This overview of Christianity is quite extensive, and I found myself a bit confused at many points throughout this Encyclopedia entry. As the author states early on in this excerpt, the history behind Christianity is immense, and books much larger than his don't fully catalogue the full history of Christianity in it's entirety. The prevailing message I got was that Christianity and the singular doctrine which identifies it as the religion of Christ are hard to pinpoint, and debates over necessary ideals have created new sects within the Christian umbrella that attempt to refine their religious beliefs. Although the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist stand as a universal for Christians in both the east and the west, even these two constants have sparked debate over adult versus infant baptism, and Christ in spirit and power versus Christ in body and blood. It isn't the case that Christianity is a violently divided religion, but there are so many distinct versions of it, which has lead to competition colonialism and stewardship throughout history. I thought the author's distinction of visible versus invisible hierarchy in society and membership to the Church and thus salvation was very interesting, if not novel, then definitely a part of history I took for granted. This is also a hugely divisive factor in Christianity, of whether or not the members of the church are on the truest and most successful path to salvation and eternality of their soul, or whether it is the most pure laypeople practicing Christianity. The terminology for those who discuss Christianity and its doctrines seems to have changed, the author describes early theologians as saints and priests and monks, and modern day theologians as merely scholars and theorists, which brings up the dialogue of Christianity and what age it truly belongs to. This extensive history involves a majority of the world's scholars, as the author bounces from Thomas Aquinas to Charles Darwin, and I found this incredibly interesting. There will always be a debate over the minutiae of Christianity, as well as the reformations that may need to be made. In this sense Christianity must be fluid and organic to survive, the more time passes from the age of Christ, the more the aspects of Christianity are looked upon to be revised in the context of society.
Julie
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ReplyDeleteEven as a Christian I found this article confusing and extensive. Although I understand the basics of all of these concepts I cannot imagine reading this without any idea about Christianity. It just proves that every religion is very complicated even the most common ones. The thing I think the article was lacking was a desription of early Christianity and its creation out of Judaism. I think this is the part of the religion that a lot of people are confused about. I was confused that the article skipped straight to an examination of the religion centered around Christ because although that is a huge part of Christianity there was a lot that preceded Christ. I was also very interested in the branching off of different versions of Christianity such as Protestantism. This split is crucial to Christianity today because there are a lot of small differences between Protestants and Christians that are not well defined. I think the article did a good job at highlighting these differences.
ReplyDeleteAndrea
I'm embarrassed after reading this article. I wouldn't call myself Christian today, but I definitely grew up Presbyterian, and I did not know a lot of the history of the Christian religion that this article discusses. I do think that it is really interesting how great of an impact Christianity has had on all parts of the world. I also think its so interesting how many splits have occurred within the religion over various disparities among beliefs. I agree with Andrea that the Christian religion has more of a connection to the Jewish faith than the article suggests. Christ was Jewish! And while he began a new faith, that faith, in my opinion, has many roots in the Jewish faith, and I think this connection deserves more attention than the article allows. Overall, the article was very interesting, but I found it to be more of a timeline than a true overview of the beliefs of the Christian faith.
ReplyDeleteChristianity is one of the popular and widespread religions in the world. It is also a historical religion though it was officially established later. What I perceive in this article is the interesting part of west Christianity and east Christianity. The Christianity also has reformation in the process of development. During its confrontation of Islamism, we are all familiar with the crusades in the middle age. What I notice is that Christianity is a complexity of faith, hope and love. However, in the event of Crusades, people not following Christianity were slaughtered because they are viewed as heathens. Is this going against the principle of love? For people do not believe in Christianity, we need to show our love. The second aspect I want to talk about is the reformation of itself. Everything, during its development needs to reform. Martin Luther, a monk, claimed that Christianity should express itself not through monasticism or the papacy, but against both monasticism and the papacy. I think this followed the tide of The Enlightenment. As a result, this matched the development of people’s mind that time, which as I said, reformation is necessary. The third aspect which I find interesting is spread of Christianity. It is commonly believed that the spread of Christianity is through missionaries accompanying the great exploration and colonialism. These two campaigns contain violence which I think does not match the principle of love. Buddhism did not spread in this way in contrast. However, thanks to this forced spread of Christianity so it becomes one of the worldwide religions in the world and make so many people to worship it and bath under the God.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading this article, I knew about Christianity, but not in depth. I thought I had some of the major concepts but after this article, I feel like I had no understanding of the religion at all. I had no idea how intricate Christianity was and coming from a Jewish background, honestly, I'm pretty confused about all the people involved and the different definitions.
