The Guilded Age
The Gilded Age brought about many reforms in many ways affecting basically all ways of life of the people in America. The churches started their change with the physical appearance of the churches. The church house went from a homely little building to an extravagant building representing the wealth and prestige of its members. This caused many disagreements in the parish of these organizations. Many people felt that the church, by its stained glass windows and decorated halls, was emphasizing materialism; that god rewarded the righteous with money. Also at the time other religions began to gain new ground and popularity, mostly among and due to the immigrants. Roman Catholicism and Judaism emerged as predominant faiths. By the end of the 17th century the Roman Catholics had nearly nine million people in their churches. The Salvation Army emerged in the 1880's when they came here from England. These soldiers with out arms were possibly the most effective, giving their free soup and shelter to those in need and spreading the thoughts of kindness and sharing amongst the world. Another new church that came about was the Church of Christ, Science, es
tablished by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879. This church took a different view, based on the healing power of Christianity instead of modern medicine. The YMCA and YWCA grew tremendously in the post civil war era, with the "Ys" sprouting up in every place with a large enough population to support it. With so many leaps and bounds in the field of religion, one can only expect that something would be discovered. Enter Darwin and all the chaos and bickering his ideas cause. In 1859 he published his highly controversial volume On the Origin of Species which explained his theory on how human beings evolved from lesser life forms into what they are today, quickly becoming known as "the survival of the fittest." This theory also specifically contradicted the ideals which were set by the Bible of God's creation, causing a split in the church as it was known. The church split into the "Fundamentalists" and the "Modernists," causing many ripples in the current set up of all professions which taught others, teachers and clergymen who spoke in favor of Darwin were dismissed and removed from their positions. This continued until the more liberal minded became the maj
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 777
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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