Christianity
Christianity is the world's largest religion, having over 2 billion adherents, and takes its name from Jesus Christ meaning "Jesus the Savior" and "Jesus the Anointed One". Adherents are called Christians, meaning "of Christ" or "belonging to Christ".[1] It seems that at first the religion was called "The Way" and the adherents were called Nazarenes (after the city of Nazareth where Jesus lived). The name Christian arose in Antioch in the first century A. D. and its use spread, probably closer to mid-century since it is recorded in the Book of Acts (Acts:11:26)
Main Christian groups
The three largest self-governing bodies of Christians are:
- the Roman Catholic Church (approx. 1.1 billion baptized members) traces its roots back to Saint Peter who Catholic believed established the Church and the succession of the Popes as the spiritual authority over the Christian body of believers.
- the Orthodox Churches (approx. 300 million baptized members) also trace their roots back to the beginnings of Christianity, but do not believe in the Primacy of the Pope. Different theological perspectives led to the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches in A.D. 1054.
- Protestantism, the largest Communions are the Anglicans (approx. 77 million baptized members) and the Lutheran World Federation (approx. 68 million baptized members). Protestantism has its origins in the European Reformation. It first broke away from the Roman Catholic Church under Martin Luther when differences over the nature of faith and works in the role of salvation could not be adequately reconciled with Papal prescriptions as well as other practices that Luther saw in the Catholic Church at that time that he did not agree with. Other preachers and movements then followed Luther's example and also left the Catholic fold.
Christian beliefs
Theologians, over two millennia, have debated a definitive summary of the Christian faith. While its interpretations vary drastically, probably the most commonly accepted statement of faith is the Nicea-Constantinopolitan Creed below:
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages. Light of Light; true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man. And He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried. And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets. In one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the Resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
Christians and Christian denominations agree on many points of doctrine and disagree on others. According to an online Harris poll from 2003 99% of all American Christians believe in God, 96% in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 93% in Heaven, 93% in the virgin birth, 92% in the survival of the soul after death, 82% in Hell, 50% in ghosts, 27% in astrology and 21% in reincarnation. [2] Note that the latter two beliefs are in opposition to the religious dogma of most Christian denominations.
Nonetheless, the Nicea-Constantinopolitan Creed offers a general overall picture of what Christian theology looks like, and serves as a useful outline.
Other creeds may prove helpful in research. See also: the Apostle's Creed, Athanasian Creed.
God
The God of the Christians is a triune being. Though there is only one Divine nature there are three Divine Persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The three Persons are collectively called the Trinity or the Holy Trinity. Christians reject the idea that they are polytheists because of the oneness of the divine nature (or essence). Though to non-Christians and even many Christians, it might seem like an inconsequential dogma, the doctrine of the Trinity is central to all of Christian theology and life. This is especially true in the relationship between God and human beings. The major theme of the Bible is love. In the Hebrew Old Testament the idea is expressed in the Hebrew word hessed, which is variously translated as loyal love, tender mercy, steadfast love, mercy, goodness, etc. in the New Testament the same idea is expressed in the Greek word agape, which is variously translated as love, compassion, charity, etc. The picture that the Biblical writers draw with these words is of a lover (God) who is entirely self-sufficient, needing nothing, and a beloved (human beings) in desperate need of salvation but unable to obtain it for himself. But God the lover is willing to suffer, knows He is going to suffer, even endure death to save the beloved human beings. This love of God for human beings is an extension of the love the Three Persons in the Trinity have for each other. Each loves the others infinitely. Their love for each other and for their creation is such that the Apostle John equates God and love, in an almost mathematical way saying, "God is love."
Additionally, the God of the Christians is the creator of all things, is everywhere present, exists in all times, is transcendent, all-knowing (omniscient), just, all-powerful (omnipotent).
Jesus
Christians hold that during the reign of Caeser Augustus the Son (e.g. the second Person of the Trinity) took flesh from a virgin woman and was incarnate as a man. He was born in the town of Bethlehem and was given the name Jesus. At the age of thirty he was baptized by his cousin, the Prophet John, and began to preach in the area Palestine. About three years after his baptism, he raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, prompting the Jewish power establishment to plot Jesus death. Jesus was crucified. He came back from the dead and was seen by over 500 people. He ascended to heaven. The four Gospels contain the records of some of what Jesus did and said, but he did much more than those four books relate, as the Apostle John admitted in his Gospel.
