Section 19: The Nineteenth Century Part: One

At the end of the previous period, there had grown a wave of materialism and secularization that spread through sectors of European society, followed by strong criticisms of religion. A growing idea that it needed to be combated. The emergence of new religious proposals was being difficult, because materialism was the dominant thought. Important to understand this.

The Old World, Europe, was living a profound transformation in the way of understanding spiritual questions, and the distancing from everything that would make a connection with the religious was gaining proportions. Part of the thinkers and philosophers was very focused on debate, on discussions, on study and on an understanding of reality increasingly distant from religious aspects.

So, in this context of great religious and social transformations, fleeing from this extremely hostile environment into which Europe had transformed itself, the new religious expressions went to find, on the other side of the Atlantic, a safe territory, precisely in the United States, to give birth to many of them. Some, within or starting from Protestantism. With this, a very great missionary wave, of wanting to convert, of evangelizing people, grew a great deal in the New World.

One of the first religious expressions that arose in this period were the Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its founder was Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–1844), born in Sharon, Vermont, who moved with his family to western New York. Still an adolescent, he reported having received a series of divine visions; one of them, later described by him as being a vision of God, the Father, and Jesus Christ, in which he received the divine mission of restoring the Church. On another occasion, he affirmed that an angel called Moroni had appeared to him and indicated the place where gold plates were buried. On these plates, there were inscriptions that Smith called "reformed Egyptian", of ancient inhabitants of the American continent. According to him, he translated the inscriptions of the plates with the gift and intuitive power that he possessed. According to witness reports, also with the help of a seer stone. He published, next, the Book of Mormon.

Thus, the Mormon Church was officially organized on April 6, 1830, in the same year in which the book was published, being considered by its followers a restoration of the primitive Christian Church. The following year, many of its members moved to Ohio and, later, to Missouri and Illinois. But it was in the current state of Utah, after the death of Joseph Smith, in 1844, that a large part of the followers, led by Brigham Young, settled there, and it is where the Church is headquartered. However, it established congregations and built temples around the world.

The greater part of the canon of the Church consists of material that the members believe to have been revealed by God to Joseph Smith. The Church maintains a large missionary program that proselytizes and conducts humanitarian services across the whole planet.

A second doctrine, also important, that arose in this period was the Adventist, or Seventh-day Adventists. William Miller (1782–1849), farmer and member of the Baptist Church, after studying and interpreting the book of Daniel 8:14, came to the conclusion that Jesus would literally return to Earth, precisely around 1843–1844. He created, then, a movement whose followers became known as Millerites, and Miller began to preach his conclusions.

The doctrine grew a great deal, with many adherents, and later incorporated some Jewish practices and precepts. Of all the branches of Christianity, the most Jewish is Adventism: they do not eat pork, they keep the seventh day, which, for them, as for the Jews, begins on Friday night; therefore, Seventh-day Adventists. Also because they await the advent of the Christ.

So, after the failure of the prediction of the return of Christ in 1844, the disappointment, in general, was great. Many followers were disappointed and abandoned the religion. Others resigned themselves and maintained the belief in the second coming of Christ, and some groups redoubled their faith and began to study the Scriptures with more diligence.

This Church was formally made official in 1863, in the state of Michigan, having James White, Ellen White and John Nevins Andrews among its pioneers, expanding globally starting in 1874, when John Nevins Andrews was sent to Switzerland as its first official minister abroad. A highlight for Ellen White, who is recognized for her many writings, considered inspiring by the Adventists.

A person who, from a very young age, was connected with spiritualism, affirmed having received countless visions and dreams from God. In her books, she describes each one of these visions and dreams. Some of her best-known books: The Great Controversy, History of the Church, Steps to Christ and Child Guidance (it has been used as the basis for the Seventh-day Adventist school system).

The Adventists have a very healthy model of life and very committed to Jesus and the Gospel.

Another segment that arose in this period was that of the Jehovah's Witnesses, also in the United States. This new segment attributed great importance to the name of God. In the Hebrew text, this name is presented by four consonants: LUD HE VAV HE (in the Hebrew alphabet there are no vowels). In the Hebrew tradition, out of reverence, this name ceased to be pronounced, being substituted by: Adonai, Javé, Yahweh etc., because, according to rabbis, it is because they are still spiritual children, and children do not know how to join the letters to form the name. And, when they need to write the name of God, with all respect, this is how they write it: D´us.

So, this name that the Jehovah's Witnesses give to God, they consider vital for appropriate worship. It is, also, a personal interpretation of theirs and that leads to a whole set of principles that constitute their doctrine. It is a doctrine, evidently, Christian, that works within this vision, using the Bible as reference and disseminating it.

