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CHRISTIANITY:

Background
Limitations of primary sources are cause by : I. Jesus left no writing of his own. II. The other sources of information about his life and teachings, according to modern biblical studies, are less reliable. The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the fourth Gospel (John), and the writings of Paul (who never met Jesus). Still, there are few references written by the first and second century scholars. But they are insignificant, so it is a necessity to refer to the Quran. Nowadays, Most of the history of Jesus was referred from the Torah and the Quran, and from the New Testament. The only different between Quran and other source is the Jesus resurrection which in Quran, He was not been crucified, and that both the Jews and Christians acknowledged that Jesus met his death on the cross. The story takes up virtually the whole of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) in the Bible. It appears several times in the Quran: in verses 35-59 of Surah 3: Al Imran (The Family of Imran), verses 156-158 of Surah 4: Al Nisa (The Women), verses 109-120 of Surah 5: Al Maidah (The Repast), verses 16-35 of Surah 19: Maryam (Mary), verse 50 of Surah 23: Al Muminun (The Believers) verses 51-65 of Surah 43: Al Zukhruf (The Gold Adornments) and in verses 6 and 14 of Surah 61: Al Saff (The Battle Array). Reference is made to it several more times. Jesus and His Disciples The events that followed the death of Jesus were of greater importance to early Christians than were the events that preceded it. The importance of all these events is to such an extent that many scholars have considered them as the actual groundwork for the new emerging religion called Christianity. The attribution of "godhood" to Jesus and the proclaiming of him as the "Son of God" would not absolutely be possible without the occurrence of these events. Disciple means pupil or student, and the disciples were people who chose to follow Jesus and to listen to his teaching. They called him rabbi, or teacher. The twelve disciples (Simon and his brother Andrew were the first disciples Jesus chose. Next, Jesus called James and John, then Philip, Nathaniel (also called Bartholomew), Matthew, Thomas, and James son of Alpheus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot) were followers of Jesus whom he had chosen to become his core group, left their livelihoods and commitments to follow Jesus as he traveled around the country, preaching, teaching, and healing. St. Paul

Paul, a non-Palestinian Jew has been frequently called the "real founder of Christianity", because his views came to shape and dominate subsequent Christian thinking. Born at about the same time as Jesus, in the famous town of Tarsus in Cilicia (Turkey), he was a fanatically devoted Pharisee. On the journey to Damascus to chase and arrest the Christian believers, Paul experienced a traumatic event that convinced him that the dead and resurrected Jesus of the Christians had appeared to him as he had appeared to others. His fierce opposition to the Christian movement gave way suddenly to unquestioning support of it. Over the following three years, he developed a number of basic Christian theological concepts, the effect of which have dominated Christian thinking ever since.

Christianity : The Historical / Through The Ages


The early period of Christianity was also characterized by the first signs of differentiation and schism within the Christian movements. Three hundred years after the time of Jesus, there were many different versions of the Gospel and the teachings of Jesus. Then, as now, no one was quite certain who wrote them, or when or where they were written. In 325 CE , the Council of Nicea, Turkey, was convened. Among the fundamental decisions taken in the council, that not only did survive Christianity but also give it more strength and spirit, was the canonization of certain gospels and other apostolic writings which were then called the "New Testament". Consequently, all other gospels were burned, and many sweeping campaigns of "inquisition" were launched.Everyone found possessing any of these "false" gospels was put to death and his gospel burned. in the 4th century Rome was the center of the West, where Latin was the dominant language; Constantinople was the center of the East, where Greek predominated.

Important Events in Church History The Age of Jesus and the Apostles (A.D.-70) The Age of Early Christianit y (70-312) The Age of the Christia n Empire (312590) 590: Gregory the Great elected Pope Christian Middle Ages (5901517) Age of the Reformatio n (15171648) Age of Reason & Revival (16481789) Age of Progress (1789-1914) Age of Ideologies (1914Present)

30: Crucifixio n of Jesus; Pentecost 35: Stephen martyred; Paul converted 57: Pauls Letter to

230: Earliest known public churches built

909: Monaster y at Cluny founded 1431: Joan of Arc burned at stake

1517: Luther posts his Ninety-Five Theses

1773: Jesuits suppressed (until 1814) 1784: Wesley provides for Conferenc e of Methodists