Jesus' Self Consciousness
Jesus, conceived of the Holy Spirit, presented a disturbing surprise to his earthly father, Joseph, knowing he had not impregnated his fiancee, Mary. She would ponder the meaning of this miracle all the days Jesus would grow and finally she would behold her son expire on the cross. But Joseph, told by the Lord who his son really was, and how he had come about, and being warned by the Lord to flee the murderous Herod, took his family to Egypt - until the death of Herod made it safe ("Out of Egypt have I called My Son") to return to Israel. The family settled in Nazareth on the elevated rim of the Jezre'el Valley where he grew well and observably no different from the other youth. But when he was about 12 years old, he was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem, and displayed his consciousness that His real Father was God rather than Joseph ("Didn't you know that I must be here about the matters of My Father?".
They returned to Nazereth in Galilee and it wasn't until 28 years later that He began to publicly show His consciousness as to who he was. This was at his baptism at the Jordan River by John, when the voice came, to him, to John, and to the people privileged to be around, "This is my Son, the Beloved, Listen (Shma'a) to Him!" Here and now, against even the desire of John the Baptizer, Jesus, knowing that sin was not in him, chose to identify with sinful mankind in this baptism of John for repentance of sin, knowing that at the end of his time on earth, he would then be giving this sinless life of his on the cross, bearing the sins of the world upon himself.
Back, now, in Galilee, he would begin to do works of mercy, miracles of compassion, healings of deliverance, and overthrowing the devastaions of Satan upon the people of God's compassion - in short, bringing in the Kingdom of Heaven and of God and supplanting the Kingdom of Darkness. He began to gather around him his followers, simple fishing folk and others, spending most of his time in the area around the north shore of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). among the Jews of this Jewish area. He was bringing in the Messianic Kingdom to those who would understand it best, the Jews. But all the time, there was burning within him the knowledge that the blessings of Abraham would be extended, according to the promise, to all the peoples of the earth, the Gentiles, and there would be a new Kingdom, a new nation, transcending both Jews and Gentiles, the Kingdom of the people of God the Heavenly Father. He began his forays then into gentile areas, Phoenecia, the Decapolis, and other locales, and finding faith there such as he had not found "even in Israel".
A crossroads occurred, then, in the choice of Jesus, and consequently in the options of his disciples. It occurred in the Tetrarchy of Philip, at the foothills of Mt. Hermon, at the town of Caesarea Philipi. He knowing who he was, would force the question upon others - "Who do people say Me to be?". From the lips of Shim'on, whom he would call Peter, as leader of the others, He would hear - "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!" It was enough. Jesus would then begin imparting to them what the nature of His mission to be - not to expel the Romans from the Holy Land, but to go to Jerusalem, to be betrayed, to be spurned and rejected by the High Priests and the Elders of the People, to be hung on a Roman cross at the hands of the Gentiles, to die. Casesarea Philipi was in between, on one hand, Gentile pervaded Roman Tiberius to the southwest of the Sea, and on the other hand, anti-Roman nationalistic and zealotic Gamla to the north east of the Sea. (This latter would end their rebellion against Rome by suicide on Matzada in 73 A.D). Those two polarities were present in the minds of the disciples and Jesus began, on one hand, to divest from their minds the one, the warrior role of the Messiah against the Romans, and the other, to renew their thinking and their commitment to Him as the self sacrificing Lamb of God, the Prince of Peace and the true Messiah of Israel, on the other hand.
This took place on the long 3 or 4 day journey by foot from Galilee to Jerusalem, along the Jordan River valley, coming to Jericho, ascending to Jerusalem from the east. It was in Jerusalem that he prepared and settled the matter for the perpetuation of the Church at the Lord's last supper of the Passover, to be made palpable later by the descent of the Holy Spirit. It was in Jerusalem, in the Garden of the Oil Press, that what He had been lead to believe about his mission and the meaning and manner of his death was fully embraced and accepted with no reservation or turning back. "Your will be done, Father, if there is no other way", and "There is no other way, Your will be done Father!" It was a perfect decision and commitment, perfecting his life to be a perfect sacrifice. And it was to the west just outside Jerusalem that His teachings came to a concretization and realization on the cross. And just outside of Jerusalem that His Father would vindicate him by raising him from the dead.
"No man takes my life from me. I have power to take it and I have power to lay it down... I lay down my life for the sheep." [3]
"Though He was in the form of God, He did not think equality with God something to grasp on...
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