4:
Christian Chapter Traditions
Origins
The Life of Jesus
We know very little about the early years of Jesus other
than his birth in Bethlehem and that his childhood home
was in Nazareth.
His public years began at 30 Yrs old with his baptism by
his older cousin, John the Baptist.
Soon after, Jesus recruited twelve male disciples and a
number of female followers.
For the next year or more, Jesus travelled, working
miracles, teaching how to apply Jewish law to everyday
life, and telling parables, many of which pointed to an
impending apocalypse.
A few days after entering Jerusalem for Passover, Jesus
was arrested for perverting the people and claiming
kingship over the Jews.
He was condemned, nailed to a cross (crucified), and left
to die.
Two days later, some of his women followers claimed to
find his tomb empty.
It has become Christian belief that he had gone to sit at the
right hand of God in heaven.
Origins, contd.
The Gospels
The gospels, from the Greek evangel (good news),
are accounts of Jesus life.
The Christian message was crystallizing into
recognizable form by the mid-fist century.
When Christianity became the established religion of
the Roman empire, church leaders made a list of the
writings they acknowledged to be scripture, creating
the New Testament.
Marks account
Lukes account
Matthews account
Johns gospel is very different in that his purpose is to set
out not just the narrative but its cosmic significance.
John proclaims Jesus as messiah and saviour
Origins, contd.
From Sect to Church
The disciples were peasants and fishermen who
expected the end of the age, and the glorious return
of their teacher, to come at any moment.
The principal influence on the early Church, however,
was an educated and sophisticated convert who took
the name Paul.
According to Paul, it is not through observance of
ritual laws or even correct moral conduct that
salvation is attained, but rather through faith in Jesus
and the divine grace that comes through him.
Thanks to Pauls voyages, Christian communities
were established in many of the port cities of the
Roman Empire by the time he died.
Crystallization
Emerging Church Organization
The Christian movement became formally organized
during the early centuries.
Before long, formal ordination was required to perform
ritual and administrative functions.
Sometime between the writing of the books of the New
Testament and the early Christian councils, the priest
emerged as the person in charge of ritual and instruction.
The ranking priest in a particular political jurisdiction was
known as a bishop.
The hierarchy was further developed to include the role of
archbishop.
By the third century, four larger jurisdictions had gained
prominence: Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Rome.
Crystallization, contd.
Persecution and Martyrdom
From the Roman perspective, early Christians were guilty of
insubordination.
In the 3rd century, the emperor Decius commanded public
sacrifices to the Roman civic gods, with the penalty of death
or imprisonment for anyone who would not comply.
Christians were systematically persecuted as a matter of state
policy.
Imperial Christianity
Constantine (r. 30637) gradually abandoned the
persecution policy, issuing an edict in 313 that gave
Christians liberty to practice their religion, and eventually
granting them state support and patronage.
It was only with Theodosius I (r. 37995) that the empire
became officially Christian.
Crystallization, contd.
Creeds
The Church began composing creedsstatements of the
content of Christian faithvery early in its history.
Because they define themselves as people who believe
such-and-such about Jesus, Christians have expected
other traditions to define themselves in terms of belief as
well.
Perhaps as early as 150, but certainly by the early 3rd
century, a formulation known as the Apostles Creed was
coming into use.
The other well-known ancient formulation is the Nicene
Creed, named for the Council of Nicaea in 325.
The Nicene Creed is more specific about the Holy Spirit and
more inclined to mention the Spirit along with God the father
and Christ the son as part of a triadic list.
Crystallization, contd.
The differences between the two creeds reflect the
emergence of the explicit doctrine of the Trinity.
At stake was the relationship among the three divine
persons or manifestations: God as heavenly father and
creator, Jesus as son and redeemer, and the Holy Spirit
as a continuing source of inspiration, guidance, and
comfort.
No sooner had the dust settled on the debate over the
Trinity in 381 than the doctrine of Christology came into
debate.
Was Christ two separate persons, one divine and one
human (as believed by the Nestorian churches)?
