Christianity is one of the most significant religions in human history and is one of the most common religions today along with others, including: Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism.\u00a0 Christianity is by far the largest religion in the world, holding the most members out of all the others with 2.4 billion believers. This means that nearly one third of the world\u2019s total population is Christian.\u00a0 Also, it is a monotheistic religion, which means that it centers on the idea that the world was created by one god and not a series of gods. However, what is it about Christianity that makes it so popular? How did it become the organization and faith that it is today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christianity first emerged from Judaism in the Middle East in the mid-1st century.\u00a0 It began in the century after the death of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom the religion is based around.\u00a0 \u00a0In fact, Christianity is centered on the teachings and life of Christ.\u00a0 Our understanding of the life of Christ today comes from the accounts in the Gospels.\u00a0 These were written by four of the twelve disciples, which were the people who followed Jesus and helped to spread his teachings. These twelve disciples believed him to be what is referred to in Christian ideology as a Messiah, or the chosen prophet talked about in the Old Testament teachings.\u00a0\u00a0 In the Gospel we learn that Jesus taught people during his life and built a considerable following among the poorest.\u00a0 As part of his teachings, Jesus taught his followers to reject sin and instead follow the code passed down in the Sermon on the Mount.\u00a0 The Sermon on the Mount was a series of teachings on morals found in the Gospel of Matthew.\u00a0 The purpose of Jesus\u2019s teachings was in preparation for Judgement Day when God was said to reward the righteous and condemn the sinners.\u00a0These teachings and writings later were solidified into a book known today as the Holy Bible.\u00a0 Christ\u2019s following caused anger among some people at the time and ultimately led to his death.\u00a0 The Romans, under pressure from local religious leaders, arrested him and crucified him around 30 CE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the death of Jesus, Christianity continued to spread throughout the world to many Jewish communities. This was helped in a significant way by a man named Paul the Apostle.\u00a0 He is credited with spreading the word of Christ during the 1st century and helped to establish several churches. \u00a0He helped by sending letters to many governments at the time (within the Roman Empire) and preached to help convert people to Christianity. It is mainly due to Paul’s teachings that Christianity is as big as it is today. He is the main author of 13 of the New Testament’s 27 books.\u00a0Paul’s missionary teachings had him walk almost 10,000 miles\u00a0throughout the Roman Empire over the course of 30 years. He talked often in places like Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth and Athens.\u00a0 While these places prospered, and were wealthy, they were also home to many people that were poor and who suffered. The poor and destitute were the perfect audience for the teachings of Christian religion. This is mainly due to the more relaxed rules it had regarding the older, traditional Jewish laws.\u00a0 As well, Paul taught that it was necessary for followers of Christianity to themselves be messengers of the teachings of Jesus and spread the faith.\u00a0 This was an important factor in the early years of Christianity and remains significant still today.\u00a0 Paul also began teaching that Jesus would one day return for Judgement Day and that the only way to pass the judgment of God was to accept Jesus and his teachings. \u00a0\u00a0As such, the teachings of Christianity spread among many different groups of people and would later became the official religion of the Roman Empire.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the early history of Christianity in the Roman Empire was one of persecution.\u00a0 For instance, Christian scriptures tell about the persecution of Christian followers by Jewish communities and Roman authorities.\u00a0 For example, Christian\u2019s faced persecution in 46 CE when the Roman Emperor Nero blamed them for the Great Fire of Rome.\u00a0 This continued for a few more centuries until Roman Emperor Constantine I issued an edict of toleration in 313 CE.\u00a0 This formally legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire.\u00a0 At the time, Christianity only made up about 5% of the total Roman population but it grew steadily with official protection from the government and became popular throughout the Roman Empire.\u00a0 The next major event was the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE.\u00a0 The Council was called by Constantine I and led to the first agreed upon Christian doctrine.\u00a0 As a result, Christianity became the most popular religion in the Roman empire by the end of the 4th century.\u00a0 In fact, Christianity became the state church of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica in\u00a0380 CE, when Emperor Theodosius I made it the Empire’s official religion.