The Jehovah's Witnesses arose from a group of Bible students, in the decade of 1870, in the region of Pittsburgh, in the state of Pennsylvania, under the leadership of Charles Taze Russell. They wanted to live the Gospel in its essence; they reject the Trinity, the immortality of the soul and eternal torment in hell. There is also no observance of Christmas, Easter, birthdays and other holidays and customs that they consider to have pagan origins and to be incompatible with Christianity. They reject blood transfusion, military service, refuse to salute national flags and are neutral in political questions.

After the death of Russell, the leadership of the group stayed with Joseph Franklin Rutherford. In 1931, after going through significant doctrinal and organizational changes and to differentiate them from other groups of Bible students, it was that the name of Jehovah's Witnesses was adopted. For them, Jesus is son of God, but not part of the Trinity; He is between God and men. The Jehovah's Witnesses are known for their door-to-door evangelization, distributing publications such as The Watchtower, Awake! and mini-bibles.

Another current that arose in this century was that of the Restoration Churches. Within the Methodists and the Baptists, there arose a movement that tried to give a breath of renewal to these doctrines, with the concern for a return to the essence that Christianity possessed. So, we see, within this dynamic, the emergence of groups that had great concern with new ideals of churches, that would return to the Christian principles of the beginning of the centuries, at the beginning of Christianity. The attempt was to restore the original message, known as the Restoration Movement, while the Holiness Movement happened within Methodism.

The intention was to try to give a reinforcement and not allow them to weaken. There were several of these movements with the same purpose and all in the New Continent, although movements of religious renewal also occurred in Europe, where materialism, secularization and philosophical discussions also advanced, weakening faith and provoking the distancing from divine principles.

On the eighth of December of 1854, Pope Pius IX made official the dogma of the Immaculate (without stain) Conception (conceived, generated). He wanted to establish that Mary, from the first instant of her own conception, was preserved from original sin by a singular grace of God. Within the concept of Christendom, specifically for the Catholic Church, the idea is that Jesus would have been conceived in a very singular way. Therefore, there was no effective contact, from the sexual point of view, between Joseph and Mary: he would have been conceived by work of the Holy Spirit, having, for this reason, a divine nature. The conception of Mary, in turn, would have occurred naturally, but she was preserved from original sin.

We know that Mary is venerated under various titles, with records of apparitions in different parts of the planet: Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fátima, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady Aparecida etc., and all are one and the same, only Lady and mother of Jesus. The names are given to her according to the places or cities where the apparitions or the manifestations would have occurred.

On the eleventh of February of 1858, four years after the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, there occurred the first apparition attributed to the Virgin Mary, in a grotto of Massabielle, in Lourdes, in the south of France, seen by Bernardette Soubirous. There were several other apparitions seen by this young woman, between February and July of 1858, in which the saint would have revealed herself to Bernardette saying she was the Immaculate Conception. In one of these apparitions, she asked Bernardette to dig the ground nearby, where she was, and from the place a spring of water sprang up. The place is constantly visited and the water continues to gush. The saint is today known as Our Lady of Lourdes.

Another episode of Marian devotion occurred in Brazil, this time with an image of the saint, which was taken out of the waters of the Paraíba do Sul River, in the state of São Paulo, around October of 1717. Three fishermen, Domingos Garcia, Filipe Pedroso and João Alves, had been fishing for several days in the above-mentioned river, without success. When already close to giving up and, in a last attempt, they cast the net once more, what they caught were not fish, but the body of a small image of Our Lady of the Conception, without the head. They cast the net again and, this time, they pulled up the head of the image, something unusual to happen. The image is of terracotta and of dark color, perhaps for having been a long time at the bottom of the river.

They took the fact as a miracle, because, after casting the nets again, the quantity of fish that they pulled out of the river was enormous; the nets came back full. The devotion kept growing and, at the place where the saint was rescued from the river, they built a small chapel that came to be visited by Brazilians from all over the country, in search of miracles. The saint became known as Our Lady of the Conception Aparecida, or simply, as she is currently venerated, Our Lady Aparecida.

Currently, at the place, the Basilica of Our Lady Aparecida was built, considered the largest Marian church in the world, with capacity for thousands of faithful. Pope John Paul II, when he was on a visit to Brazil, in 1980, solemnly consecrated the Basilica and declared the twelfth of October (it is not certain that this was really the day on which the image was taken out of the river) the day of Our Lady Aparecida. This day declared a national holiday in the country.

