What is Christianity?

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Douglas Jacobsen. What is Christianity?

What Is Christianity?

Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

Guide

Pages

List of Figures

List of Tables

Introduction What Is Christianity?

Notes

1 Christian Beginnings

The Jewish Roots of Christianity

Jesus and the Gospel

Christianity’s Original Diversity

Emergence of the Great Church

The Roman Imperial Church

Christian Diversity and Unity in the Year 500

The Great Division

The “Traditioning” of Christianity

Notes

2 Orthodoxy Preserving Ancient Ways

Orthodox Spirituality

The Orthodox Understanding of Salvation

Orthodox History

The Expansion and Consolidation of Orthodoxy in Byzantium, 500 to 900

Orthodoxy in a Slowly Faltering Empire, 900 to mid-1400s

Orthodoxy After the Fall of Byzantium, 1453 to the Present

Institutional and Social Structure of Orthodoxy

Notes

3 Catholicism The Church

Catholic Spirituality

The Catholic Understanding of Salvation

Catholic History

The Conversion of Europe, 500 to 1000

Consolidating the Catholic Tradition, 1000 to 1500

Catholicism Challenged and Reaffirmed: 1500 to 1900

Uncharted Territory: 1900 to the Present

Institutional and Social Structure of Catholicism

Notes

4 Protestantism The Bible and the Individual

Protestant Spirituality

The Protestant Understanding of Salvation

Protestant History

Protestantism’s Diverse Origins, 1500 to 1650

Three New Protestant Spiritual Orientations, 1650–1800

World Missions and Modern Knowledge, 1800–1950

Global Protestant Dynamics, 1950 to the Present

Institutional and Social Structure of Protestantism

Notes

5 Pentecostalism The Power of the Spirit

Pentecostal Spirituality

The Pentecostal Understanding of Salvation

Pentecostal History

Institutional and Social Structure of Pentecostalism

Notes

6 Becoming Global

Catholic Globalization

Protestant Globalization

The Bigger Picture: From Eurocentrism to World Christianity

Notes

7 The Contemporary Geography of Christianity

Mapping Christianity’s Regional Differences

The Middle East and North Africa (1 percent of all Christians worldwide)

Eastern Europe (12 percent of all Christians worldwide)

Western Europe (13 percent of all Christians worldwide)

India and Central Asia (3 percent of all Christians worldwide)

Sub-Saharan Africa (24 percent of all Christians worldwide)

East Asia (10 percent of all Christians worldwide)

Latin America (25 percent of all Christians worldwide)

North America (11 percent of all Christians worldwide)

Oceania (1 percent of all Christians worldwide)

Christian Interactions Today

Note

8 Common Threads and Shared Challenges

Common Threads in the Early Christian Movement

The Modern Search for Christian Unity

Christian Commonalities Today

Common Worship Practices

Common Christian Doctrines

Common Spiritual Grammar

Contemporary Challenges

Christianity and Local Religions

Christianity and Islam

Christianity and the Religiously Unaffiliated

Christianity and the Anthropocene Era

Notes

Conclusion What Is Christianity Today?

Notes

Index

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Douglas Jacobsen

1.2 Geographic locations of the three traditions created by the Great Division

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With the approval and generous financial support of Roman authorities, Christians began building large and spectacular church buildings. Before the year 300, Christians had generally worshiped in relatively small quarters, often meeting in a house or similarly sized building. Once Christianity became the official religion of the empire, modest and provisional structures no longer seemed adequate or appropriate. New buildings were needed that could compete with or even outshine the grandeur of the older temples of Roman paganism, and enormous amounts of money were devoted to building massive, architecturally impressive church buildings called basilicas. As the architecture of the Christian movement changed, the visual art inside those buildings also changed. Most noticeably, Jesus got older and sterner. In the early centuries of Christianity, Jesus was typically pictured as a young, beardless shepherd carrying a lamb over his shoulders. The new portrayals typically depicted Jesus as a bearded, middle-aged judge or ruler on a throne (see Figure 1.1). Simultaneously, Christian worship became more elaborately choreographed, tailored to fit the magnificence of the new church buildings. Worship began to feel much more like an imperial court ritual than like a gathering of friends. Together, these changes signaled a major shift in Christian identity. Christianity was no longer the faith of social outcasts; it had become the faith of the prominent and powerful.

Figure 1.1 Figure of Jesus as a young shepherd (from the catacomb of Priscilla, Rome, third century) and Jesus as a middle-aged judge (from the Chora Church in Istanbul, originally constructed in the later fourth century). Source: Image on left: Joseph Wilpert, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Good_Shepherd_Catacomb_of_Priscilla.

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