Studying the History of Christianity also makes it easier for us to understand some non-religious events, but which, in a certain way, are connected. We have seen that Christianity, the Monarchy and the State, throughout the centuries, have always been side by side, with their movements of destruction, deconstruction and persecution of ideas contrary to those that were considered as absolute truth.

As we approach the current century, the events and the search for information become easier. Also in terms of details, the study becomes richer, for we have better records of past events and much more abundant documentation.

This period became known as the Century of Lights, in which the great movement of the Enlightenment conquered the masses. It defended reason as the principal guide to knowledge. Further ahead, we will "shipwreck" in this event.

Until then, Christianity, in a first moment, had closed itself inside a "shell", and everything that was contrary to it needed to be destroyed. From the Protestant Reformation, which occurred in the previous period, the hegemony of Christianity was broken, causing various Protestant segments to arise. With this, something that did not exist before began to occur within Christianity: a diversity of thoughts.

In this century, with the practice of free interpretation and the possibility of creating new religious segments, this rupture was consolidated once and for all. From then on, we would witness the proliferation of religious doctrines, all Christian, but with interpretations permitted and accepted within a new social reality.

A movement that arose in this period, as a revival within the Anglican Church, was the Methodist Church. This movement began in England through a group of prayer and study at the University of Oxford, led by pastor and theologian John Wesley (1703–1791), his brother Charles Wesley (1707–1788) and the Anglican minister George Whitefield (1714–1770). They became notable for their open-air preaching.

The fundamental purpose of the Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, prioritizing personal conversion, the intimate and daily relationship with God through prayer, the reading of the Bible and spiritual discipline. Later, the movement migrated to the United States, where it spread and became very strong.

The Methodist Church has as its principal symbol the cross, which represents the centrality of Christ, His sacrifice and the relationship of the human being with God through death and resurrection; and the flame, which represents the presence and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

The Methodist Church is today one of the largest Protestant branches in the world, counting more than eighty million baptized members, spread throughout more than one hundred countries and present on all continents, having its greatest concentration in the United States.

Another movement that appeared in the previous period, but that gained greater strength in this century, was that of the Jesuits. The work that they carried out in Brazil stands out. When they came here, the objective was to combat the expansion of Protestantism; it was necessary to oppose this growth.

The Catholic Church then established a work of catechesis directed toward people and, mainly, toward the indigenous people, before the Protestants arrived and took the souls to Protestantism. This was the initial idea behind the coming of the Jesuits to Brazil. However, they fell in love with the mission that had been entrusted to them. They did not only convert the indigenous people to a new religion: they did much more than that. They fell in love with the souls of the indigenous people and built, in South America — not only in Brazil, but also in other regions —, a great work of education.

Wherever they arrived, they built schools and developed catechesis. They ended up becoming the great educational reference of Brazil in this century, for those who taught, fundamentally, were the Jesuits, the pioneers of formal education.

The schools were built in the shape of the letter "C". Thus, when the children went out to the courtyard, during the break, the priests could supervise them with ease. It was a Jesuit pedagogical technique.

With this, they promoted a very great advancement not only in the area of education, but also in catechesis. They began to see in the indigenous people the possibility of the construction of a new Christian society, free from the impurities that existed in Europe.

And they succeeded. It was precisely there that the conflicts began.

They built an admirable society, where everyone shared everything and lived in true community. They chose an indigenous village and taught planting, harvesting and production techniques that were very advanced for the time. They developed skills so that the indigenous people could produce without depending on bosses or slavery; they worked for pleasure.

They also taught art, music, the chants of the Church and how to play musical instruments. They truly created an almost utopian society within the regions where Brazil and Argentina are today. It was a magnificent work.

The most impressive thing is that they produced more than the Portuguese and Spanish themselves. The productivity of the farms administered by the indigenous people was superior to that of the other properties, because they worked with freedom and harmony. Thus, they managed to sell their products for lower prices. They did not cultivate the "dream of profit"; they simply wanted to live. The Jesuits even came to develop agricultural techniques that were very advanced for the time.

But, as almost always happens, jealousy and discomfort grew within the Portuguese Crown. In the view of the Crown, the Jesuits were moving away from their original mission, which would be only to catechize. They were creating a true State within the State and, soon, they could even become independent, for they possessed their own rules, laws and culture. They even took this knowledge to territories colonized by the Spanish.