ReplyDeletesimilarly to Julie, I found it interesting to think of the hierarchy of the church and whether or not they deserve the power and respect that they get. Sometimes I doubt that they are pure and holy and I feel like they are simply figureheads for the church.
There are definitely many aspects to Christianity that are worth learning about.
I find it so easy to become involved in a church and the reality of christianity seems so pertinent and real in the present, however when you take a step back and examine the origins of a religion like Christianity it is amazingly complex. We often take for religions for granted for how we see them in the present however history has a profound influence on what they have become. Jesus began with 12 apostles and the foundation of christianity was very pure in its message but through different christian cultures, reformations, changes of beliefs and sacraments the Christian Church has become very fragmented and countless interpretations of the Bible exist today. I lied this article because it was very informative about where and how the branches and beliefs of Christianity were formed and exist today.
ReplyDeleteAs an individual who does not have a particularly strong background in Christianity, let alone any religion, I was moderately confused by this article. Some of the practices and definitions of religion do not fully make sense to me and I struggled to get through this piece. I am inclined to agree with Andrea that this article demonstrates the numerous intricacies of the religion, which in itself can be incredibly complicated.
ReplyDeleteI am however very intrigued by the multiple branches that stem from Christianity and how different sects have distinguished themselves from one another. This is not the only religion to have multiple versions of the same religion and I would like to learn more about the causes that resulted in this.
I was confused with parts of this reading. I feel like I was puzzled at some points because my knowledge of Christianity is at about the level as anyone is with a religion not of their own. My knowledge is basic and despite my elementary catholic school upbringing, my Christian intelligence is average at best. Nevertheless, I also felt it was hard for me to understand because as the author alludes to, Christianity itself is extensive and difficult to learn in its entirety. Many aspects of Christianity differ in different parts of the world and I guess that this is true with any religion, as people adapt the religion to their cultures and traditions. The different sects, different interpretations, different practices of the same religion just made everything more confusing. My understanding was basic before this article and now I feel my understanding is at a negative value. Overall, it was intriguing but a bit discouraging as I know so little about it.
ReplyDeleteEven though I am Christian and consider myself to be fairly educated on the history of Christianity, there were still many things in this article that were new to me. This article was somewhat overwhelming in that it reminded me of just how vast Christianity is, especially since he prefaces the article with saying this is just a general overview. I thought the point he made about the division between East and West starting around the ninth century was interesting. I was always taught a more simplified version of this history but now I can see that the West started to have more power as soon as it had its own emperor and bishop. I think that this early split between the East and West is interesting in that it might explain why the two sides are so different from each other today. This article also reminded me that the Church is highly political. This is something that I dislike at certain times and like at other times. I dislike it in that sometimes I feel that the Church makes rules in order to coerce people into doing something that will ultimately give them more power. I like that the Church is involved in this manner in that it is a strong body that people can look to in order to receive direction.
ReplyDeleteI found the reading very dense and at times hard to follow. But although the reading was quite dense I really enjoyed it. Partlyl because I learned a lot about Christianity. One thing I came to appreciate is the difficulty of nailing down what Christians as an entire groups believe. Due to the diversity of the religion there are many different beliefs. I learned a lot from this reading about the core beliefs of Christianity and about the structure and how the different sects came about.
ReplyDeleteI was really struck by the line "anyone who comes to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who search for him" Partlty becasue I think that it's very true and partly because it seems to come from a very philsophical background. I've always felt that philosophy and religion should go hand in hand.
I personally found the most interesting part of this article to be the part where the differences of the different sects of christianity were discussed. I frequently wondered what the difference between Protestant christianity and Roman Catholic christianity were so it was very interesting to read that section of the paper. It is very intruiging to see how this one religions has split into multiple branches, each believing something different.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, I was very confused by the article in general. I thought it was very confusing at times and hard to read.
