The Church

Christianity is the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Most followers of Christianity, called Christians, are members of one of three major groups-Roman Catholic, Protestant, or Eastern Orthodox. These groups have different beliefs about Jesus and His teachings. But all consider Jesus central to their religion. Most Christians believe God sent Jesus into the world as the Savior. Christianity teaches that humanity can achieve salvation through Jesus.

Jesus lived in Judea (later called Palestine), a Middle Eastern land ruled by the Romans. The Romans crucified Jesus about A.D. 30. Jesus' followers were convinced that He rose from the dead, and they soon spread Christianity to major cities throughout the Roman Empire. Today, Christians make up the largest religious group in the world. Christianity has about 11/2 billion followers. It is the major religion in Europe, the Western Hemisphere, and Australia. Many Christians also live in Africa and Asia.

Christianity has had an enormous influence on Western civilization, especially on art, literature, and philosophy. The teachings of Christianity have had a lasting effect on the conduct of business, government, and social relations.

Beliefs

Christians believe that there is one God, and that He created the universe and continues to care for it. The belief in one God was first taught by the Jewish religion.

Christianity teaches that God sent His Son, Jesus, into the world as His chosen servant, called the Messiah (Christos in Greek), to help people fulfill their religious duties. Christianity also teaches that after Jesus' earthly life, God's presence remained on earth in the form of the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost. The belief that in one God there are three Persons-the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit-is known as the doctrine of the Trinity. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches and many Protestant churches accept this doctrine as the central teaching of Christianity.

Some Christians regard Jesus as a great but human teacher. However, most Christians view Jesus as God incarnate-that is, a divine being who took on the human appearance and characteristics of a man. They believe that Jesus is the Savior who died to save humanity from sin. According to this view, Jesus' death made salvation and eternal life possible for others.

Christians gather in churches because they believe that God intended them to form special groups for worship. They also meet in churches to encourage one another to lead upright lives according to God's moral law.

Two practices important to Christian worship usually take place in churches. These practices are (1) baptism and (2) the Eucharist, also called Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper. The ceremony of baptism celebrates an individual's entrance into Christianity. The Eucharist represents the Last Supper, the final meal that Jesus shared with His disciples. Worshipers share bread and wine in the Eucharist as a sign of their unity with each other and with Jesus.

Christians see Jesus as continuous with the God of Judaism. A collection of Christian writings was added to the Jewish scriptures known as the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible. The Christian writings, called the New Testament, record the life and teachings of Jesus. They also describe the development of the early church and explain what faith in Jesus means. The Christian Bible includes both the Old and New Testaments. Some Christian groups also accept as part of the Bible a collection of writings called the Apocrypha.

The origin of Christianity

Jesus' ministry. Christianity originated in the ministry of Jesus. During His lifetime, Jesus preached the gospel, meaning good news, that God was coming to earth to be among His people in a special way. Jesus called this special way the Kingdom of God. He warned His listeners to repent their sinful ways to be ready for the approaching Kingdom of God. In urging repentance, Jesus gave His own interpretation of Jewish law to show how people could obey God and achieve righteousness.

For a time, Jesus' teaching brought Him great popularity. Reports spread that He performed such miracles as healing the sick and bringing the dead back to life. Jesus' popularity caused opposition from Jewish and Roman officials. The Romans charged Jesus with treason for calling Himself King of the Jews, and they crucified Him as a criminal.

Resurrection and Pentecost. The followers of Jesus did not accept His death as His end. Jesus' followers were certain that Jesus came back from the dead. They believed that He later rose to heaven. Many stories circulated about Jesus' appearance among His disciples after His death.

Reports of the Resurrection convinced many people that Jesus was the Son of God. Some followers began to call Jesus the Messiah, the Savior of the Jewish people promised in the Old Testament. Followers of Jesus came to believe that they, too, could receive eternal life because of Jesus' Resurrection.

