Christianity today
As of 2004, Christianity was the world's most widely accepted
religion, with 2.0
billion adherents (followed by
Islam
with 1.2 billion,
Hinduism with 841 million, and the nonreligious with 774
million). Christians include 84 million
Anglicans, 414 million Independents (unaffiliated with the major
streams of Christianity), 31.7 million "marginals" (Jehovah
Witnesses, Mormons, etc.), 216 million
Orthodox, 367 million
Protestants and 1.1 billion
Catholics.
Christianity has many branches, including
Catholicism,
Eastern Orthodoxy, and the various
religious denominations of
Protestantism. Other forms of Christianity have arisen that
claim a separate history, such as
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Although Christianity is the largest religion in the world and
there are massive missionary efforts under way, as a whole it is
declining in terms of the overall population. While the population
of the world grows at roughly 1.25% per year, Christianity is
growing at about 1.12% per year. By contrast, Islam is growing at
1.76% per year. Christianity in certain geographic sectors (Africa,
Asia) and certain parts of groups (evangelicals, marginals) are,
however, growing rapidly. Thus the character and nature of
Christianity is changing.
Not all people identified as Christians accept all, or even most,
of the theological positions that their particular church mandates.
Like the Jewish people, Christians in the West were greatly affected
by
The Enlightenment in the late
17th and early
18th centuries. Perhaps the most significant change for them was
total or effective separation of
Church and State, thus ending the
state-sponsored Christianity that existed in so many European
countries. Now one could be a free member of society and disagree
with one's church on various issues, and one could even be free to
leave the church altogether. Many did leave; or accommodated to
society, further developing belief systems such as
Deism,
Unitarianism,
Universalism,
Humanism,
Atheism, and
Agnosticism.
Others created liberal wings of Protestant Christian theology.
Modernism in the late
19th century encouraged new forms of thought and expression that
did not follow traditional lines.
Reaction to "The Enlightenment" and Modernism triggered the
development of literally thousands of Christian Protestant
denominations,
traditionalist splinter groups of the Catholic Church that do
not recognize the legitimacy of many reforms the Catholic Church has
undertaken, and the growth of hundreds of
fundamentalist groups that interpret the entire Bible in a
characteristically literal fashion.
In the
United States and
Europe,
liberalism also led to
secularism. Some Christians have long since stopped
participating in traditional religious duties, attending churches
only on a few particular days per year or not at all. Many of them
recall having highly religious grandparents, but grew up in homes
where Christian theology was no longer a priority. They have
developed ambivalent feelings towards their religious duties. On the
one hand they cling to their traditions for identity reasons; on the
other hand, the influence of the secular Western mentality, the
demands of daily life, and peer pressure tear them away from
traditional Christianity.
Marriage between Christians of different denominations, or
between a Christian and a non-Christian, was once taboo, but has
become commonplace.
Liberal Christianity grew rapidly during the early
20th century in Europe and North America, by the
1960s
gaining the leadership of many of the larger US and Canadian
denominations. However, this trend has reversed. At the turn of the
21st century, though secular society tends to prefer to consider
the more accommodating liberals as the representatives and spokesmen
of Christianity, the "mainline" liberal churches are shrinking. This
is partly due to loss of evangelistic zeal, partly due to drift of
their membership to conservative denominations, and partly due to
the failure of one generation to pass on Christianity to the next.
Among the larger Protestant denominations in the USA, only the
conservative
Southern Baptist is growing. Evangelical para-church
organizations have grown rapidly in the last half of the 20th
century. The liberal
Christian Century magazine has shrunk, while being replaced by
its challenger, the rapidly growing evangelical
Christianity Today.
The Enlightenment had much less impact on the Eastern Churches of
Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy. Having to face a much more hostile
secular society, especially during the rise of
Communism, the church clung to ancient beliefs, even as its
membership eroded.
Today in
Eastern Europe and
Russia,
a renewing trend is taking place. After decades of Communism and
atheism, there is widespread interest in Christianity, as well
as religion in general. Many Orthodox churches and monasteries are
being rebuilt and restored, filled beyond capacity; Protestants of
many denominations are pouring in to evangelize and plant churches;
and the Catholic church is revealing once secret dioceses and
undertaking other steps to support Catholic churches more openly.
In
South America and
Africa,
Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity form rapidly growing
movements that are increasingly sending
missionaries to Europe and North America. This is also true of
Asia
where many of the underground house churches intend to send hundreds
of thousands of missionaries out over the next decade.
As Modernism developed into
Consumerism during the second half of the
20th century the
Megachurch phenomenon developed – catering for skeptical
non-Christians by providing "seeker sensitive" presentations of
Christian belief. The
Alpha Course can be viewed as an example one such presentation
of Christianity.
