A History of Christian Doctrine #3 - Online Christian Library

A History of Christian Doctrine
supernatural message of the Bible. They emphasized a
personal encounter with God, but they failed to discover
the biblical experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Other Philosophical and
Theological Developments
A man who had a tremendous impact upon twentiethcentury
religious views was Sigmund Freud (1856-
1939), an Austrian Jew. He founded the modern study of
psychology and the practice of psychotherapy. Many of
Freud’s ideas are quite controversial even today, notably
his tracing of most psychological problems to childhood
experiences and his attribution of almost every motivation
to sexuality (often unconscious or repressed). Freud
was an atheist, and he labeled religion as a neurosis. In
his view, only an unhealthy mind would believe in God or
depend upon religion for assistance.
Christian thought was a significant force in the Civil
Rights movement in the United States in the 1960s,
which secured political and social rights for blacks. The
moral leader of this movement was Martin Luther King,
Jr. (1929-68), a Baptist minister who was committed to
nonviolent protest in order to achieve equality and integration.
He worked through the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference to achieve his goals. King organized
the massive March on Washington in 1963 and was
assassinated in 1968.
A philosophical development that affected modern
theology is positivism. This philosophy stresses the
analysis of language, and it tries to determine which logical
propositions have factual meaning. It says that all
valid knowledge comes through the scientific method.
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