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Roman Catholic Church (Catholicism) developed out of early Christianity and established itself as the main religion in Europe and sections of the Middle East throughout the Middle Ages.\u00a0 Also, the religion of Islam emerged in the Middle East at the beginning of the 7th century.\u00a0 Islam\u2019s emergence is important for Christianity because the societies that embraced both religions would engage in conflict over the course of hundreds of years.\u00a0 For example, in the late 11th century the Christian kingdoms of Europe engage in war with the Islamic societies of the Middle East, in a series of conflicts known as the crusades.\u00a0 Beginning in 1095 CE, the crusades saw European knights and noblemen travel to the Middle East in an attempt to capture the Holy Land away from Muslim people that had controlled the region for the previous centuries.\u00a0 The term crusade means \u2018cross\u2019.\u00a0 Therefore, the Europeans that became crusaders viewed themselves as \u2018taking up the cross\u2019.\u00a0 In fact, many of the crusaders wore crosses on their clothing and armor as they made their pilgrimage to the Holy Land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Renaissance in Europe began in the 14th century and it had a profound impact on Christianity at the time.\u00a0 A major feature of the Renaissance was the introduction of Renaissance Humanism.\u00a0 In general, Renaissance Humanism was the study of ancient Greek and Roman texts with the goal of promoting new norms and values in society.\u00a0 These norms and views varied from those at the time because they focused less heavily on a religious worldview.\u00a0 Instead, Renaissance humanists such as Petrarch used ancient texts to promote a worldview based on logic and reason.\u00a0 This was a major challenge to the Catholic Church and ultimately led to the Protestant Reformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Protestant Reformation began at the start of the 16th century.\u00a0 Historians consider it have started with the publication of Martin Luther\u2019s \u2018Ninety-five Theses\u2019 in 1517.\u00a0 Martin Luther (who lived from 1483 to 1546) was a German professor and monk.\u00a0 In his work \u2018Ninety-five These\u2019, Luther challenged several different teachings and practices of the Catholic Church.\u00a0 For instance, he argued against the notion that salvation was gained through good deeds and instead suggested that it could be attained simply through belief in Jesus Christ.\u00a0 As well, he argued that the scriptures themselves were the only true form of teachings and any other directives from the Catholic Church were not necessarily in line with Christianity.\u00a0 Furthermore, he translated the Bible into his native language of German which allowed many more people to access it and understand it for themselves.\u00a0 These ideas resonated with many Europeans as their worldview had been altered due to the development of humanism and the overall Renaissance.\u00a0 Ultimately, his ideas clashed with those of the Catholic Church and then Pope Leo X.\u00a0 In fact, he was excommunicated form the Church and was forced into hiding.\u00a0 Regardless, his actions inspired others to further the cause of reforming the Church, including: John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli.\u00a0 As a result, the Protest Reformation took hold and a major divide occurred in Christianity.\u00a0 Those that remained focus on the teachings of the Catholic Church and the Pope in Rome were Catholics while those that practiced Christianity in a different church that did not follow the authority of the Pope were Protestants.\u00a0 It became known as the Protest Reformation due to the former’s \u2018protesting\u2019 for change within the Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In more modern times, Christianity has continued to spread around the world.\u00a0 For example, European explorers during the Age of Exploration took missionaries with them on voyages to Africa, the Americas and Asia.\u00a0 This resulted in a worldwide spread of Christian believers that continues to this day.\u00a0 As stated previously, there are currently 2.4 billion Christians on the planet, meaning that about one third of all people identify themselves as Christian.\u00a0 This makes it the largest religion on the planet today.\u00a0 Of the 2.4 billion total Christians in the world, approximately 1.1 billion of them are Catholic, with another 800 million identifying as Protestant.\u00a0 There is another 300 million or so that are other forms of Christianity such as Orthodox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The history of Christianity is complex and interesting. It is one of the most popular religions in all of world history. This article details the history and significance of Christianity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[131,15,86],"class_list":["post-4312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","tag-christianity","tag-history","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4312"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4318,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions\/4318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}