Jesus had chosen 12 men, known as the apostles, to preach the gospel after His death. About 50 days after the Crucifixion, the apostles and other followers of Jesus claimed that the Holy Spirit had entered them and given them the ability to speak foreign languages. This ability enabled them to spread Jesus' teachings to all lands. Christians date the beginning of the church to this event, which they celebrate as Pentecost.

The first Christians were Jews. Soon, many gentiles (non-Jews) converted to the new faith. Peter and the other apostles urged people to accept Jesus as the divine Christ who had conquered sin and death. Peter founded churches in Palestine and, according to Christian tradition, headed the church in Rome.

Paul, an early convert to Christianity, preached mainly to gentiles outside Palestine. Paul believed that human nature is basically sinful. For that reason, he felt that people are unable to repent and live according to God's law. Yet Paul believed that human nature can be changed through faith in Jesus as the Son of God and belief in His power to forgive sin. According to Paul, people can share in Jesus' life through baptism and the Eucharist. Paul's version of Christianity has survived in his epistles (letters) to the young Christian churches. The epistles form part of the New Testament.

At first, there were many kinds of Christian leaders, both men and women. No central authority regulated their activities. But by A.D. 100, churches began to distinguish between religious leaders, called clergy, and the general membership. The most important leader in every large church was a bishop who supervised other clergy. Christians relied on bishops to interpret Christian teachings and ensure correct belief.

The spread of Christianity

The early church. At first, the Roman government considered Christianity a legal Jewish sect. However, beginning in A.D. 64, and continuing for the next 250 years, various Roman emperors persecuted the followers of Christianity. Rather than weakening the young religion, persecution strengthened it. Persecution gave believers of Christianity an opportunity to prove their faith by dying for it.

The Roman Emperor Constantine the Great gave Christians freedom of worship in 313. He called the first ecumenical (general) church council in 325 to make doctrine uniform throughout the empire. The council adopted a statement known as the Nicene Creed, which said that Jesus Christ was of the same substance as God. The council condemned Arianism, a belief that Jesus was not completely divine.

By 392, Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire. The church then grew more involved in worldly affairs. In protest, some believers adopted a way of life known as monasticism. They withdrew from everyday life to concentrate on prayer and meditation. During the 500's, Saint Benedict of Nursia established monasteries where monks and nuns lived in separate communities. He also set down rules for the monastic way of life. For 500 years, most monastics in Europe belonged to the Benedictine religious order. The Benedictines helped spread Christianity throughout western Europe.

In 395, the Roman Empire was split into the West and East Roman empires. In 476, the last West Roman emperor fell from power. German chieftains carved up the West Roman Empire. The East Roman Empire survived as the Byzantine Empire until 1453, when Turks captured its capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul). Christianity also had a Western and an Eastern church. The center of the Western church was in Rome and the center of the Eastern church was in Constantinople. The most powerful church leaders were the bishop of Rome, called the pope, in the West and the patriarch of Constantinople in the East.

The Middle Ages began after the fall of the West Roman Empire and continued for about 1,000 years. During the Middle Ages, Christianity replaced the Roman Empire as the unifying force in western Europe.

After the fall of the West Roman Empire, the pope had more authority than any other person in Europe. The most influential early pope was Gregory the Great, whose reign began in 590. Gregory sent missionaries to convert the people of England. He also established rules of conduct for the clergy.

The pope exercised political as well as spiritual authority. In 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish ruler Charlemagne emperor of the Romans. Charlemagne had united much of western Europe. He wanted to restore the stability of Roman rule in an empire built on the Christian faith. Charlemagne's empire declined after his death in 814. But Leo III had established the pope's right to make an emperor's authority lawful.

After Charlemagne, disputes arose over the distribution of power between the church and the state. Many kings and nobles insisted on the right to appoint church officials. The desire for an independent clergy led Pope Nicholas II to establish the Sacred College of Cardinals in 1059. The college assumed responsibility for electing a pope. In 1075, Pope Gregory VII announced that the pope would appoint clergy free from outside interference. He also outlawed simony, the practice of buying and selling church posts.

