Respond

Valeria Leal

RELS 3345

April 4, 2017

Dr. Joseph DeLeon

Question 1. What do you consider to be the major events, trends, and turning points in the history of Christianity? Explain the significance of each.

Christianity derives from the Jewish tradition, but believes that the Messiah, “who would inaugurate a new era of justice and peace” (Brood, 414) is Jesus Christ. And in fact, the coming of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago, divided our time into two eras: before Christ and after Christ. Christianity has also shaped entire civilizations, politics, social rules, art, literature and even architecture. So we can say that Christianity is a religion that has shaped the world in many ways, but there have been some major events that have shaped Christianity itself. I will go over these events more into detail.

The main message of Christianity is that there is life, death and resurrection and that “there is a single, transcendent, all-powerful, and personal God who created the universe as an expression of divine love” (Brood, 461). But, within the realm of Christianity, there are three different traditions: the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and Protestant Christianity (Brood, 412). The separation of these three branches of Christianity were critical turning points in the history of this religion.

In the beginning, Christians were just disciples of Christ after his crucifixion, who were following Jesus’ teachings through the Apostles and other close followers. But once Christianity reached the Roman empire, it started to expand quickly and greatly. Emperors, such as Constantine, started building Churches and promoting Christianity and the official religion of all of the Roman empire. During the first five centuries, Christians started to formulate important doctrines to teach the people. A great change came when these “orthodox” doctrines were challenged. Three especially distinct groups were: Gnostic Christians, Marcion Christians and Montanism. However, the orthodox tradition became firmer and finally decided on hierarchy, and more concrete doctrines, stated in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed.

Many centuries later, came one of the greatest turning points in Christian history: The Great Schism. This major event, split the Western and Eastern Churches. At first, they just differed in things like celibacy in priesthood, and ways of performing Baptism. But at the end, the addition of the “Latin filioque” to the Nicene Creed by the West, ended things forever. Even though many of the things that were being debated were minor, these differences divided what became the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. To this day, they remain separated.

Then, in the sixteenth century, a German monk called Martin Luther, became the leader of a revolution known as The Reformation, which ended up dividing the Roman Catholic Church and created Protestantism – which to this day, created over 20,000 independent churches and denominations. Many people complained about luxuries that popes and bishops pleasured in and many other thoughts that challenged Catholicism’s ways in that time. Luther, together with John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli, rejected doctrines such as transubstantiation and the effectiveness of the sacraments. Finally, when the Catholic Pope rejected King Henry VIII’s to annul his marriage, he decided that England would become a Protestant country and this ensured the start of a new wave of Christianity (Brood, 442).

In conclusion, Christianity is a religion that has shaped our world in many ways. But it has been shaped itself though many turning points in history that include social and cultural issues. There are many different traditions in Christianity but they can be summarized in the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and Protestant Christianity. And even though they differ in details of sacrament and government, they all unite in that there is one, single, all-powerful God that loves humanity and wants to reunite with it in Heaven.

References

Brood, Jeffrey. Invitation to World Religions. 2013. Oxford University Press. Print.