Chapter 16 summary

1.  How was Christianity divided internally?

It was divided between the Roman Catholics of Western and Central Europe and the Eastern Orthodox of Eastern Europe and Russia.

2.  Externally, how would you describe Christianity to the rest of the world and why?

It was very much on the defensive against an expansive Islam group.  Muslims had ousted Christian crusaders from their toeholds in the holy land by 1300.  After centuries of Muslim rule, the future, it seemed, lay with Islam rather than Christianity.

3.  What act launched the Protestant Reformation in 1517?

In the early sixteenth century, the Protestant Reformation shattered the unity of Roman Catholic Christianity, which for the previous 1000 years had provided the foundation of western Europe's civilization.  The reform began in 1517 when Martin Luther published the 95 theses to the door of a church in Whittenberg.

4.  What were some of the issues in the Church, of which people were critical?

• luxurious life of popes
• corruption of some clergymen
• the selling of indulgences that were said to remove penalties of sin

5.  In what ways did Luther's understanding of his relationship with God challenge the Church's authority?

• He thought that salvation came through faith alone without the church
• The bible should be interpreted according to an individual's conscience

6.  In what ways was the schism within the Catholic Church expressed politically, economically, and socially, including the role of women?

• kings and princes found justification for their own independence from the church
• middle class peoples found new legitimacy in religion because protestant thinking saw them as equal
• the new religious ideas served to convey the peasants negative view of the social system in senea 
• veneration of Mary and female saints ended
• protestant opposition to celibacy closed convents
• women were not allowed official roles in churches until modern times

7.  To where did Reformation thinking spread, thanks to the invention of the printing press, and what was the effect of its spread?

Reformation spread within and beyond Germany, thanks in large measure to the recent invention of the printing press.  This allowed Luther's pamphlets to be distributed.  The movement spread to France, Switzerland, England, and elsewhere.  It did divide into the modern denominations.

8.  To what extent did the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) have on French Society?

French society was torn by violence between Catholics and the Protestant minority known as Huguenots.

9.  How was European imperial expansion related to the spread of Christianity?

• Christians believe that people have to be saved 
• money needed to be brought to the Christians
• Christians sincerely believed in their cause
• Christianity encouraged a strong military

10.  What were the two critical elements for the missionaries' success in Spanish America and in the Philippines?

• An overwhelming European presence
• lack of literacy in Spanish America

11.  Why were missionary efforts to spread Christianity so much less successful in China than in Spanish America?

• The political context was different...China had not been defeated.  They were in the middle of a prosperous dynasty.
• In China, the missionaries tried to convince the Chinese that honoring the emperor or ancestors was secular so that they would convert to Christianity
• Fundamentally, the Christians failed only 300000 out of over 300 million Chinese converted

12.  Africanized versions of Christianity emerged, such as Santeria and Vodou, in the New World.  From what were these syncretic religions derived and how did the Europeans perceive these practices?

These syncretic religions were derived from earlier African practices.  Europeans perceived these things as witchcraft.

13.  What accounted for the continued spread of Islam in the early modern era?

Muslim slaves were offered help in the Caribbean and Brazil.  Muslims helped many large scale slave revolts in the Caribbean and South America.

14.  What accounts for the emergence of reform or renewal movements within the Islamic world, especially in the mid-eighteenth century in Arabia?

Many Africans were blending faiths with Islam.  This was considered very offensive.

15.  Some Chinese Buhdists sought to make their religion more accessible to ordinary people, which bore some similarity to the thinking of whom?

The "withdrawal from the world".thinking came from monk monostaries.

16.  Describe the popular culture that emerged in the cities among the less well educated.

Plays, paintings, short stories, and novels provided diversion and entertainment.

17.  A new cultural change was especially appealing to women. What did the Bhakti movement and it's practices provide for them?

Bhakti provided an avenue of social criticism through songs, prayers, dances, poetry, and rituals.  It set off caste distinctions as well.

18.  From what did Sikhism evolve?

Guru Nanak blended elements of Islam and Hinduism when he decided that "there is no religion, only god."

19.  Who were the men that created the Scientific Revolution and where were they from?

Copernicus: Poland

Galileo: Italy 

Descartes: France

Newton: England

20. What was the long-term significance of the scientific revolution and its applications to the affairs of human society?

* It altered idea's about human kind within cosmos and sharply challenged the teaching and authority of the church
* Scientific ways of thinking challenged ancient social societies, hierchies and political systems.