Religion without WW1

What strength Christianity has in Africa, India, Indonesia, and China today is largely a post-decolonization phenomenon to the extent that Christianity transitioned from being the religion of the colonizer to the religion of some of the people.

To some degree - but there is a danger in overstating it.

Some numbers here help make this point. Subsaharan Africa had about 1 million Catholics in 1900. By 1960 - when decolonization was just getting underway in earnest - this number had surged to over 30 million. Today, it's about 200 million.

The post-1960 surge is certainly impressive, but it represented an extension of a big growth curve already in place. Independence, and the establishment of indigenously administered local churches (which the Vatican worked to put rapidly in place in the 1950's and 1960's) certainly accelerated evangelization in many areas.

Of course, both pre- and post-1960 growth owed a great deal to simple population growth. It's also true, however, that evangelization was aided by the establishment of infrastructure in these areas, during colonial rule and after. It's hard to evangelize people you cannot even travel to meet.

I am less familiar with Protestant/evangelical data here, so I don't want to generalize this to them overly.
 
Israel still could exist. A lot of Protestant sects in Britain and America supported and funded the creation of Israel.

Doubtful. First, Zionism was a fringe movement in Judaism before the Holacaust. There are still large segments of the Jewish community that want nothing to do with it- a surprisingly large number of whom live in Israel/West Bank today. Basically, the reasoning is that the Messiah would bring the Jews home and the Zionists weren't the Messiah

The Christian Zionist movement is quite recent- mostly post 1967 and limited to Protestant Churches. They are almost all Millenialists and Mellenialism is heresy in Catholicism


Hard to say if Christianity could keep its hold on society but we can probably safely butterfly away the anti-Christian, anti-religion policies of the Communists
 
Doubtful. First, Zionism was a fringe movement in Judaism before the Holacaust. There are still large segments of the Jewish community that want nothing to do with it- a surprisingly large number of whom live in Israel/West Bank today. Basically, the reasoning is that the Messiah would bring the Jews home and the Zionists weren't the Messiah

The Christian Zionist movement is quite recent- mostly post 1967 and limited to Protestant Churches. They are almost all Millenialists and Mellenialism is heresy in Catholicism


Hard to say if Christianity could keep its hold on society but we can probably safely butterfly away the anti-Christian, anti-religion policies of the Communists
I know Orthodox leaning Jews did oppose it for the most part due to the reasons you mentioned. Could a nationalist or fascist like regime put in place anti-religion laws? Or maybe ones that only target certain sects and faiths like Germany did with Catholics before ww1?
 
I know Orthodox leaning Jews did oppose it for the most part due to the reasons you mentioned. Could a nationalist or fascist like regime put in place anti-religion laws? Or maybe ones that only target certain sects and faiths like Germany did with Catholics before ww1?

Certainly fascist regimes can be anti-religious. Peron in Argentina was overthrown over his anti Catholicism. Mexico's PRI was also extremely secularist.

Usually though Fascist regimes try to hijack the local religion. Franco's Spain would be a good example.

Targeting smaller faiths is a common policy as the group can be seen as outsiders. Nationalists are prone to this.
 
Certainly fascist regimes can be anti-religious. Peron in Argentina was overthrown over his anti Catholicism. Mexico's PRI was also extremely secularist.

Usually though Fascist regimes try to hijack the local religion. Franco's Spain would be a good example.

Targeting smaller faiths is a common policy as the group can be seen as outsiders. Nationalists are prone to this.
I could see many German nationalist and fascist adopting more elements of neo-paganism(mostly symbolic in nature) as century progresses especially among younger people. Volkish types groups still could pop up and grow in Germany without the war. They might even do better without being discredited by WW2 and for being affiliated with Nazism. France secularization probably goes similar to otl. I see both the left and elements of right wanting that in France.
 
Certainly fascist regimes can be anti-religious. Peron in Argentina was overthrown over his anti Catholicism. Mexico's PRI was also extremely secularist.

Usually though Fascist regimes try to hijack the local religion. Franco's Spain would be a good example.

Targeting smaller faiths is a common policy as the group can be seen as outsiders. Nationalists are prone to this.

In what universe, is the PRI fascist? It may be very corrupt and somewhat authoritarian but, definitelty, not fascist.
 
more backwardsness probably means russia/eastern europe broadly develops in a latin american type direction economically/politically so much more religious than OTL but obviously starting to decline slowly by now.
 
Doubtful. First, Zionism was a fringe movement in Judaism before the Holacaust. There are still large segments of the Jewish community that want nothing to do with it- a surprisingly large number of whom live in Israel/West Bank today. Basically, the reasoning is that the Messiah would bring the Jews home and the Zionists weren't the Messiah

The Christian Zionist movement is quite recent- mostly post 1967 and limited to Protestant Churches. They are almost all Millenialists and Mellenialism is heresy in Catholicism


Hard to say if Christianity could keep its hold on society but we can probably safely butterfly away the anti-Christian, anti-religion policies of the Communists

It won't dominate society, that is a likely expectation. But the number of Christians will be somewhat higher. This includes the non practising Christians we have in Western and Northern Europe. Some countries who are irreligious (Czechia, Estonia) or leaning towards it (Hungary, Latvia, Bulgaria) might still be Christian majority.
 