Since the development of
Postmodernism with its rejection of universally accepted belief
structures in favour of more personalized and experiential truth,
organized Christianity has increasingly found itself at odds with
the desire many people have to express faith and spirituality in a
way that is authentic to them. What has thus far been known as the
Emerging Church is a by-product of this trend, as many people
who broadly accept Christianity seek to practice that faith while
avoiding established Church institutions.
A large and growing movement within the Christian church,
especially in the West and most visible in the United States, is the
evangelical movement. Most mainstream
protestant denominations have a significantly active
evangelical minority, and, in some cases, a dominant majority
(see
Confessing Movement). Evangelicals are "trans-denominational"
and are more willing to have formal and informal relationships with
evangelicals from outside their denomination than to have the same
sort of relationship with non-evangelicals within their
denomination.
Some evangelicals have been
schismatic within various church organisations, leaving to form
their own denominations. More often they are forced out. It was only
by dint of sheer determination that John Wesley, founder of
Methodism was able to remain an Anglican priest against intense
opposition. His followers separated in America, and in England after
his death. Evangelicals claim that their beliefs are no less than
true Christianity itself and that those within the church who differ
from them may not be true believers. This attitude has led to much
disunity amongst churches, especially those with a large modernist
influence. Evangelicals cannot be easily categorised, but almost all
will believe in the necessity of a personal conversion and
acceptance of Jesus as saviour and Lord, the eventual literal return
of Christ, a more conservative understanding of the Bible and a
belief in the miraculous. There are many different types of
Evangelicals including
Dispensationists,
Reformed Christians,
Pentecostals,
Charismatics and
Fundamentalists.
For more, see:
Doctrine
Christians adopted many ideas and practices from
Judaism, including
monotheism, the belief in a
messiah (or
Christ, which means "anointed one"), certain forms of worship
(such as prayer, and reading from religious texts), a priesthood,
and the idea that worship on Earth is modelled on worship in
heaven.
The central belief of Christianity is that by faith in the
sacrificial death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ, individuals are saved from
death
both
spiritual and
physical by
Redemption from their
sins
(i.e. faults, misdeeds, disobedience, rebellion against God). By
faith,
repentance, and obedience men and women are reconciled to
God
through
sanctification or
theosis and returned to their place with God in
Heaven.
Crucial beliefs in Christian teaching are Jesus'
incarnation,
atonement,
crucifixion,
death
and
resurrection to redeem humankind from
sin and
death; the belief that the New Testament is a new part of the Bible;
and
supersessionism. Supersessionism is the belief that the Jews'
chosenness found its ultimate fulfillment through the message of
Jesus; Jews who remain non-Christian are no longer considered to be
chosen, since they reject Jesus as the messiah and son of God.
The emphasis on God giving his son, or the Son (who is God)
coming down to earth for the sake of humanity is an essential
difference between Christianity and other religions, where the
emphasis is instead placed solely on humans working for
salvation.
The most uniform and broadly accepted tradition of doctrine, with
the longest continuous representation, repeatedly reaffirmed by
official Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant definitions (although
not without dissent, as noted below) asserts that specific beliefs
are essential to Christianity, including but not limited to:
- God is a
Trinity, a single eternal being existing in three persons:
Father, Son (Divine Logos), and
Holy Spirit.
- Jesus is both fully God and fully human, two "natures" in one
person.
-
Mary, the mother of Jesus, bore in her womb and gave birth to
the Son of God (who is, Himself, likewise God), who although
eternally existent was formed in her womb by the Spirit of God.
From her humanity he received in his person a human intellect and
will, and all else that a child would naturally receive from its
mother.
- Jesus is the Messiah hoped for by the Jews, the heir to the
throne of David. He reigns at the right hand of The Father with
all authority and power. He is the hope of all mankind, their
advocate and judge. Until he returns at the end of the age,
the Church has the authority and obligation to preach the
Gospel and to gather new disciples.
- Jesus was innocent of any sin. Through the death and
resurrection of Jesus, believers are forgiven of sins and
reconciled to God. Believers are baptized into the resurrection
and new life (or death in some groups) of Christ. Through faith,
they live by the promise of resurrection from death to everlasting
life through Christ. The Holy Spirit is sent to them by Christ, to
bring hope and lead mankind into true knowledge of God and His
purposes, and help them grow in holiness.
- Jesus will return personally, and bodily, to receive the
faithful to himself, so they will live forever in the intimate
presence of God.
- Western Christians believe that the
Bible
is the word of
God.