Was Christ one person, with only a divine nature (as
believed by the Monophysite churches)?
Was Christ one person, with both a divine and a human
nature (as believed by the Greek and Roman churches)?
Differentiation
Alexandrian vs. Antiochene Christianity
The Alexandrians, such as Cyril, understood Christ as the
eternal Word incarnated in the human person of Jesus.
The Antiochenes, such as Nestorius, argued that the Word
was an entity distinct from the human Jesus, over whom it
exercised a controlling influence.
Despite the victory of the Alexandrians at the Council of
Ephesus in 431, Nestorian Christianity persisted,
eventually spreading from its centre in Northeastern Syria
across Central Asia to western China and the
southwestern coast of India.
Differentiation, contd.
Eutyches, who headed a large monastery near
Constantinople, taught that in terms of the union of the
divine and the human in Jesus, the human was fully
absorbed into or replaced by the divine.
The Council of Chalcedon in 451 steered a middle course
between the Nestorians, who compromised the eternal
deity of Jesus, and the Monophysites, who compromised
his humanity, asserting that the incarnate Christ was one
person with both a divine and human nature.
After this, three Eastern regional groups separated
themselves from Constantinople: The Coptic Christians of
Egypt and Ethiopia, the Jacobites of Syria, and the
Armenians.
Differentiation, contd.
The Greek Orthodox Tradition
After the Council of Chalcedon, Greek and Latin Christianity
grew further apart.
The final break between Rome and Constantinople came in
1054.
Formally tolerated under Islam, the Byzantine (Greek) Church
became a self-governing religious community under the Ottoman
Turks, with the patriarch as its civil ruler.
Eastern Orthodoxy is the name used to refer to the form of
Christianity that was carried from Byzantium to various peoples
in eastern Europe.
Language played an important part in their success, for they
used local vernaculars rather than Greek, and this encouraged
the development of independent local churches with a strong
sense of national identity based on language.
The Orthodox Church also venerated icons and permitted its
clergy to marry.
Differentiation, contd.
The Latin Tradition
The Church centred in Rome thought of itself as
catholic, that is, universal
The bishop of Rome had unchallenged ecclesiastical
authority in the Latin-speaking West.
A landmark figure in the issue of human sinfulness
and the possibility of divine redemption was Aurelius
Augustine (354.430).
Differentiation, contd.
Medieval Christianity
The Middle Ages are generally considered to stretch from
the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, around 500, to
the beginning of the Renaissance, around 1500.
Monastic communities developed a highly structured
discipline in the medieval period.
The medieval monasteries played a crucial role as cultural
custodians, for their scholars and libraries preserved much
ancient learning that might have otherwise been lost.
By the 10th century, however, many monasteries were
attracting criticism for their worldliness.
To respond to the needs of the urban poor, a new type of
religious order emerged.
The mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans,
dedicated themselves to serving the people.
In 121617 the preaching order of the Dominicans was
formed.
Differentiation, contd.
Popes and Princes
From the 9th century onward, popes and princes competed
for supremacy.
In the 10th century ecclesiastical appointments could be
bought and sold.
In 1059, Pope Nicholas II took advantage of a fluid political
situation to decree that the selection of popes should be
decided by an assembly of cardinals.
Institutionally, the Church grew to resemble the secular
states with which it competed.
It depended on tax revenues and was subject to coups
both from within the Church and from outside.
Differentiation, contd.
The Crusades
The Crusades were a series of military campaigns spanning
two centuries, in which Western Christians attempted to
recover Jerusalem from Muslim control.
Arab Muslims had captured Jerusalem in 637.
The Muslims were generally tolerant of the Christian locals
and pilgrims until the 11th century.
In 1071, Jerusalem was captured by the Seljuq Turks,
who as recent converts to Islam, were less
accommodating than the Arabs had been.
In 1095, Pope Urban II declared it Gods will that Western
Christians go to the aid of the Eastern Christians and liberate
the holy places of Palestine.
The crusaders won some bloody victories, but were
driven out again.
Differentiation, contd.
