Worksheet Questions — Tim Dowley, Introduction to the History of Christianity
“Section 8 – Present and Future” (pp. 581–672)
Instructions: Select the best answer from the list given for each statement or question. Some may have more than one true
answer; select the best answer based on the context and the material in the text.
1.
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3.
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5.
6.
“The eminent historian Arnold Toynbee suggested
that the great world religions had been replaced in
modern times by three post-Christian ideologies—
nationalism, communism, and individualism. All
three are equally impersonal and ____.”
a. atheistic
b. agnostic
c. cold
d. collectivist
e. dehumanizing
“The progress of secularization in the nineteenth
century [1800s], aided by Marxism, Darwinism, and
____, chipped away at the Christian underpinnings of
Western thought.”
a. positivism
b. Freudianism
c. collectivism
d. pragmatism
e. materialism
“The liberal tradition, rooted in Christianity and the
Enlightenment, emphasized freedom, but classical
economics and social ____ reduced liberalism to a
self-serving, highly competitive individualism.”
a. dependency
b. indifference
c. activism
d. Darwinism
e. decay
“Social radicalism drew from these sources also, but
the scientific, materialist socialism of ____ sharply
departed from the liberal humanism of earlier
thinkers.”
a. Darwin
b. communism
c. Freud
d. positivism
e. Marx
“Marx made man a reflection of property-relations,
Darwin the survival of the fittest, and Freud an
unknown libido.”
a. true
b. false
Because of World War I “Governments directed the
economic life of their countries, strictly controlling
industrial output, food production, and allocation of
labour and raw materials.”
a. true
b. false
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
“Britain had also promised in the Balfour Declaration
to support the establishment of a ____ national home
…”
a. Bulgarian
b. Turkish
c. Jewish
d. Palestinian
e. Serbian
“The most deadly challenge facing democracy in the
interwar period was ____.”
a. socialism
b. Nazism
c. Fascism
d. communism
e. totalitarianism
The above system is to “produce a new type of man,
utterly lacking any sense of ____.”
a. social conscience
b. democracy
c. choice
d. identity
e. individual freedom
Who was “pro-family … emphasized the importance
of child bearing and the role of women in the home
… wanted to eliminate pornography, prostitution and
homosexuality”?
a. Pope Pius XI
b. Heber J. Grant
c. the Archbishop of Canterbury
d. Adolf Hitler
e. Benito Mussolini
“Lenin, the principal theorist of totalitarian
communism, regarded his work as a logical development of ____ historical and dialectical materialism.”
a. atheistic
b. Marxist
c, agnostic
c. Hegelian
d. Heidegger’s
“From the beginning the Bolsheviks sponsored
treasonous endeavours. These efforts were eventually
concentrated in the League of Micronet Godless,
formed in 1925. It spread pro-clerical propaganda
and promoted cultural enlightenment by stressing
science and materialist philosophy.”
a. true
b. false
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13.
14.
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“The 1930s were years of intense persecution.
Thousands of clergymen were imprisoned or ____
during the collectivization of agriculture and Stalin’s
purges.
a. banished
b. murdered
c. liquidated
d. starved
e. shipped to Siberia
“They [the clergy in Russia] were constantly
harassed by the secret police as ‘clerico-____.’”
a. Nazis
b. capitalists
c. traitors
d. fascists
e. dummies
“The Soviets responded by forming a Militant
Atheists International to combat ____.”
a. America
b. the Vatican
c. European Christianity
d. Christianity
e. western philosophy
Pope Pius XI issued an anti-communist statement.
a. true
b. false
“The execution of Father Alfred Delp, a Jesuit
member of the Kreisau group, and of ____ revealed
the implacable hostility of National Socialism to
Christianity.”
a. Karl Barth
b. Rudolf Bultmann
c. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
d. Klaus Voorman
e. Father Christmas
“Conscious of their own deeply-rooted antiSemitism, many churchmen openly confessed guilt
for the horrors that overtook their Jewish
compatriots, and gave their backing to the new state
of Israel.”
a. true
b. false
“Stalin therefore disallowed the patriarchal church
[Russian Orthodox] to revive (the Renovationist rival
was dissolved in 1943), increased the level of
atheistic propaganda, and upheld the application of
the 1918 and 1929 laws.”
a. true
b. false
20.
21.
22.
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24.
25.
26.
