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We may define a Christian as anyone who commits themselves to following the person and teachings of the first century historical Jesus, who is often given the title of the ‘Christ’ (meaning God’s anointed one). This definition however immediately invites controversy, because there are some who would insist that to be a Christian the person must also be baptised, others that they must believe in the Trinity, and others that no one is truly Christian until they have had a personal encounter with Jesus, and experienced their sins being forgiven. For the purposes of this article then, we will accept that anyone claiming to be a Christian is recognised as that. This keeps the field wide, allows us to be inclusive in our overview of the religion, and reminds us that there is a diversity of worldviews within Christianity.
Like Judaism and Islam, Christianity is a monotheistic religion which derives from the middle east, and developed out of first century Judaism. It is sometimes referred to as Abrahamic (i.e. tracing its origins back to Abraham, an ancient Mesopotamian tribal leader from about 2000BC).
Today Christianity is the world’s largest religion, with 2.4 billion adherents[1] in all continents of the world; that is, approx. one third of the world’s population. About half of these affiliate to the Roman Catholic church, and the rest are roughly three quarters protestant and one third Coptic, Greek and Russian Orthodox.
Although modern Christianity has typically been considered as Western-European, its decline in Europe, alongside rapid growth in southern countries and Asia, means that by 2050 it will have a very different demographic from that of the nineteenth and twentieth century Church. By then, most Christians will be non-English speaking, and non-European in ethnicity.
[1] Center for the Study of Global Christianity (2018), ‘Status of Global Christianity, 2018, in the Context of 1900–2050’, Center for the Study of Global Christianity
For its first three centuries Christianity was often a persecuted sect of Judaism, but this changed rapidly in 322 CE when Constantine the Great became Roman emperor and established Christianity as the official state religion. From here onwards the religion has been in various ways linked with national and empire states, although Protestantism and the enlightenment blurred the connections in many countries as the call for disestablishment and democracy took hold.
During the seventeenth to twentieth century European expansion into the New World, missionaries took Christianity, along with western culture, and whole native populations were baptised into the faith. Following independence in the twentieth century, many of these native Churches have now developed their own style and emphasis, often mixing with earlier local religions to form hybrid new sects or denominations of the Christian faith. Those that continued in the format given by the missionaries however have often retained the Victorian values of that time, while their ‘mother’ churches in the West have become more liberal in outlook. This has sometimes led to rifts between the two, particularly within the Anglican communion, and especially concerning the ordination of women and issues of gender and sexuality.
The Trinitarian formula (the idea that God is One but Three) is not explicitly stated in the New Testament, although inferences to this can be seen by Christians throughout both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. It has now become a distinguishing feature, marking Christianity out from other monotheistic religions such as Islam and Judaism, which reject the idea that God can be three.
Most denominations of the Christian religion adhere to belief in the Trinity, and Councils of Christian leaders have often required acknowledgement of it for admission. Those groups who do not acknowledge the idea of Trinity (e.g. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Unitarians) are often considered sects for this reason.
Like Judaism and Islam, Christian teaching states that God created the universe, and that God is all powerful (omnipotent), all knowing (omniscient), and everywhere (omnipresent). Having created the universe God is very keen to engage with it (God is immanent). God wishes to know and be known by creation. For this reason, God participates in history, sending prophets and even Jesus, God’s ‘Son’.
The early followers of Jesus were convinced by their experience of him that he must be more than an ordinary human: his miracles, his message and the fact that he was resurrected from death, all convinced them that he must be God. As Jewish people however, they understood the idea of prophets, but could not accept that God could be limited in form to that of a human being. It probably took some time therefore to formulate a way of conceiving of Jesus as being both God and man, human and divine. In time however, they concluded that he had to be God if his death was to provide forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God (see Doctrinal disputes section); Jesus therefore had to be God.
The story of Jesus is told in the four Gospels of the New Testament, although there are also some references to him in Roman writings and other contemporary literature. The Greek title ‘Christ’ is given to acknowledge his role as God’s ‘Anointed One’, a title taken from Jewish tradition. This was a Jewish term for the future Messiah, who would come to restore God’s people and bring about peace on the earth.
In the Bible account of how the church started (Acts Ch.2), we read that the Apostles were “filled with the Holy Spirit” (older versions use ‘Holy Ghost’) and thus empowered to begin preaching and healing in the name of Jesus. This power, enabled them to perform miracles and do amazing things like Jesus, and so was clearly God at work through them. To talk about God without including reference to this power was therefore clearly insufficient: yes, God was the unknowable creator, but He was also very much present and living in the world as a spiritual power. Thus, God was also the Holy Spirit in a way that was not the same as being the almighty creator, or as Jesus, the amazing person who had lived among them.
Although the word Church is used of Christian buildings, in fact it really refers to the people, those who have committed themselves to following the Way of Jesus Christ. The word ‘church’ comes from the Greek ecclesia, meaning ‘called out’ or ‘called forth’. In Greek culture citizens would be called out to assemble. The early church adopted this idea of being ‘called’ to assemble and do God’s work. Thus a church is the people and the work they do rather than the physical building.
The Nicene Creed (above) states that the Church is catholic (i.e. one, undivided), Holy (i.e. not just an earthly institution), and Apostolic (i.e. it can trace its origins right back to the earliest followers of Jesus, and particularly to St Peter, who was given the ‘keys of the Kingdom of Heaven’). Although individual churches have often referred to themselves as The Church, correctly speaking individual churches can only ever be ‘denominations’ or congregations, because the true Church is ‘one’, and arguably, it is ‘hidden’, since Jesus has said that awareness of the ‘saved ones’ would only become clear at the final judgement (Matthew 25).