A curiosity about this image: it, originally, did not have the mantle nor the crown that characterize it. They began to worship the saint, and the devotion to her kept growing among Brazilians. Among these devotees was also the daughter of Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil at the time, princess Isabel. According to the traditions, the princess would have visited the sanctuary twice. On the first, in 1868, she offered the mantle to the image; and, on the second, in 1888, she offered the golden crown. These visits and offerings are related to requests made by the princess to Our Lady Aparecida to be able to have children. The princess would have, then, received a grace from the saint and, in gratitude, made the offerings. This same princess, on the thirteenth of May of 1888, signed the Golden Law, which abolished slavery in Brazil.

Still in Brazil and in this same period, there was a very difficult page between the Church and the Brazilian Empire. There was a very close relationship between religion and the State, a concept called "Apadroado". The State exercised important attributions in the organization of the Church in Brazil. There was an agreement between them and, in the same way that the pope blessed the monarchs, these same ones chose the bishops and archbishops so that they would be aligned with political power. Thus, there would be a certain harmony between the Church and political power.

As the emperor Dom Pedro II exercised important determinations over the Church, it was he who appointed bishops, decided which of them would go to the parishes that he determined, about the creation of dioceses and even as to the salary they would receive. At this point in history, he did not want to obey certain questions that were presented by the pope and ended up toughening the game.

In consequence of this, two bishops, Dom António de Macedo Costa and Dom Vital, mutinied against the Empire. And they became famous for questioning the Emperor for contradicting the decisions of the Church. They ended up being arrested for not obeying the laws of the State about the Church. This fact generated a very great tension, occurring a rupture between the Church and the Empire.

Between 1869 and 1870, in Saint Peter's Basilica, in Rome, there took place the First Vatican Council (twentieth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church), convoked by the same Pope Pius IX, where the dogmas were made official: "Dei Filius", reestablishing, thus, the foundations of the Catholic faith in the face of the errors of rationalism, of materialism and of atheism; and "Pastor Aeternus", reestablishing the supreme papal infallibility. That is, when the Pontiff pronounces on questions of faith and morals, his word is infallible; what he establishes must be upheld by all Catholics in the whole world.

This century was marked by ideas of a philosophical and economic nature. One of these ideas came from the German philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883) and the Prussian industrial businessman and theorist Friedrich Engels (1820–1895); together they founded the so-called scientific socialism or Marxism. Around 1848, in a period of intense industrialization, in which workers had long hours of exhausting work, with precarious conditions for many and without any labor rights, Marx and Engels led a revolutionary proletarian action, vehemently criticizing industrial capitalism and encouraging a revolution of the workers. They wanted to take the power out of the hands of the factory owners and pass it to the hands of the workers, thus, overthrowing capitalism. They actively insisted that the working class carry out this action, which would end up provoking socioeconomic emancipation. Including using violence, if necessary, and, thus, having better working conditions. Their proposal was one of extremes.

The Church, then, positioned itself: while it defended the rights to private property, it supported the rights and better conditions for the workers. On the fifteenth of May of 1891, pope Leo XIII published the encyclical (letter) "Rerum Novarum" (Of Our Things), as a direct response to the social and labor problems, arising, mainly, from industrialization and from the conflict between capital and labor, generated after the Industrial Revolution.

The proposal of this document was that people, through love, through the search for a better society and so that it would evolve, would become sensitized to the need for sharing, for dividing. And, from this mechanism, which should be natural and not based on a rupture, but, rather, on the living of the Christ, of His proposal of sharing, that society, then, would enter in a slow and gradual way into a new model of society in which inequalities would disappear, to the extent that we lived as if we were brothers.

And this without any type of revolution, because revolution cries out for violence and Jesus never promoted or used violence. The "Rerum Novarum" defended the conciliation between workers and owners according to Christian principles. It is the TRANSFORMED heart of man that will make the necessary changes so that good prevails. Although the "Rerum Novarum" was not forgotten completely, in the following decades, many of the social questions that it had tried to reconcile remained...

After the French Revolution, a new paradigm was sought, a new reference of truth. Religion continued, in a certain way, to exercise influence; however, it no longer had the position of before, it was no longer the one that dictated what to do. So, who would? Thus, it was within this search for the solution, in this sense, that various thinkers arose, offering a proposal of understanding of how men and women and the world itself should govern themselves, now without religion, without God.

The first great name that appeared in this period was the German philosopher and anthropologist Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804–1872), atheist, better known for his 1841 book, The Essence of Christianity. In this work, he argues that God is a projection of the essential attributes of humanity, that religion is a form of self-alienation in which humanity projects its own species essence (its unlimited capacity for reason, love and will) onto a divine being, which it then worships. According to his thought, man created God in his image and likeness, and not the opposite. His great specialty was criticizing religions. His works were decisive for the changes that would happen politically in this period.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) was a German philosopher, whose thought assumed atheistic characteristics. He liked to study the philosophy of religions, of Buddhism, of Hinduism, and found the logic of Christianity beautiful, and his proposal was not one of rupture with religion. What made him an atheist is that he did not like religious practice, the exploitation that often happened in the environment of faith. He is known for his work The World as Will and Representation, where he defines that the engine of the Universe, the foundation of the world, is an irrational force called "will" and that this will is a blind, selfish and insatiable energy that forces us to always desire. And, as the will is never satisfied, life oscillates, like the pendulum, between pain (for not having what it desires) and boredom (after obtaining what it desires). He believed that music offered a temporary relief for the anguish of the will.