WW1 caused a great deal of economic damage, both immediately and in the long term structural changes to the international economic system. Organised religion collapses pretty quickly when faced with wealth, education, and social tolerance. Long term it is safe to assume that no WW1, and no equivalent devastation, simply speeds up the abandonment of organised religion in wealthy societies, and increases the speed that other societies become similarly wealthy.
 
Would Europeans try to enforce Christianity to North Africa and the Middle East if given the chance? Like, I think that if people were still heavily religious in an imperialist Europe, the prestige gained from spreading Christianity towards those areas would be too much too pass on.
 
Would Europeans try to enforce Christianity to North Africa and the Middle East if given the chance? Like, I think that if people were still heavily religious in an imperialist Europe, the prestige gained from spreading Christianity towards those areas would be too much too pass on.
If North Africa or the Middle East become more Christian without ww1 it would probably be due to demographic changes instead of conversion for the most part. Libya could become majority Catholic just because Italians become the majority later. Algeria would be more Catholic just because there are more French people there in this world. Lebanon could become majority Christian if a European power took the place and made it a unofficial homeland for Christians in the area. Coptic population could grow a bit to in Egypt with special protection granted by a imperial or colonial government within the region. Arabized populations would be very hard to convert. Muslims in general would be harder to convert compared to non Islamic Africans. If Europeans wanted to convert more Muslims I think they would have to aim at the more African and sub Saharan Muslim populations. They could try to paint Islam as an Arab religion and anti African while trying to paint Christianity as universal and tolerant. Making Africans think of Islam in that way would not be too hard. Given Muslims(mostly referring to Arabs and Berbers) involvement in slavery, treatment of Africans, views of Africans, and conquest within Africa this isn’t a hard point to sell. The harder part is making Christianity not look the same to Africans and hypocritical. They would have to use a bit of historical revisionism. Missionaries could talk about North Africa before Islamic conquest and make it out to be a lot more positive then it was. They could mention how many saints, leaders, and historical figures were Christian. Ethiopia monarchs, Kongo monarchs, and Saint Augustine were all technically African and Christian. The Catholics might have the best success at this tactic. They can technically say they ban slavery before a lot of people. This could work for missionaries especially if they play on ethnic and racial tensions in Africa.
 
WW1 caused a great deal of economic damage, both immediately and in the long term structural changes to the international economic system. Organised religion collapses pretty quickly when faced with wealth, education, and social tolerance. Long term it is safe to assume that no WW1, and no equivalent devastation, simply speeds up the abandonment of organised religion in wealthy societies, and increases the speed that other societies become similarly wealthy.
I agree this is very possible. If you talk to many historians they will point out religious revivals during and after the wars. I think people often assume people being more right wing will always be more religious usually. Without ww1 the world population might be more right wing and old fashion in regards to some of their beliefs and attitudes but that does not mean they will be more religious. Many fascist and classicalist often do not like Christianity. They are just more willing to put up with it compared to the secular left often times but still would not waste the chance to rid themselves of it if given one. African, Asia, and much of the Americas could become more religious and Christian while many parts of Europe go the opposite. It could stay strong in Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Poland, and some of the Orthodox countries. The US could become conflicted on this with half of population being very religious while the other is not. Japan and Far East would probably secularize like otl. Islam could still radicalize with continued imperialism and colonialism.
 
WW1 caused a great deal of economic damage, both immediately and in the long term structural changes to the international economic system. Organised religion collapses pretty quickly when faced with wealth, education, and social tolerance. Long term it is safe to assume that no WW1, and no equivalent devastation, simply speeds up the abandonment of organised religion in wealthy societies, and increases the speed that other societies become similarly wealthy.
Religion does necessarily collapse, the practices simply become more ceremonial in nature.
 
There would be more state support for an official or national religion in areas of the Balkans and Southeast Asia that went through communism OTL. Buddhism could depend on state support if Indochina and Burma still gain independence, and the Orthodox Church will be on a stronger institutional footing without 40-70 years of insanity in Romania, South Slavic nations, and East Slavic nations.

State atheism and the cultural revolution in China were responsible for most of the people listed as atheist, so Chinese religion would be more widespread, and there would be less of a spiritual vacuum for Christian missionaries to exploit. The biggest demographic changes in religion in the OTL 20th century are the replacement of Traditional Chinese Religions by atheism, and the growth of Islam due to population growth in Africa and Asia.

We might still see a slight decline of the Catholic Church in Latin America, the rise of Pentecostal Christianity has been rapid enough that around 20% of Latin America is Protestant in OTL 2018. The growth of pentecostalism has been concentrated in Central America and Brazil, although the Catholic Church has responded with Charismatic Catholicism.

Whether or not Vatican II occurs and the Church's response to modernity raises major questions about the 20th century. The Papal response to the rise of fascism and communism and military juntas is an interesting story about religious dissent against authoritarianism.

Edit: the examples of prominent dissidents would be very different from OTL. Jerzy Popiełuszko and Oscar Romero have been recognized as martyrs by the Catholic Church, and the former has been canonized.
 
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