Christianity
From Encyclopædia
Christianity is the religion of about a billion people whose belief system centers on the person and
teachings of
Jesus Christ. To Christians, Jesus of
Nazareth was and is the
messiah or CHRIST promised by God in the prophecies of the Old Testament (the Hebrew
Bible); by his life, death, and RESURRECTION he freed those who believe in him from their sinful state and made them recipients of God's saving
grace. Many also await the SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, which they believe will complete God's plan of
salvation. The Christian
Bible, or Holy Scripture, includes the Old Testament and also the New Testament, a collection of early Christian writings proclaiming Jesus as lord and savior. Arising in the Jewish milieu of 1st-century
Palestine, Christianity quickly spread through the Mediterranean
world and in the 4th century became the official religion of the Roman Empire.Christians have tended to separate into rival groups, but the main body of the Christian CHURCH was united under the Roman
emperors. During the
middle ages, when all of
Europe became Christianized, this main church was divided into a Latin (Western European) and a Greek (Byzantine or Orthodox) branch. The Western church was in turn divided by the Reformation of the 16th century into the
Roman Catholic Church and a large
number of smaller Protestant churches: Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist), Anglican, and sectarian. These divisions have continued and multiplied, but in the 20th century many Christians joined in the ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT to work for church unity. This resulted in the formation of the
world COUNCIL OF CHURCHES. Christianity, a strongly proselytizing religion, exists in all parts of the
world.BeliefsCertain basic doctrines drawn from Scripture (especially from the Gospels and the letters of
saint PAUL), interpreted by the FATHERS OF THE CHURCH and the first four ecumenical councils, historically have been accepted by all three of the major traditions. According to this body of
teaching, the original human beings rebelled against God, and from that time until the coming of Christ the
world was ruled by SIN. The hope of a final reconciliation was kept alive by God's COVENANT with the
Jews, the chosen people from whom the savior sprang. This savior,
Jesus Christ, partly vanquished sin and
Satan. Jesus, born of the Virgin
Mary by the power of the HOLY SPIRIT, preached the coming of God's Kingdom but was rejected by the Jewish leaders, who delivered him to the Romans to be crucified. On the third day after his death God raised him up again. He appeared to his disciples, commanding them to spread the good news of
salvation from sin and death to all people. This, according to Christian belief, is the mission of Christ's church.Christians are monotheists (believers in one God). The early church, however, developed the characteristic Christian doctrine of the
Trinity, in which God is thought of as Creator (Father), Redeemer (Son), and Sustainer (Holy Spirit), but one God in essence.Christianity inherited and modified the Jewish belief that the
world would be transformed by the coming of the Reign of God. The Christians held that the bodies of those who had died would rise again, reanimated, and that the righteous would be triumphant, the wicked punished. This belief, along with Jesus' promise of "eternal life," developed into a doctrine of eternal rewards (heaven) and
punishments (hell) after death. A source of doctrinal uncertainty was whether
salvation depended on God's election in advance of a believer's faith, or even in a decision of God before the disobedience and fall of the first man and woman (see
predestination).Although Christians today tend to emphasize what unites them rather than what divides them, substantial differences in faith exist among the various churches. Those in the Protestant tradition insist on Scripture as the sole source of God's
revelation. The Roman Catholics and Orthodox give greater importance to the tradition of the church in defining the content of faith, believing it to be divinely guided in its understanding of scriptural
revelation. They
stress the role of ecumenical councils in the formulation of doctrine, and in Roman Catholicism the pope, or
bishop of Rome, is regarded as the final authority in matters of belief.PracticeChristian societies have exhibited great variety in ethos, from mutual love, acceptance, and pacifism on the one
hand, to strict authoritarianism and forcible repression of dissent on the other. Justification for all of these has been found in various passages in the
Bible. A prominent feature of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches is MONASTICISM.Christians also vary widely in worship. Early Christian worship centered on two principal rites or
sacramentS:
baptism, a ceremonial washing that initiated converts into the church; and the EUCHARIST, a sacred meal preceded by
prayers, chants, and Scripture readings, in which the participants were mysteriously united with Christ. As time went on, the Eucharist, or
Mass, became surrounded by an increasingly elaborate ritual in the Latin, the Greek, and other Eastern churches, and in the
middle ages Christians came to venerate
saints--especially the Virgin
Mary--and holy images. In the West, seven
sacraments were recognized. The Protestant reformers retained 2
sacraments--
baptism and the Eucharist--rejecting the others, along with devotion to
saints and images, as unscriptural. They simplified worship and emphasized preaching. Since the 19th century there has been a certain amount of reconvergence in worship among ecumenically minded Protestants and Roman Catholics, with each side adopting some of the other's practices. For example, the Catholic
Mass is now in the vernacular. Among other groups in both traditions, however, the divergence remains great.In most Christian churches Sunday, the day of Christ's resurrection, is observed as a time of rest and worship. The resurrection is more particularly commemorated at EASTER, a festival in the early spring. Another major Christian festival is CHRISTMAS, which commemorates the birth of Jesus.PolityMost churches make a distinction between the clergy--those specially ordained to perform spiritual functions-- and ordinary believers, or lay people (see
MINISTRY, CHRISTIAN). The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have an all-male threefold ministry of
bishops,
priest?, deacons, and several minor orders. The
Roman Catholic Church is headed by the pope, who governs through a centralized
bureaucracy (the
papacy) in consultation with his fellow
bishops. In the Orthodox churches and those of the ANGLICAN COMMUNION (which retain the threefold ministry) lay influence is somewhat greater; major decisions are made by the
bishops acting as a group with lay consultation, sometimes with votes. Church government among Lutherans, Reformed, and other Protestants generally involves the laity even more fully, policy being determined either by local congregations or by regional assemblies composed of both clergy and lay people. Most Protestant churches, including some provinces of the Anglican Communion, now permit the ordination of women.During its early history the Christian church remained independent of any political regime. From the 4th century to the 18th century, however, churches accepted the protection of
emperors, kings, and princes and became closely allied with secular governments. In some
cases monarchs became the leaders of their own national churches. In the 19th and 20th centuries the trend has once again been in the direction of separation of
church and state, sometimes amicably achieved, sometimes otherwise.History of the Early ChurchThe age of Christian antiquity extends from the beginning of the Christian era (dated from the approximate time of Jesus' birth) through the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire in the 5th century.After Jesus was crucified, his followers, strengthened by the conviction that he had risen from the dead and that they were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, formed the first Christian community in Jerusalem. By the middle of the 1st century, missionaries were spreading the new religion among the peoples of
Egypt,
Syria, Anatolia, Greece, and
Italy.
chief among these was
saint Paul, who laid the foundations of Christian
theology and played a key role in the transformation of Christianity from a Jewish sect to a
world religion. The original Christians, being
Jews, observed the dietary and ritualistic laws of the TORAH and required non-Jewish converts to do the same. Paul and others favored eliminating obligation, thus making Christianity more attractive to Gentiles. The separation from
Judaism was completed by the destruction of the church of Jerusalem by the Romans during the Jewish Revolt of AD 66-70.After that Christianity took on a predominantly Gentile character and began to develop in a
number of different forms. At first the Christian community looked forward to the imminent return of Christ in glory and the establishment of the Kingdom. This hope carried on in the 2d century by MONTANISM, an ascetic movement emphasizing the action of the Holy Spirit.
gnosticism, which rose to
prominence about the same time, also stressed the Spirit, but it disparaged the Old Testament and interpreted the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus in a spiritual sense. The main body of the church condemned these movements as heretical and, when the Second Coming failed to occur, organized itself as a permanent institution under the leadership of its
bishops.
