ABSTRACT
The struggle between materialist and mystic, as it were, was nothing new within Christianity. But the late nineteenth century saw particularly dramatic confrontations for both Roman Catholics and Protestants, both in the colony and in the metropole. Christians, Christian institutions, and Christian thinkers did, indeed, struggle with the challenges posed by the developments of the late nineteenth century: advances in natural and social science, radical political movements, and a sense of moral drift among the upper classes. If the Fin-De-Siècle milieu was characterized by “contempt for traditional views of custom and morality,” as Max Nordau asserted in his defining polemic against the spirit of the age, one might expect Fin-De-Siècle Christianity to be moribund. The Vatican Council, from 1869–70, affirmed the primacy of the pope and declared his infallibility; it also condemned pantheism, rationalism, and materialism. The relationship between reason and faith sketched at the Council paved the way for resurgent interest in the thought of Thomas Aquinas.
