A Brief History of Christianity

What I find odd is that it seems very few people actually know their history of Christianity. Some folks seem to think that the Bible just popped into existence, having been written by God. Still others seem to be under the impression that there is some agreement to what is and what is not Christian Theology.

The reality is far different.....

First there was the Jewish texts that proclaimed the coming of a "Savior". Then came Jesus Christ, who was to be that prophetic savior. After His death/execution and the death of those who knew Him personally (including his Apostles), there came a need for Christian texts to be collected and eventually compiled into what we now call the "New Testament".

There is our first problem. There were lots of writings about Christ, many written well after His death, that needed to be verified, agreed to, and eventually "cannonized". Now one has to realize a lot of the decisions on which writtings to chose were part of real human debate. God did not come out of the heavens and point to which texts to chose and which not. And as far as I know, there is no claims of such an event taking place. So the simple reality is that it came down to human opinions on what eventually ended up in the final collection of works. Even today, while we have a Bible, we have a concept of "Apocrypha" which are additional texts not included in the cannon. Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament_apocrypha.

So then comes the Roman problem. Christianity was illegal for some time in Rome, where Christians were the subject of a lot of persecution and even death. But finally, at about 313 AD, One Roman Emperor, Constantine I, would make Christianity legal. He eventually wanted to "defend" Christianity, but he didn't want to decide what was and what was not Christian. There was a LOT of theological conflict, so Constantine demanded they get together and finalize what they do and do not believe. So begins the Council of Nicaea. Read more on Constantine at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_I.

The First Councile of Nicaea is perhaps one of the most important events for Traditional Christianity. It lead to the Nicene Creed, a document that defined a uniform set of doctrine that many Christian Churches follow today. The problem is that it was a document born out of massive political and social debate. One of the most famous disagreements was the idea of the Godhead. Was Christ literally the "Son of God" or "God in Flesh"? Remember that the Romans were Polytheistic, and there was some interest to avoid polytheism (ironic since the Hebrews were Polytheistic as well). And then there is the question of pandering to Constantine by favoring ideas from the Roman God "Sol", who was such a favorite figure of the Emperor's that an image of Sol was on some of the currency during his rule. The point is that once again, like the cannonization of Christian text, the uniform theology that sprung out of this creed was the product of human debate, not nessesarily from God. Read more about the council and the creed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

So now what? The Holy Roman Catholic Church is eventually the final product and a uniform Bible, translated to Latin which includes both Jewish and Christian text, seperated into Old and New Testaments, becomes the standard. Obviously the Church grew, spreading in size and riches, keeping the Biblical text out of reach of the common people as not everyone could read Latin, so it was the priests who would interpret the doctrine for you leading to some really interesting "control" style doctrines (confessions, priests being the soul path to God, Hell and Pergatory, etc. etc.). Then the next big moment for Christianity came when a german priest named Martin Luther decides one particular doctrine, the "Indulgences", was going too far. Read more on the Indulgences at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgences.

Now realize Martin Luther was not against the Catholic Church. When he rejected the abuse of the Indulgences doctrine, he thought it was a local abuse of power. It was not until he realized the use of the Indugences for collecting building funds was being initiated at the highest level, Pope Leo X, that Martin Luther would begin the series of events leading up to the Protestant (from protest) reform. A product of that reform included yet another translation of the Bible from Latin to German, the begining of the common man's access to the text. Read more on Martin Luther at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther.

It was at his point that Christianity truly began to spit into the thousands of Church denominations that exist today. Each usually a seperation due to disagreement in doctrine. Martin Luther, for example, hated the "Book of James", as did many who believe in grace alone being the only path to God. James deals with works being nessesary for proper faith. In other words, James claims you have do good as well as profess faith in God in order to be saved. So Even after all that time (Martin Luther's activites happened in 1516 - almost 1500 years after Christ's death), Christians STILL didn't fully agree on what was and was not Christian doctrine.

So where are we today? We have a Bible that has been argued over and translated many times over. We have a creed that was the product of political and social debate. We have many Church organizations who all are still not unified in everything. Is snake handling all that nessesary? Speaking in tounges? How about full emersion baptism vs. sprinkling on the head?

Finally, WHY do we accept the creeds and ideas of the past? Just because the majority believes in it? The majority of Christians also believed that the world was flat and the center of the universe and that the Sun revolved around us.

So next time a Christian starts telling you who is and who isn't Christian and starts preaching what is and what is not Biblical, gently remind them that over 2000 years of arguing didn't resolve the issue, so what makes it so resolved now?

Peace,
JMS