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Christianity
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In the two millennia of its history Christianity has been divided by schism and roiled by heresy, based on doctrinal and organizational differences. Today there are three broad divisions, Roman Catholic, Orthodox Eastern, and Protestant; but within the category of Protestantism, there is a particularly large number of divergent denominations. Because of the complexity of these differences this article will describe the history of Christianity only to 1054, when the schism between Eastern and Western churches became final. Separate articles detail the history and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Eastern Church and of the other churches of ancient origin, the Armenian Church, the Coptic Church (see Copts), the Jacobite Church, and the Nestorian Church. In the 16th cent. another major schism took place in the Western Church with the Protestant Reformation. For the Protestant churches, see Protestantism and articles on the separate churches.
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Christianity is a term generally referring to that Christian faith based on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as presented in the New Testament Scriptures. The word Christian simply means "follower of Christ," first used in the New Testament in Acts 11:26: "And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians." Christianity is a monotheistic faith, believing in only one God. However, based on the teaching of the Bible, God has been revealed as a Trinity of persons, not to be mistaken as a belief in three gods.
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Christianity has its roots in the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth (c.5BCE-30CE). Jesus was the son of Mary, who had been impregnated by the Holy Spirit, and is believed to be by Christians the Son of God. It spread from Palestine and increasingly encompassed people of non-Jewish backgrounds.
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Christianity has its roots in patriarchal desert societies, in the traditions of the ancient Hebrews, which in turn have their roots in Akkadian and Sumerian epics and culture. In survival-oriented, food-scarce, warring traditions like these, God is generally thought of as male. But what, exactly, does that mean?
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With an approximately 1.7 billion people world wide, Christianity is arguably the largest religion in the world today. Started at around 30 AD, Christianity is based on the teachings and life of Jesus Christ. Christianity was founded in the first century in Palestine by the disciples of Jesus. Many missionaries spread it, despite heavy persecution, throughout the Roman Empire. Perhaps the most notable missionary was Paul. The various books written by Jesus’ followers after his death, called the New Testament, along with the Old Testament makes up the Christian Bible.
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... Christianity had to settle its relation to the political order. As a Jewish sect, the primitive Christian church shared the status of Judaism in the Roman Empire, but before the death of Emperor Nero in 68 it had already been singled out as an enemy. The grounds for hostility to the Christians were not always the same, and often opposition and persecution were localized. The loyalty of Christians to “Jesus as Lord,” however, was irreconcilable with the worship of the Roman emperor as “Lord,” and those emperors, such as Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, who were the most deeply committed to unity and reform were also the ones who recognized the Christians as a threat to those goals and who therefore undertook to eliminate the threat. As in the history of other religions, especially Islam, opposition produced the exact contrary of its intended purpose, and, in the epigram of the North African church father Tertullian, the “blood of the martyrs” became the “seed of the church.” By the beginning of the 4th century, Christianity had grown so much in size and in strength that it had to be either eradicated or accepted. Emperor Diocletian tried to do the first and failed; Constantine the Great did the second and created a Christian empire.
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Christianity