Sainthood
Saints came to be regarded as a kind of heavenly senate
or honour society.
By praying to a saint or making a pilgrimage to his/her
shrine, one might win release from punishment in the next
existence and from guilt in this one.
Certain saints came to be associated with specific
conditions, occupations, or symbols.
In some places, the traditions of particular saints include
elements of pre-Christian customs and symbolism.
Pre-eminent among the Christian saints was Mary, the
mother of Jesus.
Though she is largely in the background in the biblical
accounts of Jesus life, she became a figure of intense
popular devotion, both as the principal feminine point of
access to the Trinity and as a model of sorrow-enduring love.
Differentiation, contd.
Evil, Devil, and Angels
In the biblical tradition, the term angel can also mean
messenger.
A view common since early Christian writers is that the
devil started as an angel, but that through pride he tried to
take over Gods role and so fell from grace.
The devil presides over the realm of hell, which is the
destiny of the wicked after their earthly life.
In 1252, Pope Innocent IV rules that torture could be used
and that heretics handed over to the secular authorities
should be executed within five days.
Peasant superstition contributed to the medieval tendency
to identify certain individuals as witches or agents of the
devil.
Societys efforts to hunt down, prosecute, and execute
such individuals by burning demonstrates how devastating
the fear of non-conforming behaviour can be.
Differentiation, contd.
Sin, Heresy, and the Inquisition
Humans were considered originally sinful owing to their pride
and self-will, but specific actions were also objectified as sins.
In the Middle Ages, European society was dominated by the
Church, and those who were not baptized into the faith,
notably Jews and Muslims, lacked the rights and privileges of
the mainstream society.
There were also, occasionally, Christianswhether
dissenting intellectuals or ill-informed peasantswhose
differences from the mainstream marked them as heretics.
During the 11th century, increasing numbers of heretics were
burned at the stake.
In 1184, Pope Lucius III instructed bishops to investigate
allegations of heretical activity, examine the suspects, and
turn over any resisters to secular authorities for punishment.
Those accused of heresy were presumed guilty unless they
could prove their innocence.
Differentiation, contd.
Scholastic Philosophy
The dominant expression of thought in Western Europe in
the Middle Ages is known as scholasticism.
Faith and reason, for scholastics, are mutually confirming.
Early scholastic teaching was based on the reading of
scripture.
Anselm (c. 10331109) moved away from the principle of
scriptural authority, asserting that faith itself has a kind of
rationality.
It was in the 12th century that Western Christianity
discovered the thoughts of Aristotle, which gave more
scope for practical considerations and examination of the
material world.
Thomas Aquinas (c. 122574) identified five ways of
proving Gods existence
Differentiation, contd.
Medieval Mystics
The late Middle Ages saw a remarkable flowering of
mysticism.
Mysticism is a specific tradition that emphasizes the
certainty of profound personal experience .
The most formidable systematizer of mystical thought was
the German Dominican Johannes (Meister) Eckhart (c.
12601327).
Whereas Eckhart, and others, sought to identify the self
with the image of God, others saw God in all the nearness
of humanity.
A striking feature of late medieval mysticism was the scope
it afforded for women.
Differentiation, contd.
The Protestant Reformation
In the 15th century, Christianity was essentially a European
phenomenon.
The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 sealed
the victory of the Muslims over Byzantine Christians after seven
centuries of rivalry.
A generation after the fall of Constantinople, Christendom s
horizons were vastly broadened when the Portuguese sailed
around southern Africa, outflanking the Turks who had controlled
the overland routes to Asia.
Ironically, just as European Christianity was poised for global
expansion, it was fragmented by a crisis of intuitional and
spiritual authority: the challenge of Protestantism.
It was the stubborn personality of Martin Luther (14831546) that
made it possible for the Protestant Reformation to erupt as it did.
The development of the technology of printing from movable type
allowed Luthers ideas to be quickly disseminated.
Luther effectively took the priesthood off the pedestal of status
and authority that it and the institutional Church had enjoyed
since the time of Constantine.
Differentiation, contd.
