Christianity

Lecture Objectives: After learning this material you will be able to:

1.  Present the life and teaching of Jesus.

2.  Compare and contrast the different Gospels.

3.  Understand life in the early church.

4.  Describe why Romans persecuted the Christians.

5.  Explain the importance of the martyrs.

6.  Describe what the triumph of Christianity under Constantine meant to the future of Christianity.

7.  Summarize medieval Christianity.

8.  Discuss the split of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, and give an overview of the reasons for the Protestant Reformation.

9.  Describe Christian mysticism and its goal of “union with God.”

10. Explain the rapid expansion of Christianity during the last 500 years.

11. Compare and contrast early Christianity with Christianity as a modern, world religion.

12. Understand the problems that Christianity has had to face during its long history.

13. Describe the history and role of women in Christianity.

Preface

Christianity is most likely the religion that the majority of students in this class are familiar with due to current practice, family upbringing, or simply due to the dominant culture in the Western world. As a result there are often a lot of strong feelings and opinions which makes Christianity a touchy subject for a philosophy instructor to write about! So I do want to state at the beginning that this lecture is not intended to be the last word on this religion. In fact none of these lectures can do that. This lecture is simply my best current attempt to place Christianity within the philosophical and academic stream of thought that we are studying in this class.

The Integral Philosophy I use in this class tries to honor the truth of all the religions we study as far as we can understand them without at the same time insisting on taking a faith stance, which might insist that there is only one way to understand the truth. That, again, is what Huston Smith means by the “great wisdom traditions.” At the same time I am not here to argue with anyone who does take a faith stance. For example, many Christians, but by no means all, accept the Bible as literally true. That is a faith stance. No one can “prove” that Jesus was born of a virgin. You either believe it or you don’t, but since we were not there we can never know academically whether it is true or not. We can simply study the question and then make up our own mind based on the light that is given to us to see and believe.

It is important to realize that this is true of so many of the stories of Jesus. There were no video cameras recording the resurrection. We simply have the testimony of a number of people who claim to have seen Jesus after he died. What you do with those testimonies is a big part of how you personally answer the questions of faith. Many people believe these stories fervently and many people don’t. I don’t think a course like this is going to change anyone’s mind at all. The best I can do is try to be respectful to what the record says, and then let students decide for themselves what they think of that record.

Introduction

What is Christianity? “Throughout its 2,000 years of history, Christianity has achieved a wide diversity of forms. But they all derive ultimately from the person, life, and teachings of Jesus. The teaching centers on the Kingdom of God (Jesus’s proclamation of God’s reign or rule), which is both present in the world and coming into it. Jesus was executed on a cross by the Roman authorities; reports spread among his followers that he had risen three days later from the dead. For the religious movement that formed around him, whose teachings were supremely articulated by the apostle Paul, Jesus was a Divine savior; through faith in him one could share his life eternally” (Robert S. Ellwood and Barbara A. McGraw, Many Peoples, Many Faiths: Women and Men in the World Religions, Seventh Edition, [Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002], p. 367. Hereafter referred to in the lectures as MPMF.) Obviously Jesus is the central focal point of Christianity and how one answers the question “Who was Jesus?” is how one defines one’s relationship to Christianity.

I will a give brief overview of Christianity first, then come back and go over each area in closer detail.

Early Christianity was often persecuted and challenged by many other religious movements spreading throughout the Roman Empire and by different understandings of what the teachings and life of Jesus meant to Christians within the movement. Modern Christians who try to get back to the early teachings of Christianity often are not aware that the early teaching of Christianity was quite diverse. It only appears, now that we can look back at the Bible, that there was a standard teaching. But at the time there was no “New Testament.” Rather, the New Testament, the Christian section of the Bible (which includes the Hebrew Scriptures, which Christians call the Old Testament), took centuries to take its final form. Many writings were not included because at some point decisions were made about what was orthodox (true) and what was heretical (not true).

After early years of struggle and persecution that lasted nearly 300 years, Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire. After this, everything changed. Christian governance was modeled on Roman government, other religions were suppressed and often persecuted, and eventually most of Europe was converted to the Christian religion. But built into this system were many problems that only slowly made their way to the surface and set the stage for further development. One of the most notable was the Protestant Reformation started by the monk Martin Luther.

Martin Luther was convinced “that salvation was not won by one’s piety or good works but was freely given by God as grace and received by faith. In opposition to medieval church life, he proposed an alternative style centered on scripture, preaching, and the ideal of inward faith” (MPMF, p. 368.) There were also reformations by others such as John Calvin in Switzerland and the English Reformation.

Christian mysticism and spirituality developed over the years into forms that are similar in other religions, but also uniquely Christian in their focus. Christian mysticism expresses itself in two overlapping streams of thought: “the way of the negation of images, which seeks to know God by taking away all words and concepts less than God; and the way of the affirmation of images, using ideas and mental images to lift one to God” (MPMF, p. 368.) I think you might find it interesting to see that these two different streams have a developmental flow, in that people will often start by using the affirming path but then move into the negating path. But often the same people will use one or the other path depending on what they find most helpful at the time. For example, if you meditate you might realize that there are two main types of meditation. There are those that simply “watch” what is happening in a mindfulness exercise, paying attention in the moment, and those ways that are more concentrative and focus the attention on a single thought or image. These two broad ways of meditation are similar to the two streams of relating to God. Neither is “better” than the other. It is only a matter of what is more helpful.

