Building on previous efforts, a wave of reforms commenced in the 1830s, making the Church more robust and efficient, though scholars disagree about the extent to which reorganization was forced on the Church by the state and how far it was desired and managed within the Church itself. The adjustments of this period improved administration and ministry and promoted a better use of resources. Institutional change continued in conditions shaped by ongoing reassessments of the union of Church and state, the lifting of civil disabilities from non-Anglicans, obstacles to change (cultural and political as well as ecclesiastical), the increasing religious toleration and pluralism of the age, and the altered position of clergymen, with their secular as well as religious responsibilities. A theological revolution was also under way: scientific, philosophical, and political developments affected organized Christianity so deeply that by the end of the nineteenth century it had made major concessions to its critics.