“As Pius XII he was deeply committed to bringing
peace to the world, but held no illusions about either
communism or Nazism, both of which he ____.”
a. appreciated
b. tolerated
c. understood their good points
d. did not understand well
e. detested
Pius XII thought that Nazism (National Socialism)
was worse than communism (Bolshevism).
a. true
b. false
“With the emphasis on ‘peaceful co-existence’
following Stalin’s death in 1953, the Orthodox
church participated in ecumenical affairs, and finally
joined the ____ Council of Churches in 1961.”
a. United
b. Universal
c. National
d. Communal
e. World
“Pius XII excommunicated Catholics involved in
____ activities …”
a. communist
b. socialist
c. capitalist
d. determinist
e. evolutionary
“In ____ all religion was rooted out, and it professed
to be the world’s first truly atheistic state.”
a. Bulgaria
b. Romania
c. Latvia
d. Albania
e. Yugoslavia
“… ____ sided with the Palestinians against Israel,
so it was not solely Muslim-Jewish controversy.”
a. Protestants
b. Catholics
c. Mormons
d. Orthodox Christians
e. Calvinists
“As tensions between the Israelis and Palestinians
mounted ____ support for Israel weakened, and more
and more church leaders called for a political
solution.”
a. United States
b. European
c. Christian
d. ethical
e. religious
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27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
Civil religion, or public religion, or civic deism, “is a
group of commonly accepted religious sentiments,
symbols and concepts which serve to undergird the
state and help secure popular allegiance. An
elaborate matrix of beliefs flowing from a nation’s
historic experience, it generally blurs religion and
patriotism.”
a. true
b. false
“Ritschl was suspicious of the role of ____, rather
than experience, as an authentic source of truth.”
a. revelation
b. pragmatism
c. rationalism
d. relativism
e. doctrine
“Harnack’s influence declined when thinkers began
to call attention to the basic weakness of ____ as a
whole. The whole teaching of Jesus cannot be
reduced to three general truths, nor can the whole
gospel be reduced to certain elements in the teaching
of Jesus.”
a. rationalism
b. fundamentalism
c. conservatism
d. liberalism
e. doctrine
“What came to be known as the ‘____ gospel
movement’ has theological roots in Ritschl’s
liberalism…. It meant social reform and political
action.”
a. pragmatic
b. rationalistic
c. political
d. economic
e. social
“In America, the movement protesting against liberal
theology became known as ‘____’.
a. Mormonism
b. pietism
c. Protestantism
d. the social gospel
e. fundamentalism
“The twentieth century has produced few theologians
of greater stature or importance than ____.”
a. Albert Schweitzer
b. Albrecht Ritschl
c. Adolf von Harnack
d. Karl Barth
e. Reinhold Neibuhr
33.
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35.
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38.
39.
“During the 1930s and 1940s the most important
theologian in America was probably ____ …”
a. Albert Schweitzer
b. Rudolf Bultmann
c. Reinhold Niebuhr
d. Richard Neuhaus
e. Billy Sunday
“… Niebuhr made use of ____ ideas, and reacted
against liberal theology and the optimistic humanism
of the social gospel movement.”
a. socialistic
b. communistic
c. capitalistic
d. Marxist
e. European
“According to American liberalism, he [H. Richard
Niebuhr] ironically remarks: ‘A God without wrath
brought men without sin into a kingdom without
judgement through the ministration of a Christ
without a cross.’ ”
a. true
b. false
“The German Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) has
probably had more influence on twentieth-century
theology than any other thinker.”
a. true
b. false
Bultmann was using the method of ‘____ criticism’,
which assumes that much of the biblical material
circulated in oral forms before it was committed to
writing. It also holds that every ‘form’, or type of
material in the Gospels, reflects a typical situation in
ancient Israel or the earliest churches.”
a. higher
b. methodological
c. reflective
d. deconstructive
e. form
“Bultmann inherited the liberal belief in the priority
of ____ over doctrine.”
a. prayer and revelation
b. intellectualism
c. higher criticism
d. faith
e. experience and ethics
Who is the “father” of demythologizing the
scriptures?
a. Auguste Comte
b. J. A. T. Robinson
c. Albert Camus
d. Albert Schweitzer
e. Rudolf Bultmann
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40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
“____ is the philosophical doctrine that all valid
knowledge comes through the methods of the
sciences.”
a. materialism
b. empiricism
c. pragmatism
d. positivism
e. naturalism
“This scientific knowledge is ____ knowledge,
which no longer depends on superstition or
speculation.”
a. pragmatic
b. deterministic
c. real
d. substantial
e. positive
“Kierkegaard stressed the importance of first-hand
practical decision and involvement, as against mere
____ assent to abstract truths.”
a. ignorant
b. behavioral
c. faithful
d. intellectual
e. obedient
“Heidegger stresses the ____ of knowledge.”
a. relationships
b. relativity
c. subjectivity
d. objectivity
e. reflexiveness
Who is famous for the I-it and I-Thou existentialist
thinking?
a. Heidegger
b. Sartre
c. Buber
d. Barth
e. Jaspers
“One of the most original thinkers in twentiethcentury philosophy is ____ …”
a. Martin Buber
b. Jean-Paul Sartre
c. Ludwig Wittgenstein
d. Martin Heidegger
d. Auguste Comte
“Freud was ____, and was deeply influenced by the
positivism of Comte. His theories about religion rest
on the positivist claim that all knowledge comes
through the sciences.”
a. Jewish
b. a philosopher
c. a determinist
d. a naturalist
e. an atheist
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
“He [Freud] described religion as ‘the universal
obsessional ____ of humanity.”
a. crutch
b. psychosis
c. neurosis
d. plaything
e. opium
“… Freud’s theories about religion owe more to ____
speculation than to scientific observation. They are
theories which cannot be proved.”