His thought was quite different from that of Feuerbach, because the latter understood that religion blinded people and made them slaves. That it was terrible because it made people submit, subjugate themselves before their dictators, their enemies, and that this took away people's fiber. That, in religion, the human being projected onto God his own essential qualities and submitted himself to this being, creating a kind of alienation. For him, everything that referred to the aspects of spirituality were instruments that should be execrated from society. He exercised great influence on the thinkers who came after, particularly on Marx.

Another critic of religions of this period was Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher, philologist, cultural critic, poet and composer. He had a very tormented life and suffered for a long time with serious health problems; however, he was an incredible thinker, who left very interesting contributions, exercising great influence on later thought. He was very harsh in his opinions and much opposed.

He wrote various texts criticizing religions, Christianity, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science. His work Thus Spoke Zarathustra contains, for the second time, the famous phrase: "God is dead"; the first time was in the book The Gay Science. There is also this other statement: "The Churches are the mausoleum where God is buried". He affirmed with this not only that God had died, but that the belief in the Christian God, as the absolute foundation of the morality and the values of society, was in decline. In this book, Nietzsche narrates the trajectory and the teachings of Zarathustra, a philosopher who satirized the Old and the New Testament. In this work, there appears the concept of Übermensch (over-man or superman), giving the idea that we can go beyond the conventional limitations of our human condition, free from moralistic and dogmatic traditions. Übermensch, in its context, refers to an ideal of humanity that transcends conventional conceptions, not as a superior race, but as a more authentic expression of oneself, creating one's own values. Unfortunately, the Nazi regime, later, totally distorted Nietzsche's ideas, making it believed that there should exist a superior race, the Aryan race. He had a very complicated end, after a psychic collapse, living his last years in a state of mental madness, under the care of his sister.

These thinkers characterized this century, in which an enormous number of people kept distancing themselves from religion. There was a very great change in human thought. In the previous period, it was unthinkable that someone would raise their voice against the Church; open criticisms of religion could suffer strong restrictions and persecutions. The Enlightenment thinkers themselves, in the previous period, faced censorship and opposition to their ideas. When they said certain things, they did so with a certain fear, they could not do it so openly. After the French Revolution, when there was the break in political, social and religious relations, people gained the courage to expose their ideas, their thoughts.

In this period, people came to live in a more intense way this desire to break with the spiritual. It was very interesting for the society of the time that there be no possibility that religion would again call the shots in society. It had to be persecuted, it had to be annulled so that man, freed from the webs that religion gave him, could take flight of knowledge and make a beautiful society, which it was imagined that the 20th century would have. However, religion continued very present in the society of this century, including with the emergence of new religious expressions and movements. Man, however materialist he may be, will still discover that the spiritual is an essential part of the integral being...

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was an Austrian neurologist physician and psychoanalyst, atheist of a Jewish family, unbeliever in religion and founder of psychoanalysis, a therapeutic method based on speech and on free association, among others. He revolutionized the way we understand the human mind. He interpreted religion as a human construction related to the need for protection and to the fulfillment of desires. He attributed great importance to sexuality in the formation of personality and of neuroses and considered that the repression of impulses could contribute to psychic conflicts. However, he did not affirm that all psychic disorders had their origin in sexuality.

One of his works, released at the end of this period, Interpretations of Dreams, was published in 1899. In it, he developed his theory about dreams and deepened his conception of the unconscious. In his first formulation of the psychic apparatus, he distinguished the unconscious, preconscious and conscious systems. Further on, he developed a second formulation based on the id, ego and superego. He lived in a period of very great rise of materialism and of positivism, which propelled us in the direction of disbelief.

Historical-dialectical materialism is a historical conception, a method of analysis of society associated with Marx and Engels, which seeks to understand the transformations of society itself. Materialism: the base of society is the economy; the way in which human beings produce their sustenance defines politics, laws and culture. Historical: the Churches structures of society change with time. From slavery we passed to feudalism and, next, to capitalism. Dialectic: the internal oppositions and the conflicts between exploiters and exploited generate changes in reality, provoking, with this, social transformations. Such a method is one of the bases of Marxism.