There are three main divisions of Christianity: Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism. They all share belief in salvation through Jesus and have much more in common than you might think considering the amount of conflict between these denominations throughout history. I notice that in many student reflections there is a great deal of misunderstanding about these three main forms of Christianity. For example I often see students write that they have both “Christian” and “Catholic” friends, as though these were two different religions. What they usually mean is that they have both “Protestant” and “Catholic” Christian friends. Many people don’t even mention Orthodox friends, as the Orthodox are less known in the United States than in Eastern Europe and Russia where most Orthodox adherents reside.

Many people do not hear directly about “Protestant” churches, and what they don’t realize is that many of the churches they are familiar with such as the Baptists, the Methodists, the Lutherans and the Episcopalians are all from the Protestant branch of the “tree” of Christianity. Finally, to confuse things even more, there are some very popular Christian Churches that call themselves “Non-denominational.” By that they mean that they are “just Christians.” But once you know some things about Christian history you will see that these types of churches are in the Protestant category. Perhaps someday they will be considered a fourth branch of Christianity, but for now scholars recognize the three braches mentioned above. The three main groups can be briefly described as:

“Highly traditional, the Orthodox church centered in Eastern Europe presents firm doctrine, ornate worship, and a deep affiliation with the cultures of the countries in which it is predominant. Its spiritual life combines freedom with a feeling for the meaning of the corporate life of the church and the resurrection of Jesus” (MPMF, p. 368.) Christians who have never been to an orthodox service should really take going to one under consideration. They are full of rituals and symbolism. Their beautiful icons, (their unique form of sacred art), are worth the trip alone.

“The Roman Catholic Church is distinguished by the papacy, a sense for the importance of combining freedom with order, and an emphasis on the sacraments in Christian life. In it, traditionalism combines with a capacity for change” (MPMF, p. 368.) Yes the Catholic Church does change! To many people it seems that the Catholic Church is known for resisting change and that too is true. Over the years it takes a great deal of time and effort to make substantial changes.

But changes have been made and many people who dislike the Catholic Church often find that they dislike things from the past that are no longer believed or emphasized. For example, many Protestants think it is wrong that Catholics “worship” Mary. However, they are often surprised to learn that Catholics do not worship Mary, and teach that the worship of anyone other than God is wrong and a form of idolatry. They do venerate Mary as a special Christian with much to teach the world, but she is only human and not to be worshipped. The fact that some Catholics may not always show restraint in how they put that teaching into practice does not change the basic teaching.

“Protestantism displays a wide diversity but generally is characterized by relative simplicity of worship, emphasis on scripture and preaching, and often a desire for local and democratic control of church government” (MPMF, p. 368.) Protestantism is the hardest to describe because the term covers such a wide variety of churches. While it is clearly distinct from Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox, within its fold is included everything from the exuberant worship of the Pentecostals to the elaborate services of the Church of England. By placing an emphasis on reading and interpreting scripture individually Protestants promote freedom, but at the same time have a difficult time staying unified, as the hundreds of denominations which have taken off since the reformation testify.

After being centered in Europe and the Middle East for so long, Christianity has grown into a worldwide religion due to missionary work and emigration. Much of the vitality of Christianity is no longer in North America and Europe, but in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. This is where Christianity is growing the fastest and taking on new forms (such as the Mai Chaza Church in Africa) that would hardly be recognizable to a Western Christian unfamiliar with these changes. It is so easy when you are raised in a Christian church to think that what you know is the standard by which Christianity can be judged. But there is an amazing amount of variety as can be expected of a religion of nearly 2 billion spread around the world. Christianity is now the largest religion in the world.

We will also see in this lecture, as in the others, that the role of women in Christianity is rapidly changing. Women in Christianity have been mostly subservient to men and often scripture has been used to justify this. However, many modern feminist theologians are taking another look at early Christianity and finding that “the early Jesus movement reflected more inclusion of women than was the norm at the time” (MPMF, p. 368.) Certainly the little we know of Jesus does not seem to warrant the second- class status of women for most of Christian history.

It is now time to go back to the beginning and take a closer look at some of these topics in more detail.

Jesus

For all the changes and adaptations Christianity has brought into it's history, it all must begin with Jesus. “Jesus appeared publicly in Roman-occupied Palestine around the year 30 C.E. He was first visible as an associate of a man called John the Baptizer, an ascetic who had lived in the desert and then had come into the Jordan Valley to preach fiery outdoor sermons calling on people to repent and change their ways, for God was about to judge the world and punish the wicked” (MPMF, p. 297.) A sign of this repentance was to be washed, or baptized, in the Jordan River. Jesus made his first public entrance when he came to John to be baptized.

At this point it is important to state that the early stories of Jesus are difficult to validate historically. One believes in his miraculous birth as a matter of faith rather than of historical proof. There is very little evidence for Jesus outside of the Bible. While this is fine for most Christian believers, it is frustrating to scholars that there is not more independent evidence about Jesus. The small amount of evidence that does exist confirms simply that he existed and had followers. There are no independent verifications for specific miracles, teachings or resurrection. It is also important to remember that there is very little evidence for many things that occurred back then! People at the time of Jesus were simply not interested in the types of recorded history that we now take for granted.