1845: John Henry Newman becomes Roman Catholic 1906: Schweitzer s Quest of the Historical

1919: Karl Barth writes Commentar y on Romans

the Romans

Jesus

The issue was temporarily resolved at an ecumenical council that convened in Constantinople in 381 and established five important ecclesiastical provinces, better known as Patriarchates: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Unwilling to be dominated by Constantinople, the Christian groups of Persia (also known as the Nestorian Church), Armenia, Syria (the so-called Jacobite Church), Ethiopia, Egypt (the Coptic Church), and India broke away from the rest of Christendom. Between 5th and eighth centuries, Christianity slowly penetrated France, Britain, Ireland, and Scotland. But it suffered severe setbacks after the rise of Islam in the seventh century. Within a century, the Arabs, inspired and united by Islam, conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and Crete, as well as the entire Persian Empire. Between the 10th and 11th centuries Christianity spread to Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. About the middle of the 10th century the Germans extended their political power and their Christian faith over Poland and the Baltic lands; by the 13th century, Estonia and Latvia were converted, mainly through German conquest. Similarly, Christianity prevailed in Finland through Swedish conquest around the 13th century. Persecution of the Jews and Muslims happened in the era 5001800 was the darkest and most unfortunate period in the history of Christianity. The story of Christian attempts to forcibly convert Jews, and later together with their Muslim counterparts, known as Moriscos, by methods paralleling in ferocity those leveled against the Manicheans, makes sad reading. During the series of reconquista, which began in the late 11th century with the recapture of Toledo, the traditional Visigoth capital in 1085, and culminated in the late 14 th century with the recapture of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella who dethroned the Nasrids, the last surviving Muslim monarchy in Iberia, on January 2, 1492, the passions of the Spanish Christian populace Toledo, Cordova, Valencia, Burgos, Andalusia, Castile, and Granada were so aroused against the Muslims and The Jews that mosques and synagogues were pillaged or utterly destroyed and thousands of Muslims and Jews were butchered.

Counter Reformation was spearheaded by the Society of Jesus (Jesuit), founded by Ignatius Loyola in 1534.The Council of Trent in 1545 achieved an important step to halt the spread of Protestantism by taking a serious decision on the abolition of simony, the reform and reinvigoration of the clergy, and the encouragement of education and proselytization as the most effective means of fighting Protestantism and advancing Catholicism.

Modern era has been characterized by rationalism in physical and natural sciences and humanism in social sciences rejecting the biblical, metaphysical, conciliar, or any other non-rational accounts of human nature and universe. These trends coalesced into the most influential intellectual movement in Western civilization prior to the twentieth century: the Enlightenment. The response of Christian churches was predictable. They branded anyone that had temerity to reject ecclesiastical authority and to discard Christian doctrines and ethics as a godless sinner doomed to eternal damnation without hope of redemption. But this by no means arrested the intellectual and political aspirations of enthusiastic exponents of the spirit of the Enlightenment and their followers. Meta groups of Christianity As Christianity had already split into two main camps: Western (Roman Catholicism) with Rome as the center and Eastern (Orthodox) with Constantinople as the center, the spread of Christianity was much colored and determined by these two competing camps. Most of Western Europe Christianity looked to Rome, the Christianity of eastern and central Europe looked to Constantinople. The Orthodox Christianity spread to the north and west of Constantinople. In the ninth century, two Greek brothers from Thessalonica, Cyril and Methodius, were sent by Photius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, as missionaries to the Slavic peoples, the Bulgars and Serbs. Partly due to the efforts of these two men, Christianity gained foothold also in Moravia (approximately the present location of Czechoslovakia). Around the tenth century, Orthodox Christianity penetrated into Kiev and later to various parts of Russia. Nestorians and some contingents of other Eastern Christianity also spread the faith to central and eastern Asia, but the numerical gains in these areas represented distinct minorities in continents dominated by Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and other religions.

