christanity

 

An Overview of Christianity:

Basis of Christianity:

The unification of Christians stems on the belief in Jesus and his teachings of love, mercy, and forgiveness. The vast majority of Christians also believe that he was crucified and rose from the dead, enabling humans to gain forgiveness from their sins and achieve salvation and entry into heaven. There are, of course, many different denominations of Christians with many variations on this one unifying belief.

Writings of Christianity:

Christians, for the most part, accept the Bible as the inspired word of God. The Christian Bible is a collection of writings that consists of consists of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament contains 39 sacred Hebrew and Aramaic books, and the New Testament contains 27 books from the years following the ministry of Jesus.John, Luke, Mark, Matthew, Gospels are the first four books of new testament.These books provide a testimony/history/accounting of Jesus’ ministry and were assembled a generation or two after his death. A large portion of the rest of the New Testament consists of Paul’s letters. These are often referred to as the Pauline Epistles, and they are ancient letters offering guidance to particular congregations of the day, and are attributed to the Apostle Paul, who never met Jesus, but received a call from Christ to preach salvation to the Gentiles.

Writings sacred to only selected groups of Christians include: The Apocrypha: A number of books and fragments frequently grouped with the Old Testament, but not included in most Christian bibles, mainly recognized by Catholics. The Book of Mormon: A book held sacred by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS or Mormons), it is a new and contemporary revelation held sacred in addition to the Christian Bible. The Book of Common Prayer: The service book of the Anglican Communion which affects the worship and practice of the Episcopal church.

History:

Christianity began as a form of Judaism, and Jesus, as well as his early followers, was an observant Jew. Sporadic persecution by Roman authorities resulted in Christianity’s initial separation from Judaism. Christians were seen by many Romans as disloyal and immoral, and they endured much suffering and torture. Most of these early members of the church belonged to the lower classes and were looked down upon as such. There was no unifying church as Christian communities were scattered and poor, and there were many disagreements and divisions among them.

The dramatic turn was in 312 A.D. when future Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity following a divine vision of greatness in war. After such greatness was achieved, he assumed political power and forbid the persecution of Christians. This made Christianity respectable and encouraged conversions of many in the Roman Empire. During the political decline of the Roman Empire, the pope, retaining religious leadership, began to emerge as a powerful social and political force in Western Europe, causing Christianity to expand and develop under this leadership over the next several centuries.

At the same time, however, disputes were arising between this Latin-speaking church of the West and the Greek-speaking church of the East in the Byzantine Empire, and there was a formal schism in 1054. By this time, most of Western Europe was under the influence of Latin Christianity.

In the 13th Century new religious orders were formed within the Latin Church to preach and teach the faith. During this time, many great cathedrals were built and many major universities were founded. The papacy, the office and jurisdiction of the pope, assumed a position of extraordinary prominence in the culture and political life of Western Europe, maintaining unchallenged religious and social authority. During this time, however, we also saw the birth of the Crusades, military conflicts designed to gain control of the holy places where Jesus lived, and the Inquisitions, secret trials conducted by the church to identify and eliminate heretics.

By the beginning of the 16th century, calls for reform within the church were becoming insistent. There were complaints about abuses by the clergy centered on a money-hungry bureaucracy, unblushing office seeking, the practice of taking concubines by too many members of a celibate clergy, and a series of entangled religious and military alliances. The practice of indulgences was also called into question, a system where specific actions, often the payment of money to the church, are taken to erase sins.

All this lead to the Protestant Reformations, the catalyst of which was the posting of Martin Luther’s famous 95 theses on the door of the castle church at Wittenberg in 1517. Luther, a professor of theology, did not intend to spark a movement of separation from the church, but of reformation within the church. However, in 1520 he was excommunicated from the church by the pope and condemned by the Holy Roman Emperor. By this time, he had many supporters and gained enough support within Germany and elsewhere to form a new church. Eventually, this rift did lead to significant reforms within the Roman Church, but by this time the religious divisions within Europe were already too deep.

Throughout the following centuries many more denominations were formed, leading up to today's world which has over 100 different varieties of Christians.