In Olson 126) is accredited to Modernity. Frederick Schleiermacher, considered to be the first liberal theologian recognized that many of the authoritative and dogmatic perspectives of Orthodox Christianity were out of place in post Enlightenment society and he set about to introduce changes. Schleiermacher, reconstructed Christian doctrines to ensure their compatibility with Modernity, “distinguishing piety and religion from science and morality…” (Olson 137). Albert Ritsch, founder of the theological school known as Ritschian, continued upon Schleiermacher’s work blending it with Kant’s ideology emphasizing ethics as a natural part of religion, transforming “Christianity for the modern cultural context” (Olson 148). German scholar Adolf Von Harmack and American social reformer, Walter Rouschenbusch continued to build upon Ritschl’s theology, Harmack produced a scaled down version of the Gospel consisting of three truths: 1. Kingdom of God and its coming, 2. God the Father and the infantile value of the human soul, and 3. the higher righteousness and commandment of love (qtd. in Olson 166). Rauschenbusch, a member of the social gospel movement in the United States, used his lectures and writings to “promote political and economic transformation of the United States” (Olson 164) in his attempts to address …show more content…
Failing this action, he left the Church of England in 1845 and was accepted by Pope Leo XIII into the Catholic Church where he was given the status of a cardinal in 1879 (Olson 196). He is described as a “passionate Catholic who loved the church and wanted it to be both faithful and contemporary without accommodating to modernity” (Olson 196) and was considered a defender of the Catholic faith from the acids of modernity and against Protestantism. Following the practices laid out by Newman, the Baron Friedrich von Hügel, George Tyrrell and Alfred Loisy became the central focus of Modernism during their time. Von Hügel, a progressive Barron of the Holy Roman Empire was a strong supporter of Loisy and Tyrrell, acting as a mediator for their conflicts with the Catholic Church hierarchy. Loisy’s writings allowed him to express “his goal and aim…“adapting Catholic doctrine to the exigencies of contemporary thought… a desire to reform Catholicism without destroying it” (qtd. in Olson 201). Tyrell went on to defend the Catholic Church against attacks from Protestant and secular critics while at the same time attacking prominent theologians due to what he felt were reactionary “medieval” views (Olson 201). Tyrell and Loisy were formally excommunicated by Pope Pious X Pascendi because they were considered too