Many
Eastern Christians balk at this terminology as too close to
the title
Word of
God, an epithet for
Jesus Christ. Nevertheless they do not question the authority
of the Bible as such. However, some Christians disagree to varying
degrees about how accurate the Bible is and how it should be
interpreted.
Christianity is considered by mainstream Christians to be the
continuation or fulfilment of the
Jewish faith. However, many Christian organizations throughout
history have had varying ideas about the basic tenets of the
Christian faith, from ancient sects such as
Arians and
Gnostics, to modern groups such as
Jehovah's Witnesses (who have a different theological
understanding of Jesus, God and the Bible),
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who believe that
in 1829 God restored the apostolic priesthood to their leader
Joseph Smith, Jr., making possible continuing revelation
(including additional teachings and scripture), and the
Unification Church. While various groups may differ in their
approach to the specifics of Christ's role, ministry, and nature
(some calling him a god or Gods, and others calling him a man),
Christ is generally assumed to have cosmic importance. Some of these
groups number themselves among the Christian churches, or believe
themselves to be the only true Christian church. Furthermore,
present-day
liberal Protestant Christians do not define Christianity as
necessarily including belief in the deity of Jesus, the
virgin birth, the
Trinity,
miracles, the resurrection, the ascension of Christ, or the
personality or deity of the
Holy Spirit. Liberals may or may not recommend belief in such
things, but differentiate themselves from conservative Christians by
defining as included within genuine Christianity anyone who explains
their views or teachings principally by appeal to Jesus. It is
common for those who hold the more traditional tenets of faith
described in the paragraph above to assert that some or all of these
groups are not part of Christianity.
Christian heresies
The following is a list of beliefs within Christianity that have
been called
heresies.
Adoptionism --
Albigensians --
Apollinarism --
Arianism --
Cathars
--
Docetism --
Donatism --
Lollardy --
Mandaeans --
Manicheanism --
Monarchianism --
Montanism --
Nestorianism --
Patripassianism --
Pelagianism --
Priscillianism --
Psilanthropism --
Sabellianism --
Unitarianism --
Universalism
In
Classical times,
Gnosticism exchanged ideas and symbolism with Christianity.
Some modern self-proclaimed Christian movements hold beliefs that
more closely resemble these ancient heresies.
Christianity's relationship with other faiths
For more information on the relationship between Christianity and
other world religions over the years, see the Wikipedia article on
Christianity and World Religions.
Christianity and Judaism
See:
Since the
Holocaust, there has been much to note in the way of
reconciliation between some Christians groups and the Jewish people;
the article on
Christian-Jewish reconciliation studies this issue.
Messianic Judaism refers to a group of evangelical
Christian religious movements, self-identified as Jewish, who
believe that
Jesus
is the
Messiah. Contrary to
Judaism, they are
trinitarians, professing that Jesus is God, incarnate. Even
though many Messianic Jews are ethnically Jewish, they are not
considered part of the Jewish community by mainstream Jewish groups.
They are not to be confused with the many Christian believers of
Jewish ethnic background who are members not of these religious
movements, but rather of regular Christian churches.
Christianity and persecution
Christians have been both the victims and the
perpetrators of persecution (see
Persecution of Christians).
In spite of the widely held belief that such violence is
antithetical to Christ's teachings, Christian adherents have at
times persecuted, tortured and killed others for refusing to believe
in their type of Christianity.
Protestants,
Catholics and other Christians have persecuted each other in the
name of
Jesus. In the second half of the
20th century Roman Catholics and Protestants have been killing
each other in
Northern Ireland. An example was Father
Lawrence Jenco, whose health was nearly broken by almost two
years held as a hostage in
Lebanon. When asked about his feelings toward his
Hezbollah captors, he replied that he had to forgive them.
Modern Christianity appears, for the most part, to have adopted a
position of freedom or tolerance rather than persecution. Observers
often interpret events to fit their opinions. When a military from
Christian countries invaded Iraq early in the
21st century and killed thousands of people, some observers
considered it was a Christian coalition deliberately attacking a
country because it was Islamic, while others considered it was a
coalition of free countries deliberately trying to bring freedom to
Iraqis and an end to terrorism in Iraq, with religion having nothing
to do with it.
Christian churches worldwide
For a list of the various kinds of culturally different Christian
churches around the world today see the
List of Christian denominations. For information about the
various "super-bodies" of churches which many individual
congregations or in some cases bishoprics of these churches
associate under see
full communion.
See also
Alternative Views
The
Ebionites originated as an ancient sect of
Talmidi Jews (Followers of the Way) who held Jesus of Nazareth
to have been a fully human Jewish prophet. They rejected notions of
his divinity, the virgin birth, and opposed the teachings of Paul of
Tarsu
