In such a flux of ideas, with the Protestant tradition seemingly under internal attack from liberal Protestants, there was naturally a wide variety of approaches, both in philosophy and history. The German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831) proposed that Christianity should be restated as a form of Idealistic philosophy. This view was influential both among German thinkers and Oxford philosophers of later Victorian England. This approach, however, was subjected to critique, the most powerful of which was published by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who argued that philosophy failed to account for the depths and tragedies of human existence. An earlier opinion sought to justify Christianity on the basis of the religious feelings commonly found in humanity. The influential German theologian F.D.E. Schleiermacher (1768–1834) attempted to infer the Christian and biblical system of thought from an examination of human religious experience. Throughout the 19th century the appeal to religious experience was fundamental to liberal Protestant thinking, especially in the attempt to meet the views of modern science. Probably the most important of the successors to Schleiermacher was Albrecht Ritschl (1822–89), who wholly rejected the ideas of Hegel and the philosophers. He distinguished himself sharply from Schleiermacher by repudiating general religious experience and by resting all his thought upon the special moral impact made by the New Testament on the Christian community. Between 1870 and 1918 the Ritschlian school was one of the leading theological schools of Protestant thought.
Meanwhile, scholars made great strides in the study and exposition of the Bible. Freed from the necessity of defending every one of its details as historical truth, university professors put the books of the Bible into a historical setting. German biblical scholars, many of whom were influenced by Hegel, were the first to use the new approach freely. Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860) of the University of Tübingen applied the methods of Hegelian philosophy to the books of the New Testament, which he conceived to be products of the clash between the Jewish Christians led by Peter and the Gentile Christians led by Paul. This theory, known as the Tübingen theory, soon receded in influence; but Baur’s commentary on New Testament texts remained a landmark in the study of the Bible. A number of excellent biblical scholars appeared after Baur, including Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828–89) of Cambridge who demolished the Tübingen theory by showing the later 1st-century origin of most of the New Testament texts. Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930) of Berlin vastly enlarged the understanding of early Christianity. Insisting that the simple message of Jesus had been obscured by church dogma, he defined the essence of Christianity as love of God and neighbour. Harnack’s work also summarized the results of a century that was revolutionary in the area of biblical study. Protestantism since the early 20th century Mainstream Protestantism
World War I broke Europe’s waning self-confidence in the merits of its own civilization and, because it was fought between Christian nations, weakened worldwide Christianity. The seizure of power by a formally atheist government in Russia in 1917 brought negative pressure on Christendom and sharpened the social and working class conflicts of western Europe and the United States. During the following 40 years the Protestant churches in Europe suffered inestimable losses in adherents and formal influence.
In Germany Protestantism faced the challenges of Nazi totalitarianism after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and the tragedy of World War II. For the churches, which had historically been able to count on a neutral, if not benevolent state, this was a new situation. At first Nazi rule was welcomed by many Protestant church leaders and laity, since the Nazis seemed to share the conservative values which the churches also cherished. Quickly points of tension emerged, especially when the government prevented converted (and baptized) Jews from serving as clergy and when a liberal fringe group within German Protestantism, the so-called German Christians (Deutsche Christen) which advocated an Aryan, non-Semitic Christianity, began to enjoy subtle government support. The Confessing Church, a loose association of churchmen led by Martin Niemöller and others, emerged to stand for (or “confess”) the traditional teaching of the church. This opposition prompted the Nazis to withdraw their support from the German Christians by the mid-1930s. During the war Theophil Wurm of Württemberg protested against the government’s inhumane activities, and Pastor Heinrich Grüber, until his arrest, ran the Büro Grüber, which sought to evacuate and protect Jews. Some church leaders, notably the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, paid with their lives for their associations with resistance to the Nazi government. Despite the increasingly obvious character of the Nazi regime, the public protest of the churches against Nazism remained largely confined to issues affecting them directly.
At the end of the war Germany was divided, and Russian armies controlled eastern Europe. Although the situation for Protestant groups in some parts of eastern Europe, including Transylvania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia was less severe, all the churches in the area came under pressure. Most Germans were evacuated or deported from the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. Although Lutheran communities remained there, they were subjected to persecution, especially under the rule of Joseph Stalin. The greatest losses suffered by the Protestant churches were the result of the division of Germany. The settlement between the victorious powers gave large areas of former German-speaking (and largely Lutheran) portions to Poland, and many (approximately 8 million) Germans were expelled; most went to western Germany. East Germany (the German Democratic Republic), occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945, included Wittenberg and most of the original Lutheran homeland and was the sole Marxist country with a largely (70 percent) Protestant population. The Protestant churches were the chief link between East and West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany), and the annual meeting, or Kirchentag, was the single expression of a lost German unity. But construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 stopped this communication and isolated the East German churches. East German Protestants persevered despite governmental financial pressures, restrictions on church-building, and the establishment of the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend), a secular organization that competed for the attention of young people by offering members access to recreational facilities, organized holidays, and higher education. The vigorous way the Protestant churches in East Germany celebrated the 450th anniversary of the Reformation on October 31, 1967, demonstrated their strength in the communist state. The emergence of the peace movement in the German Democratic Republic in the late 1970s and 1980s, which could be seen as an opposition group to the communist regime, took place under the protection of the Protestant churches, and the churches were the rallying points for the demonstrations of 1989 that eventually led to the collapse of the communist regime and the unification of the two Germanies.
In Russia, a deeply Orthodox state before 1917, the Baptist community grew significantly in the generation after the revolution. The flexibility and simplicity of Baptist organization made it more suitable to activity under difficult legal conditions. After Stalin’s death in 1953, there was evidence of rapid advance; but after 1960 the Baptist communities, like Orthodox communities, again came under often severe pressure. The dissolution of the Soviet Union meant greater freedom and a greater public role for the Orthodox church. All the same, the Orthodox church stood behind legislation making missionary work by non-Orthodox churches in Russia virtually impossible.