There were several important and interesting, though perhaps paradoxical, developments coinciding with the spread of Christianity. Particularly significant in the history of Western Europe was a contest for supremacy or power between the papacy and various temporal states, in which each side asserted its authority and consequently denounced the other. Repeated attempts to resolve this tension came to nothing until changing times and circumstances reduced armed conflict to the level of a more academic debate. The modern politics and society have largely relegated the concept of ecclesiastical power to limbo in Western world. Another significant development was a series of attempts to reform the standards of faith in Western Christianity. For this purpose, a number of popes sought to improve the credibility of the clergy and struggled to eradicate simony (the selling of indulgences), clerical marriage, and concubinage. Various monarchs who were either deeply concerned for the survival of Christianity or desirous of territorial gain (or more likely, both) dreamed of a reinvigorated Christianity reconquering the lands that had fallen to Islam. Pope Urban II appealed to Christians in 1095 to fight a "holy war" in order to regain

the places held sacred by the Christians. The result was a crusading movement, popularly known the Crusades, which continued until nearly 1300 and gave rise to many acts of violence and barbarism that, in turn, stamped the Christianity badly as the most intolerant religion.

Elements & Practices


Christianity absorbed and adopted many elements and practices (Circumcision, Sabbath, scriptures, logical argument and the expression of philosophical ideas and centralized authority of law and order ~ church),from Jewish Greek, Roman and other religious sources. 1. Book Apocrypha is a group of fourteen disputed books (Apocryphaa Greek term meaning "hidden.) They are written by Jews sometime between the second century BCE and the first century CE. The Apocrypha has been a source of controversy among both Jews and Christians, neither of whom have ever been able to determine whether or not the books should be held as sacred as the other books of the Bible. Some segments of the Christian community retain the Apocrypha in their Bible. Many scholars doubt whether the gospels were actually written by the apostle who bore these names. Moreover, as far as the historical data can trace, the first Christian writings are actually the letters written by Paul to the young churches. These letters were written to explain the Pauline understanding on what was later known as Christianity. The Growth of the New Testament appeared when there were no original manuscript of any of these books survives. The earlier copies dated from the second or third centuries, though earlier fragments have been discovered. 2. Creeds: Creeds are statements of faith that are true and authoritative insofar as they accurately reflect what Scripture teaches. Of the various creeds promulgated through the centuries, two predominant creeds in contemporary Christian churches. None of the earlier copies of the gospels was written in the language spoken by Jesus, i.e., Aramaic.

1. The Apostles' Creed (it was argued that it summed up what they taught)

2. The Nicene Creed

The early Christians required some form of declaration of faith prior to baptism. Some of these declarations, or creeds, consisted of one sentence, e.g. "I acknowledge Jesus" or "I choose to follow Jesus." Later on, the creeds developed to contain more and more doctrines as these became clearer to the early Church theologians.To combat this heresy, the Council of Nicea was convened in 325 and the Nicene Creed was developed. You will understand therefore why the Nicene Creed contains the words: We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.

Core Christian doctrines are formulated precisely in the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed, and then finally, standardized ecumenically or catholically in the Chalcedonian Creed. . But the roots that gave strength and vitality to these doctrines, of course, can be found scatteredly in the New Testament books, particularly the letters of Paul. So central and decisive the role Paul played in the establishment of Christianity, that many modern Christologists, among them is Hyam Maccoby in his The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity (1986), attributed him as "the real founder" of this religion. 3. Rites and Rituals Both Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox adherents regard seven rites as sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation/Christmation, Penance/Confession, Eucharist/Holy Communion, Matrimony, Holy Orders (ordination), and Holy Unction/Euchelaion (last rites). Many Protestant groups consider only two of these to be sacraments: Baptism and Holy Communion. The distinctions among Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant churches are very complex. Suffice it to say that many Protestants repudiate the following fundamental elements upheld by both Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox: 4. Worship and Prayers The differences between the groups are even more pronounced in the observances of Christian festivals, which are divided into two distinct series. 1. One comprises the venerations of saints. 2. The other is associated with the liturgical year (the annual calendar of public prayer and worship) and commemorates the sacred events of the Christian religion in particular, the cycle of events connected with the life of Jesus Christ.Christmas and Easter.

Theology: The Trinity and The Hypostases


The Christians modified the idea of triune god, which is earlier than Christian because Greek Mythology and the popular Christian mythology have a lot of similarity. For examples:

Horus virgin birth is similar with Jesuss. In Egyptian Mythology Horus, the god of light, sky, and goodness (Jesus is commonly associated being the god of sky, light, and goodness too. Horuss resurrention is similar with Chirsts.