Medieval religious scholars called scholastics expanded Christian doctrine into a complete body of thought that included science and philosophy. The scholastics wished to reach a better understanding of Christian faith through reason. Saint Anselm, an early scholastic, attempted to prove God's existence through logic. In the 1200's, Saint Thomas Aquinas produced the most important scholastic work, the Summa Theologica. In it, he brought Christian doctrine into harmony with the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.

Monasteries were centers of learning throughout the Middle Ages. In the 1200's, members of new religious orders, called friars, began to work among the people. Franciscan friars followed the selfless example of Saint Francis of Assisi, who founded their order in 1209. Franciscans were noted for their loving service to others. The Dominican order, founded in 1216 by Saint Dominic, became noted for its scholarship.

During the Middle Ages, Christian armies tried to recapture Palestine, which had been conquered by Muslim Turks. These military expeditions, known as Crusades, began just before 1100 and ended in the late 1200's. The crusaders failed to hold the Holy Land. But their contact with the East greatly influenced European culture.

The division of the church

The split between East and West. The two centers of Christianity-Rome and Constantinople-drifted further apart during the early Middle Ages. Eastern Christians enjoyed political stability, and they tolerated a wide range of religious discussion. Western believers supported many different kingdoms, but they insisted on complete agreement over doctrine. Disagreements over the pope's authority in the East produced a schism (split) in 1054 between the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church. The schism still exists today. However, some Eastern churches eventually reunited with the Roman Catholic Church, forming what are now called the Eastern Catholic Churches. See EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES.

Decline of papal authority. In 1309, a French pope moved the papacy (office of the pope) from Rome to Avignon in what is now France. The papacy remained in Avignon until 1377. French kings and nobles exerted influence on the papacy and greatly reduced its prestige. This decline in the institution of the papacy made many members of the clergy impatient for reform.

In 1378, a disagreement among the cardinals resulted in the election of two rival popes. For a time, three men opposed one another as the rightful pope. Finally in 1417, the Council of Constance elected a pope who was accepted by all the rival groups.

The Reformation. The desire to reform Christianity grew stronger during the 1500's. In 1517, a movement called the Reformation began when Martin Luther, a German monk, criticized certain church practices. The Reformation divided Western Christianity into the Roman Catholic Church and Protestantism.

Luther disagreed with church teaching about the role of human effort in salvation. Appealing to the theology of Saint Paul, Luther emphasized solely God's role in salvation. Luther's position contrasted with Roman Catholic views that humanity must freely cooperate with God's grace. According to Luther, the Bible alone and not traditional church doctrine should guide Christians. The Lutheran movement based on his teachings spread rapidly through northern Germany and the Scandinavian countries during the 1520's.

The teachings of John Calvin, a French Protestant thinker, greatly influenced the Reformation in Switzerland, England, Scotland, France, and the Netherlands. Calvin agreed with Luther about salvation through faith. But Calvin was more interested in how Christianity could reform society. Calvin urged Christians to live in communities according to the divine law expressed in the Bible.

In England, King Henry VIII influenced Parliament to establish the Church of England after he had declared his independence from the pope in 1534. But Calvinists in England wanted further reform. Their disputes with the Church of England led to the formation of the Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches in the 1600's.

Some smaller, more radical religious groups claimed that the Lutherans and Calvinists had not gone far enough in reforming Christianity. Some of these groups, including the Baptists, Quakers, and Mennonites, developed their own forms of worship.

The Counter Reformation. Some Christians wanted to reform the Roman Catholic Church without leaving it. To renew Catholic worship, the pope and other Catholic bishops called the Council of Trent, which met at various times from 1545 to 1563. Many decrees issued by the council deliberately opposed Protestant viewpoints. For this reason, the movement for reform within the church has been called the Counter Reformation. It is also known as the Catholic Reformation. The council emphasized church tradition as having equal authority with the Bible. The bishops at the council also stressed the role of human effort in achieving salvation.