a. determinist
b. naturalist
c. materialist
d. pragmatic
e. philosophical
“Some have also argued that, on the basis of Freud’
theories, his own hatred of his Jewish ____ might be
said to account for his own repression of God into his
unconscious.”
a. mother
b. aunt
c. uncle
d. grandfather
e. father
Who advocated “being there for others”, and
rightfully rejected the idea that God is a
psychological crutch in moments when comfort is
needed or a reduction in stress is wanted?
a. Sigmund Freud
b. Karl Barth
c. Paul Tillich
d. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
e. Martin Buber
“The main aim of Paul Tillich (1886–1965) was to
relate Christian faith to ____ thought.”
a. scientific
b. secular
c. sectarian
d. philosophical
e. scientific
Whose “ideas have sparked and shaped diverse
movements, including ecumenism; death of God
theology; liberation theology; commentaries in
communist countries about the church without
privileges and the world; Christian resistance to war
and to oppressive political regimes; as well as
traditional tributes to Christian discipleship, heroism
and martyrdom”?
a. Paul Tillich
b. Oscar Cullman
c. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
d. Karl Barth
e. Martin Buber
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53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
“Critics comment that in Tillich’s thought an
ultimate God has become merely any experience
which ‘feels’ ____.”
a. good
b. fuzzy
c. spiritual
d. emotional
e. ultimate
C. S. Lewis advocated the idea that Jesus was a great
moral teacher, but nothing else—not the Son of God.
a. true
b. false
“In the 1980s, two further developments occurred in
biblical scholarship. First, there was an increasing
emphasis on theories of interpretation, or ____.”
a. heuristics
b. tautologies
c. exegesis
d. hermeneutics
e. speculation
“Second, new developments underlined the
importance of ____.”
a. archaeology
b. anthropology
c. psychology
d. psychiatry
e. sociology
“These finds [at Ras Shamra and Mari] means that
the biblical narratives are generally regarded as ____
reliable than was fashionable some years earlier.”
a. more
b. less
“The theology of ____ in Latin America is greatly
influenced by Marxism, and sees salvtion largely in
terms of political and economic liberation.”
a. economism
b. capitalistic overthrow
c. liberation
d. politics
e. freedom
“… there are still many largely unevangelized areas,
particularly in the ____ countries …”
a. Buddhist
b. Hindu
c. communist
d. Muslim
e. Far East
“Whilst the WCC [World Council of Churches] (and
the various national councils of churches) still has a
concern with doctrine, it has also assumed a growing
____ role.”
a. humanitarian
b. economic
c. social
d. missionary
e. political
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
“The last [council], Vatican I (1870), had declared
that when speaking ex cathedra in his own person,
the pope was ____, even without the backing of a
council.”
a. expounding opinion
b. speaking for the cardinals
c. outside of his jurisdiction
d. infallible
e. not infallible
“This view was confirmed when in 1950 Pius XII,
without the backing of a council, defined and
enforced the doctrine of the bodily assumption of the
blessed Virgin Mary into heaven. This decree both
showed that councils were now unnecessary, and also
increased the distance between the Church of Rome
and other churches.”
a. true
b. false
“The leaders of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth
century, the positivists of the nineteenth century and
orthodox Marxist thinkers in the twentieth century all
agreed on one thing. They believed that advances in
scientific understanding would give birth to a world
in which religion would die at the hand of an ever
more confident ____.”
a. science
b. sectarianism
c. secularism
d. philosophy
e. atheism
“Society is less conscious of its roots and its
direction. It is pluralist in culture [everything is
equally true, valid, or important], and it operates on
essentially ____ and empirical considerations: does it
work, and how does it fit with our experience?”
a. scientific
b. philosophical
c. practical
d. pragmatic
e. random
“Western historians, although confident about the
inevitability of secularization, nonetheless now have
to learn how to spell Ayatollah. Others involved with
global politics have to distinguish different traditions
within ____ to understand a world that stretches from
Nigeria to Indonesia.”
a. religion
b. Islam
c. Buddhism
d. Hinduism
e. Christianity
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66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
“Evangelicalism has developed a new confidence
since the Second World War. This is partly a
reflection of its growing strength of numbers, partly
because of the success of its evangelism, and partly
through the impact of its scholars, who by their
scholarship have won such respect that the
movement can no longer be classed as ____.”
a. non-ethical
b. irrelevant
c. fanatical
d. ignorant
e. anti-intellectual
“Taken together, the Enlightenment and the
experience of industrialization led humanity to
believe that material progress was not the goal of
society.”
a. true
b. false
“Given this [question 67], humanity had a right, and
even a duty, not to dominate and not to exploit
creation.”
a. true
b. false
“Thus a ____ worldview was legitimized which
made no reference to the creator or his purposes in
creation.”
a. negative
b. positive
c. secular
d. sectarian
e. pragmatic
“Without the ____ perspective, the world of today is
a world without sense or meaning.”
a. pragmatic
b. secular
c. sectarian
d. divine
e. biblical
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