The word "Trinity" does not appear in the Bible . The word was first used by Tertullian (c.155-230) . The doctrine of the Trinity is commonly expressed as: "One God, three Persons" The doctrine is formally defined in the Nicene Creed, which declares Jesus to be: "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very

God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father." Past and present Christian faiths who do not believe in the Trinity include:

Arianism (4th century) Some Radical Reformers (16th century), such as Michael Servetus Jehovah's Witnesses Mormonism Unitarianism

Most of the Christians today, irrespective of their denominational inclinations, believe in the Holy Trinity, that God has three hypostases (subsistence or individualized manifestations); the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One is three, and three are one. Reasons given for believing in the Trinity include:

It is taught indirectly in various statements in the Bible It explains the divinity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit while affirming monotheism It would not be expected that the nature of God would make sense to human minds The early ecumenical councils (primarily Nicea) are authoritative

Some Christian traditions either reject the doctrine of the Trinity or consider it unimportant. Persons and groups espousing this position generally do not refer to themselves as "Nontrinitarians". They can vary in both their reasons for rejecting traditional teaching on the Trinity, and in the way they describe God. Reasons given for rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity include: It is not mentioned in the Bible It does not make philosophical sense It is not compatible with monotheism It is not necessary in order to explain the "specialness" of Jesus

The Romans had never been Christianized, but it was Christianity that had become Romanized.

Denominational Growth- Modernism /Modern Movement


Socio-oriented: In 1844 the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was founded by George Williams, an Englishman whose aim was to improve the physical, social, intellectual, and religious level of the young men in the lower- and middle-income groups. The International Red Cross was organized in 1863, mainly through the efforts of the Swiss Henri Dunant, to take care of the sick and wounded in war. In 1878 the Salvation Army was begun by another Englishman, William Booth, in an effort to uplift, both physically and spiritually, the dregs of society. In 1889 the Christian social Union (CSU) was founded in England, mainly to resolve management-labor disputes by applying Christian principles.

Purely religio-oriented:

Most of them have been sprung up from Protestantism whose style is so fluid that can accommodate all various strands. Perhaps the panorama of American denominations serves the best expression of this phenomenon in which two ways of response to modern challenges are easily identifiable: a conservatism, which came to be known as fundamentalism and which sought to preserve the religious values of frontier revivalism and religious surety in a changing world; and the more liberal "social gospel" movement, which strove to correlate religion to new ideas in science and society, and to recover the old dream of making America into a new "people of God" through social reform. There are around a dozen of the main Protestant denominations or traditions in America (the Methodist family, the Baptists, the Lutheran church, the Church of England, the Presbyterian churches, the Calvinists, the United Church of Christ, the New England congregational, the Quakers, the Pentecostalism, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day, the Episcopal, etc.) Each of Them has many branches with all the total number of membership of approximately 75 million people (compared to Roman Catholic churches which have only about 58 million members) in the last two decades. Ecumenism It is the trend toward worldwide unity or cooperation among churches. Paradoxically, Protestant reform that resulted in fragmentation in earlier centuries is now being countered by reform aimed at reunion, two types of which in particular are distinguishable. Vatican II - "Salvation Outside The Church The responses of various Christian thinkers, Roman Catholic and Protestant, to the challenging phenomenon, called globalization, have led to the development of three important perspectives: Exclusivism. This is the most immediate, predictable, response of Christian churches regardless of their various sects and denominations, to the phenomenon. The Catholic doctrine "extra ecclesiam nulla salus" (no salvation outside the church), and the Protestant doctrine "extra Christos nulla salus" (no salvation outside Christianity) presuppose absolutely the absolute claim of Christian uniqueness or truth. Inclusivism. A relatively radical change has taken place in the attitude of Roman Catholic Church towards nonChristian religions. For the first time in history, the Vatican passed a crucial decision in the ecumenical council of Vatican II (1962-1965) admitting "salvation outside the church". But it should be added here immediately that this common salvation does not necessarily imply the abolition of the absolute claim of Christian uniqueness at all. Rather, it is because of the very uniqueness of Christian "grace" that salvation includes non-Christians, and not because of truth and validity of their religions. Religious Pluralism It is the theory that all religions are different ways through which, or spaces in which, men can find salvation. So, it urges religious person to partake the radical theological transformation from self-centeredness to reality-centeredness.

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