Chapter 15

Christianity spread through various places in the world although at first it was mostly practiced in Europe. This religion spread to Spain, Russia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, and Central Asia. Although Catholicism held a high position at that time as a religion, Martin Luther's revolutionary ideas changed this. He publicly spoke out about the abuses within the Roman Catholic Church bringing to life the Protestant branch of Christianity.

Luther believed that salvation came through faith instead of the sacraments and good works that were taught in the Catholic church. This changed the lives of some of the individuals in the social ladder during that time period. Kings and Princes used this explanations as a justification to rid the pope of the power that he held against them. The role of middle-class dwellers grew as a result of Protestant ideas because they preached that "all vocations were of equal merit". In the end, the Protestant religion ended the veneration of Mary and female saints. The struggle between Protestant and Catholic dominance created the Thirty Year's War.

As a result of the Protestant reformation, the Catholic Church made some changes to the way they ran their church. They worked on the "authority of the pope, priestly celibacy, the veneration of saints and relics, and the importance of church tradition and good works".

Europeans believed that their success in the Americas was a direct results if the power of the "Christian God". Native American's agreed with this statement which made it easy for them to turn to Christianity. The cost of conversion was high for women who held any type of religious power because the Catholic faith only gave men the opportunity to lead. In some occasions, the Spanish would force their faith onto the native populations by destroying images and ritual objects on native people's idols.

China was superior to the European missionaries causing them to have to come up with a different missionary strategy than the one used in the Americas. Instead of forcing their faith into the Chinese Empire, missionaries pretended to be interested in the Confucius ideas that belonged to their faith, They downplayed their mission to convert by expressing an attraction in exchanging ideas and learning from China's faith. Jesuits brought knowledge that consisted of new ideas in technology, geography, and mapmaking. This allowed them to gain good positions within the Chinese imperial court. Some of the people in China naturally converted to Christianity, but it was not widely accepted there. There was no real parallel between the Chinese and Catholic faith making it an all or nothing faith.

Europeans were able to convert many of the slaves that were brought to the Americas. Europeans thought that the way that the African people worshipped was evidence of sorcery or witchcraft. In the end, African slaves began to incorporate many of the Christian rituals to their faith,

A major cultural change that blended Islam and Hinduism was Sikhism. This religion ended the seclusion of women and promoted the "'brotherhood of all mankind'". Another religion that blended these two religion was Bhakti. Through various religious practices, this religion sought to united the many deities in India.

The Scientific Revolution challenged the way that religious scholars saw the world. Before the Scientific Revolution, many thought that the earth was at the center of the universe. People believed that God made it this way because the purpose of Earth was to give the inhabitants the ability to be saved by God. Nicolaus Copernicus stated that what was the actual center of Earth was the sun and that the planets revolved around it. This put into question what Christians initially believed. This was one of the many things that were put into question about Christianity.