I found myself very surprised upon reading others' posts. I felt the article was actually very straight forward and cleared up a lot of questions I had about Christianity - even ones I perhaps didn't know I had even been asking in my head. I thought this article was really well organized in its difference from similar articles' organization. Instead of starting with a drab explanation of all the components of the different sects of Christianity and how they minutely differ, it started with a much broader look at what the religion came from and how it dealt with and coincided with events throughout history. Such connections were between the foundation of the Roman Empire and the Enlightenment with the Reformation and the Second Vatican Council of 1962, respectively, By connecting historical events I am very familiar with to obvious cause and effect relationships, I felt I was able to understand much more about the religion overall, without much effort.
ReplyDeleteFurther than this, I had many various questions and comments throughout the article. One that has stuck with me through the last pages, however, was the description of Christianity's response to Enlightenment. Essentially, it seems the religion responded to a population desiring separation of church and state and a respect of the world's many religions with a huge effort to "evangelize the globe" throughout the "great century" (the 1800s). This left a sour flavor in my mind on the issue of tolerance in the Christian community. Furthering this, towards the end of the article, was the quote: "“he Christian way of life as love is conventionally seen as finding its ultimate fulfillment in the church as the loving community of believers set apart from the world" (1671). This point intensified the said sour flavor - did this mean that the Christian way of life was to only love other Christians? Did this mean that Christians were supposed to be completely intolerant of all different types of people and their religious beliefs. This is certainly not the case for the many Christians who are of great tolerance. However, it still left me with the sense that fundamentally, Christians were supposed to believe in this way. I am very much interested in exploring and clarifying this idea more.
Zoya Mufti
ReplyDeleteReading about Christianity was really interesting for me because I have never studied the religion intensively. The article was set up in an easy way to follow starting with an overview of the religion, followed by a history of the religion and then about the different practices of the religion. I never really understood how Christianity emerged from Judaism so I thought the reading was clear in its explanations. There were parts where the article was very extensive and confusing but it was manageable. I also thought the author made it easy to follow the article since it sketched out some of the main points of Christianities history and identified key features of Christianity that most followers of the religion recognize as part of the religions “essence”.
The progression of the Catholic church’s stance on ecology is quite remarkable. Reading that section gave a little credence to what Lynn White had to say about religion and its effect on the environment. Essentially church doctrine endorsed the exploitation of the land for man’s gain. In fact, it was man’s duty to “subdue the Earth.” As time progressed the Earth became less about simple exploitation, but about human goods. The Earth was a collection of resources set aside for man’s benefit. Aquinas and Augustine interpreted this as meaning that while man should take advantage of the resources before him, we should be mindful that others must use the land as well. The 10 commandments about the land deemed that we are strangers and guests on God’s land, and that the land should be cared for and used for the benefit of all rather than the few. I still feel this view was anthropocentric, but progressive as it reflected the powerful social problems of the era. I feel that it is important to recognize the fact that the Earth is in fact not here for our own gain, but that we are guests on it and that like all creatures, we need to have our niche to survive. We were not given claws, speed, or strength, so we must depend on our ingenuity to hack out a meager living for ourselves. The Catholic church, like many religious institutions, tries to at least set a limit on it.
ReplyDelete-Alex Leeds
I was not surprised about the sheer quantity of history that exists about Christianity. It was the driving force behind much of the political, economic, and social action that occurred in Europe for somewhere around sixteen centuries. The way in which the main Christian text was written lends itself to divisions amongst the church and the creation of many divergent branches. Some divisions were caused by specific reasons, such as the Anglican branch, and some were created from ideological differences.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason that there are so many different beliefs about how to treat the earth is that apart from Catholicism and Anglicanism, Christianity lacks central leadership. When everyone is allowed to behave according to their own interpretations of the bible than there is likely to be some people who behave in a “bad” way.
Christianity has been one of the strongest forces that has shaped this earth and because of this its history is extensive both back through time and in terms of its spread across the world. I am surprised at how the church has been in conversation with the ideas of ecology and how it has viewed the earth. Even still I am skeptical of the church's take on the environment.
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