Christianity

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Christianity is the largest religion in the world, with over two billion adherents,[1] and is made up of a large set of traditions originating in first-century Palestine with the philosophy and teachings of Jesus Christ. As an historical and theological offspring of Judaism, the early Christian community incorporated the Jewish scriptures into their Bible and the relationship between the Jewish and Christian traditions remains complex and multifaceted. Christianity is a monotheistic faith that teaches that God is made up of three persons sharing a single essence (this teaching is known as Trinitarianism), and that His will for the world has been revealed in the Bible, a book made up of several dozen pieces of literature composed over 2,000 years.

see Roman Catholic Church

Theology

Christian theology centers around several main beliefs. Christianity is monotheistic; that is, Christians believe in one God, who is in 3 persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost). Christians believe that Jesus was both fully human, and fully divine. Christianity asserts that God is ethically perfect, or holy, and that God is immutable; that is, God does not change[2]. Romanticism was a search for feeling and an exploration of the inner so. Nowhere was this more true than in theology, where the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 –1834) reshaped liberal Protestant thought. Traditionally theologians pondered the infinity and omnipotence of God. That was less relevant, argued Schleiermacher, than the inner feeling of a person of absolute dependence upon God, and the intuition of God's presence. Blessedness, he taught, consists in the strengthening of the God-consciousness through the community of believers (the Church); sin is the obscuring of this consciousness. Jesus Christ shared the humanity of all human beings but was unique in the strength and constancy of his God-consciousness.[3]

In Karl Barth in the 20th century reacted against liberal thought and the innerness of God, and insisted on God's transcendance. Barth stressed the discontinuity between the Christian message and the world. God is the wholly other; he is known only in his revelation; he is not the patron saint of culture, but its judge.[4]

Soteriology

Soteriology is the theology of salvation. Christians believe that, as a result of the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden, all humans are sinful. Because of this "sinful nature", all people are doomed to be condemned to Hell, for breaking God's command[5]. However, Christian soteriology asserts that Christ came to Earth as a human being, and was killed to take the punishment for man's sin. Christians believe that a person must accept God's forgiveness, and if they do so, that they are allowed to go to heaven.[6]. Most Protestants today agree that salvation is "by grace alone", meaning that a person is not required to do good works to get into heaven, although good works will generally be a by-product of salvation.

Eschatology

Eschatology is the theology of "last things", or beliefs about the end of the world. Christians believe that after Christ was crucified, he resurrected from the dead (the origin of the celebration of Easter), that he later ascended to heaven, and he will return to Earth.

The Hebrew and Christian scriptures both have a wide body of work known as prophecy, which purports to predict the future. However, because prophetic literature is highly symbolic, there is very wide disagreement among Christian scholars about how exactly the end of the world will come about. The disagreement tends to focus on when exactly Christ will return to Earth, and whether the book of Book of Revelation is primarily about past, current, or future events, or whether it should be interpreted as metaphor.

A recurring theme in the history of Christianity is that, in every age, there are Christians who believe that the eschatological pronouncements of the Bible apply to that point in history. Interestingly, this tendency even existed with the earliest Christians. In 1 Corinthians 7, the apostle Paul urges his followers not to worry too much about their present state of affairs: "I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short... For the present form of the world is passing away" (1 Cor. 7:29-31, trans. NRSV)-- a statement most scholars take to mean that Paul believed the return of Christ (and perhaps the end of the world) was immanent.[7]

Denominational taxonomy

Christianity has developed into a variety of traditions and ecclesiastical bodies over the past 2,000 years. The broadest division is between Eastern and Western Christianity, two families that come from historical differences between the the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire and Latin-speaking Roman Empire. The Eastern traditions are made up of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Church, two associations of national churches in communion (although not with one another). The Western faiths trace their heritage through direct descent, Reformation, or missionizing from the Roman church and include Catholicism, Protestantism, and Anglicanism, as well as spinoff groups such as the Mormons.

In addition, there are hundreds of millions of independent Christians - many in the United States; sub-Saharan Africa, where the Pentecostal movement has been influential; and in China - that have a legacy of some Protestant history, but are not formally associated with a church authority. Some churches from the East have formally joined the Catholic faith, and are historically and culturally Eastern, but ecclesiastically Western.

Eastern Christianity

Eastern Orthodox

Oriental Orthodox

Assyrian

Eastern Rite

Western Christianity

Catholicism

see Roman Catholic Church

Protestantism

Protestantism is not a single church body or set of formally-related organizations, but a grouping of various church families whose history extends to the Reformation in 16th century Europe. The main families are the Lutheran, the Reformed, and the radical sects.

Certain pre-Reformation groups are frequently included in discussions about Protestantism, such as Waldensians and Moravians, who are legacies of reformation movements lead by Peter Waldo in 12th-century Italy and Jan Hus in 15th-century Bohemia. Some classification systems also include Anglicans as well, as the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church ceased to be in communion roughly concurrent with the Reformation.

Anglicanism

Anglicanism is a form of Christianity with commonalities with both Protestantism and Catholicism. The Anglican Church was formed by Henry VIII at roughly the same time as the self-definition of Protestantism, and there are some commonalities between Protestantism and Anglicanism.

At the same time, the emphasis on ritual and liturgy in the Roman Catholic Church is also found, to some extent, in the Anglican Church.

Independent churches

Some churches that do not identify with any denomination. Many charismatic or pentecostal churches fall into this category.

Other groups

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Placher, William C. Readings in the History of Christian Theology, Volume 2: From the Reformation to the Present (1988) excerpt and text search

External links


notes

  1. Johnson, Todd M.; Barrett, David B.; Kurian, George Thomas (2001). World Christian encyclopedia: a comparative survey of churches and religions in the modern world. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195079639. 
  2. Theologians quote James 1:17, "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." See Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (1873) p. 390 online
  3. Peter Heltzel, "Friedrich Schleiermacher: The Father of Modern Protestant Theology," (1998) online
  4. Robert H. King, "Models Of God's Transcendence," Theology Today 23#2 (July 1966 p 200+; see also Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (1873) p. 395 online
  5. Theologians cite Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (New International Version).
  6. Theologians cite Romans 10:9-10 "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."
  7. cf. Paul, by E.P. Sanders, Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 32 ff.