The Reformation marked was by division and
diversity.
A denominationally fragmented Church has been the
legacy of the Protestant Reformation down to the
present day.
Three main establishments emerged from the 16th
century: Lutheran, Anglican, and Calvinist.
The followers of Martin Luther flourished in Germany
and Scandinavia.
Lutheranism allowed ample scope for rational and
intellectual argument in the exposition of scripture, but it
also encouraged a deep sense of personal piety.
They retained a Eucharist-like sacrament, but they
celebrated it in the vernacular and held that Christs
body was present along with the bread and wine, but
was not produced out of them.
Differentiation, contd.
In Germany the Reformation was a popular movement,
but in England it was royal policy.
In 1534, the English parliament passed an Act of
Supremacy, which proclaimed the king as supreme head of
the Church of England.
The Church of England is known in most parts of the world
as Anglican, although in the United States it is called
Episcopalian.
The dominant intellectual leader of the Reformation was
John Calvin (150964) who imposed rigorous norms of
doctrine and conduct on the city of Geneva.
For Calvin, God was absolutely sovereign, initiating all
actions.
This teaching implies that humans are so sinful that they
are utterly dependent on divine grace for salvation, and that
the sovereign God has predestined every person to either
salvation or damnation.
In the Netherlands and Hungary, the Calvinist churches
have been known as Reformed churches. In England and
Differentiation, contd.
Another group, the Anabaptists, emphasized adult
rather than infant baptism, as well as the separation
of political institutions and religion.
A former Dutch priest called Menno Simons led this
movement into a largely otherworldly and non-violent
path: his followers are called Mennonites.
Unitarianism rejects the doctrine of the Trinity.
Puritanism was not a denomination in itself, but a
movement in English and colonial American
Protestant Churches.
The Puritans held firmly to Calvinist theology,
committing themselves to a rigorous view of human
sinfulness and divine predestination.
Differentiation, contd.
17th-century Denominations
Like the Anabaptists in continental Europe, the English Baptists
practiced the baptism of mature believers, but they were much
more connected with the Puritan movement than with the
Anabaptists.
George Fox was an English dissenter who, in 1646, began to
preach that moral and spiritual peace was not to be had in the
institutional churches but in the experience of the inner light of
the living Christ.
18th-century Denominations
Pietism, a movement rather than a denomination, was about
seeking spontaneous renewal of faith accompanied by a feeling
of the certainty of divine forgiveness and acceptance.
In the late 1720s, a number of Anglican students at Oxford
University formed a group to study the Bible: they were called
the Methodists.
Efforts to promote a reawakening of spiritual enthusiasm
resulted in a wave of revivals, especially in America, such as the
Great Awakening of 17403.
Differentiation, contd.
Roman Catholicism after 1500
The Roman Church recognized the need to correct the
abuses of ecclesiastical power that Luther had
condemned.
The Council of Trent (154563) acted to enforce discipline
and end the abuses, though it reaffirmed the authority of
institutional tradition alongside scripture and upheld the
idea of a priesthood of celibate intermediaries.
Founded shortly before the Council of Trent, in 1540, the
Society of Jesus, or Jesuit order, exemplified three of the
principle areas of renewal in the Catholic Church: spiritual
discipline, education, and missionary expansion.
Differentiation, contd.
Once the Portuguese had opened a trade route to India,
the king of Portugal sent Jesuits to evangelize the East
Indies.
In Japan and China, assimilation to the local culture
produced remarkable success, at first.
Overall, European Christianity had failed to displace the
religious traditions, social institutions, and sophisticated
intellectual heritages of the Eastern civilizations.
Barely a year after Columbus landed at Santo Domingo in
1492, the pope effectively divided the non-European world
between Spain and Portugal.
When Hernan Cortes reached Mexico in 1519 and
Francisco Pizarro reached Peru in 15323, they
encountered highly sophisticated social and religious
institutions.
Practice
Christian prayer is a reverent and contemplative
conversation with the divine.