They also fought slavery, and this was extremely serious for the Crown, which, in that period, turned a blind eye to the enslavement of the indigenous people. It did not take long for conflicts to arise between the Jesuits and the Portuguese Crown, which united with the Spanish Crown. Together, they applied pressure and managed to expel the Jesuits from South America.

Thus ended one of the most beautiful educational works in the history of America.

Another natural event came to increase the decision of the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns to expel the Jesuits. It happened in 1755, precisely on the first day of November, All Saints' Day. It was one of the greatest catastrophes in the history of Portugal.

An extremely violent earthquake, with an estimated magnitude between 8.7 and 9.0 on the Richter scale, followed by a tsunami of great proportions, devastated the city of Lisbon, flooded the Tagus River and caused destructive fires, because of the candles lit in the churches and the stoves in the houses that fell as a consequence of the earthquake.

According to historians, the number of victims varied between thirty thousand and ninety thousand in Lisbon alone, besides many others in southern Portugal, Spain and Morocco.

Under the leadership of Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, the Marquis of Pombal, the city of Lisbon was rebuilt through an innovative urban plan that was pioneering in Europe, with anti-seismic engineering structures. To pay for this reconstruction, the Marquis of Pombal increased the taxes charged to the colonists in Brazil.

In this period, the economic and political situation of Brazil worsened. The Jesuits did not want to collaborate, for they did not consider it fair that the indigenous people had to pay for something that had happened on the other side of the Atlantic. They positioned themselves politically against the intensity of the taxes that began to be charged, increasing even more the discomfort of the Marquis of Pombal in face of the position of the Jesuits.

Then, adding all these factors together, the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns decided to expel the Jesuits from South America. They were removed from the lands that they had developed together with the indigenous people, who also lost the right to remain on them. They were expelled and returned to the forests.

When this happened, an enormous educational void was established in Brazil. Who would, from then on, teach? The Jesuits possessed a very great humanistic and educational wealth. Who would take over the schools? There was a profound setback in education, for there were no teachers nor people sufficiently prepared to continue the work begun by the Jesuits.

There was also a civilizational setback in the country. With the removal of the Jesuits, the Guarani tribe, which had already reached a high level of social organization, forming a more balanced society and, in many aspects, superior to the colonial organization itself, was left without anyone to continue its process of formation.

The Portuguese Crown destroyed all the installations and cities that they had built, expelling them. The white man came to represent a true disgrace for those peoples, so much so that they stopped approaching the colonizers.

There was, thus, the deconstruction of this civilizational proposal implemented by the Jesuits. An entire magnificent work was destroyed by the opportunistic greed that predominated in that period.

The history of Brazil, mainly, perhaps could have had a much happier outcome, if the Jesuits had not been torn from their Brazilian lands. Were it not for selfishness and pride, still so present in the human being.

With the emergence of the colonies in the New Continent, manpower was necessary for manual labor. In this period, the Great Navigations were at their height and the slave trade intensified. Thousands of Africans were forcibly removed from their countries and taken as slaves to the New Continent.

Slavery reached enormous proportions in the Portuguese colony. So much so that Charles Darwin, when he passed through Brazil, was deeply horrified by the slavery that existed here. He recorded in his diary: "Thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country."

In this period occurred one of the first great abolitionist movements. Religiosity was growing in England and, inspired by its own teachings, began to position itself against slavery.

Great pastors began to arise defending the idea that every human being is born free. One of them was John Newton (1725–1807), Anglican clergyman and composer of hymns.

In his youth, Newton had been captain of slave ships, participating directly in the slave trade. After facing a violent storm on the high seas, in 1748, when he almost sank and cried out for the mercy of God, he definitively abandoned the slave trade and became an Anglican pastor. He had experienced a profound conversion.

He related this transformation — from slave trader to man saved by the grace of God — when composing the lyrics of the celebrated hymn "Amazing Grace."

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) was an influential British politician, philanthropist and abolitionist leader. He became one of the most important figures of this movement in defense of human rights.

He became known worldwide for leading the parliamentary campaign that resulted in the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire, a measure approved shortly before his death, in 1833.

These enlightened ones continue to be sent to the planet to teach us the way, the truth and the life.