Timeline of Christianity - 18th Century

18th Century

• 1701 Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands splits with Roman Catholicism
• 1706 Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, missionary, arrives in Tranquebar
• 1707 Examen theologicum acroamaticum by David Hollatz: the last great work of the Lutheran doctrine before the Age of Enlightenment
• 1718-22 orthodox Lutheran Valentin Ernst Löscher publishes The Complete Timotheus Verinus against Pietism
• 1721 Peter the Great substituted Moscow Patriarchate with the Holy Synod
• 1722 Hans Egede, missionary, arrives in Greenland
• 1728 The Vicar of Bray (song)
• 1730-1749 First Great Awakening in U.S.
• 1735 Welsh Methodist revival
• 1738 Methodist movement, led by John Wesley and his hymn-writing brother Charles, begins
• 1740 Johann Phillip Fabricius, missionary, arrives in South India
• 1741 Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, famous Fire and brimstone sermon
• 1754 An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture, by Isaac Newton, published
• 1767-1815 Suppression of the Jesuits
• 1768 New Smyrna, Florida, Greek Orthodox colony founded
• 1768 Reimarus dies without publishing his radical critic work distinguishing Historical Jesus versus Christ of Faith
• 1769 Mission San Diego de Alcala, first California mission
• 1771 Emanuel Swedenborg, published his "Universal Theology of the True Christian Religion" which would later used by others to found Swedenborgianism
• 1774 Ann Lee leader of American Shakers
• 1774 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing starts publishing Reimarus works on historical Jesus as Anonymous Fragments, starting Liberal Theology Era (in Christology)
• 1776-1788 Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, critical of Christianity
• 1776 Mission Dolores, San Francisco
• 1779 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, "Jesus never coerced anyone to follow him, and the imposition of a religion by government officials is impious"
• 1780 Robert Raikes begins Sunday schools to reach poor and uneducated children in England
• 1784 American Methodists form Methodist Episcopal Church at so-called "Christmas Conference", led by bishops Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury
• 1784 Roman Catholicism is re-introduced in Korea and disseminates after almost 200 years since its first introduction in 1593.
• 1789-1815 John Carroll, Archdiocese of Baltimore, first Roman Catholic US bishop
• 1789-1801 Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution
• 1791 First Amendment to the United States Constitution
• 1793 Herman of Alaska brings Orthodoxy to Alaska
• 1795 The Age of Reason written by Thomas Paine, advocated Deism
• 1796 Treaty with Tripoli (1796), article 11: "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion"
• 1800 Friedrich Schleiermacher publishes his first book, beginning Liberal Christianity movement