In Latin Christianity a list of seven sacraments emerged:
baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, anointing the
seriously ill, ordination, and marriage.
The Eucharist is common to all branches of Christianity,
although it is referred to by different names, such as
Communion.
It re-enacts the Passover supper that was Jesus last meal
with his disciples, when he distributed the bread and wine,
declaring them to be his body and blood.
Baptism is the Christian ritual in which a person is admitted
into participation in the community.
Protestant Worship
Different Protestant forms of worship express varying degrees
of departure from the Roman model.
Most Protestant churches emphasize the reading of scripture
and the interpretation of it in the ministers sermon.
Practice, contd.
The Christian Year
The liturgical year begins with Advent, the series of
four Sundays that precede Christmas.
Christmas (Dec. 25 in the Gregorian calendar)
The time of year when Jesus was actually born is not
known.
The celebration of his birth is set around the midwinter
solstice as the Christian idea of a birth that would bring
new blessings was easily associated with the annual
renewal of the suns radiance.
The feast of Epiphany comes twelve days after
Christmas and celebrates both the visit of the wise
men to the infant Jesus and his baptism as an adult.
Practice, contd.
Easter
Easter, in the Gregorian calendar, takes place on the
first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring
equinox.( around the same time as Jewish passover.)
It is the feast of Jesus resurrection and comes as the
conclusion of Lent, a period of 6 weeks of solemnity,
reflection, and discipline.
The Friday before Easter is known as Good Friday and
is marked by services recalling Jesus Passionhis
suffering on the cross.
The fiftieth day after Easter is Pentecost, marking the
emergence of the Church.
Cultural Expressions
The cross is the central symbol of Christianity.
Other important symbols are the fish and the first and last
letters of the Greek alphabet (alpha and omega).
Many see the fish as code, since the Greek word for fish,
ichthus, is made up of the initial letters of the Greek phrase
Iesous Christos, Theou huios, soter (Jesus Christ, son of God,
saviour).
Others see it as reference to Jesus description of his disciples
as fishers of humanity.
Jesus
In early representations he is portrayed as a simple shepherd.
After Constantine made Christianity respectable, Jesus began to
be represented as an older, bearded man, a king or a judge,
attired in robes reflecting the dignity of his office.
By the 6th century, Byzantine mosaics were depicting Christ
enthroned in heaven as the ruler of creation.
Cultural Expressions, contd.
Church Architecture
With imperial patronage, Christians began to build ambitious
large-scale sanctuaries in the 4th century.
In northern Europe, a new style of arch came into fashion
around the 12th century.
A feature unique to Roman Catholic churches is a sequence
of fourteen images representing the Stations of the Cross:
the sequence of events from Jesus trial to the placing of this
body in the tomb.
Protestant churches rearranged the furniture of the church to
suit their theology.
Instead of an altar that the priest faced with his back to
the worshippers, Protestants adopted a communion table
behind which the minister stood, facing the congregation.
Interaction and Adaptation
The Enlightenment
By the end of the 18th century, Christianity was no longer at
the centre of Western civilization.
At the heart of the Enlightenment was a growing
confidence in human reason.
The growing importance of science was reflected in the
rise of Deism, which envisioned God as a divine
clockmaker, who assembles or shapes the universe and
then leaves it to run on its own.
The 18th century was also a period of philosophical
skepticism about claims of the transcendent.
The 19th century brought a tendency to look at religion in a
social context.
The 20th century revised our view of the way the self functions.
Religions was seen by some, such as Freud and Jung, as
a product of psychological processes.
Interaction and Adaptation,
contd.
Evolution
Darwin proposed that new types of organisms were
not created by a deity but developed over time
through a process he called natural selection.
Thanks to Darwin, modern Christian theologians
assessing the place of human life in the universe
have tended to locate human distinctiveness not in a
special physical creation, but in a unique intellectual
and spiritual capacity for transcendence.
Interaction and Adaptation,
contd.
New American Denominations
Seventh-Day Adventists was founded by William
Miller, who argued that the second coming of Christ
the adventwas imminent.