A leading force in the Counter Reformation was the Society of Jesus, or Jesuit order, founded by Saint Ignatius Loyola in 1534. The Jesuits quickly restored religious zeal among believers in southern Europe. Jesuit missionaries helped spread Roman Catholicism to many peoples throughout the world.

The 1700's and 1800's

The spread of Protestantism contributed to a series of religious wars between Catholics and Protestants that ended in 1648. Christianity faced many challenges in the periods that followed, even though conflicts among Christians lessened.

Rationalism and pietism were two viewpoints that reduced religious controversy during the 1700's. Rationalism was the belief in an orderly universe that could be explained by human reason, especially by scientific principles. Rationalist thinkers urged religious people of all beliefs to agree on certain basic ideas. These ideas included the existence of a purposeful God or maker of the world, the existence of the soul, and the certainty of rewards and punishment in a life after death. Rationalists thought that disputes over belief involved matters of opinion rather than reasoned truths. But they came into conflict with many Christians because they rejected the Bible and church tradition as sources of truth.

Pietism avoided controversy in another way. Rather than appealing to reason, pietism emphasized the strong emotional power of personal religious experience. The pietists believed such experience was more important than intellectual formulas. They considered a private relationship with God more important than doctrinal precision or correct forms of worship. The most important figure in the pietist movement was John Wesley, an English clergyman. Wesley's followers, called Methodists, separated from the Church of England in the late 1700's.

The rise of nationalism during the 1800's weakened the influence of Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church. After the French Revolution began in 1789, the forces of nationalism and democracy swept across Europe. New governments tended to separate the powers of church and state. Nationalist movements questioned the supreme authority of the pope.

In the mid-1800's, Pope Pius IX took steps to uphold the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. The Syllabus of Errors issued by Pius in 1864 condemned republican government, rationalism, and other ideas that threatened the power and authority of the church. In 1869, Pius assembled Vatican Council I. It produced the most controversial act of his reign--the declaration of papal infallibility. According to this declaration, the pope cannot be in error when he speaks as head of the church on matters of faith or morals.

Science also challenged Christian belief. The evolutionary theory of biological development proposed by the British naturalist Charles Darwin conflicted with the Biblical version of creation.

Christianity today

Science and technology have changed the modern world and have created some new problems while solving old ones. Many people question whether religion can meet human needs in today's world of technology. In response, many Christians try to deal with basic issues of human welfare, and Christian leaders speak out on such issues as world peace and human rights. Some Christians seek a more emotional form of religious worship and turn to charismatic Christianity and other movements that stress a personal response to Jesus.

A search for unity, known as the ecumenical movement, has become a major concern of Christians during the 1900's. Protestants began meeting to explore closer cooperation in 1910. Protestant leaders formed the World Council of Churches in 1948. This organization works to reduce differences on doctrine and to promote Christian unity. Today, the World Council of Churches also represents Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Roman Catholic Church expressed its support for the ecumenical movement at Vatican Council II, which met from 1962 to 1965.

Contributor: Henry Warner Bowden, Ph.D., Prof. of Religion, Rutgers The State Univ. of New Jersey.

Additional resources

Atlas of the Christian Church. Ed. by Henry Chadwick and G. R. Evans. Facts on File, 1987.

Brown, Stephen F. Christianity. Facts on File, 1991. Also suitable for younger readers.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Ed. by Elizabeth A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1980. First published in 1978.

Cross Currents: Exploring the Implications of Christianity for Our Times. Ed. by William Birmingham. Crossroad, 1990. These essays survey significant issues since World War II.

The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity. Ed. by John McManners. Oxford, 1990.

The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology. Ed. by Alan Richardson and J. S. Bowden. Westminster, 1983.