the

broader course of history. For example, you can't talk about the history of Byzantium without

talking about monophicism. Of course, you have to spend a lot of time straining your brain to understand

what monophicism is, and then strain even harder to grasp why such a subtle theological point

meant so much to so many people that they would rend an empire over it. But they did rend an empire

over it, and so we have to understand the dispute in order to understand

the history.

This is no less true in the 20th century than it was in the 6th, and the 20th century doctrinal

dispute that I want to examine today is the nature and authority of Scripture.

At the root, the reason why Christianity comes with so many doctrinal disputes is that the

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