Jehovahs Witnesses are another millenarian group
centred on the belief that the Advent is imminent.
They reject the doctrine of the Trinity and regard Jesus
Christ as a created being, although they believe that in
dying he gave humanity a second chance to choose
righteousness and escape the punishment expected at
the end.
The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded by Mary
Baker Eddy who advocated non-medical healing.
She believed that the material world and its evils of
sickness, suffering, and death could be transcended,
and that spiritual existence was possible in the here
and now.
Interaction and Adaptation,
contd.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
(Mormons) was founded by Joseph Smith who
claimed to have experienced a vision of God and
Jesus.
The textual basis for Smiths new faith was an account
of Gods activity in the Western hemisphere entitled
The Book of Mormon.
Protestant congregations that cultivate the practice of
speaking in tongues call themselves Pentecostal
after the feast during which the apostles received the
miraculous gift of speaking in foreign languages.
With its emphasis on immediate personal experience,
rather than textual or doctrinal tradition, Pentecostalism
is more accessible to people with little formal education
and has also had remarkable success in Latin
American and Africa.
Interaction and Adaptation,
contd.
Contextualizing the Bible
Until the 19th century, most Christians believed that
the Bible was the word of God, a factual account of
the creation of the world, the origins of the human
race, and the emergence of the Israelite nation.
By the end of the 19th century, historians were able to
situate the Bible in a specific cultural context.
The Hebrews, it now appeared, were a minor group on
the receiving end of ideas and technology from the
major centres of empire, such as Mesopotamia and
Egypt.
During the 19th century many scholars had argued
that Jesus was a great moral teacher.
In 1906, Albert Schweitzer suggested that the Jesus
presented in the gospel accounts was more an
apocalyptic fanatic who believed the current world order
would come to a dramatic end within the lifetime of his
listeners.
Interaction and Adaptation,
contd.
Evangelicalism
Protestant evangelicalism draws on earlier themes,
notably the assurance of Gods grace and acceptance,
which they refer to as being born again.
Committed to the literal authority of the Bible,
evangelicals fought a rearguard battle against both
modern biblical criticism and the Darwinian theory of
human evolution.
By 1920, some were beginning to label the most deeply
conservative advocates of the inerrancy of scripture
fundamentalists.
Radio was the first medium to make it possible to preach
to a widely dispersed, unseen audience.
This lead into the use of television which gave rise to
televangelism.
Interaction and Adaptation,
contd.
Modern Roman Catholicism
For Roman Catholics, modernity has posed
challenges to, among others, the status of Mary and
the saints, clerical celibacy, and rules around
reproduction.
The authority of the institutional church is a common
focus.
In 196265, pope John XXIII convened the Second
Vatican Council to address some of these issues.
In 1968, pope Paul VI, in his encyclical Humanae
Vitae (On Human Life) prohibited the use of artificial
birth control.
The gap between the Churchs official stand on
sexuality and the actual practices of Catholics has
only widened in the intervening decades.
Interaction and Adaptation,
contd.
Ecumenism
In 1948, the Word Council of Churches was formed
with representation from most major Protestant and
Orthodox bodies.
Ecumenism (from the Greek meaning inhabited
world) offered a climate of mutual acceptance and
common purpose, an emphasis on unity within
diversity.
A number of denominational mergers also took place
in the 20th century, such as the 1925 formation of the
United Church of Canada by the Methodists,
Congregationalists, and a majority of the
Presbyterians.
In 1960, Roman Catholic pope John XXIII created the
Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity which
was designed to bring about a rapprochement with
Interaction and Adaptation,
contd.
Reforming Society
The denominations influenced by Puritanism
emphasized personal morality, which they expected
to bear fruit in society.
Social issues such as slavery and race-relations have
divided churches.
In the decade before WWI, Christian critics of the civic
and corporate order in North America called for the
Christianization of the economy, leading to the social
gospel movement.
South American liberation theology makes use of
Christian biblical and theological resources that
parallel Marxist thought.
The 20th century brought dramatic changes in the
cultural expectations of women in society.