Christian Influence The Early Church Today

Christianity began its succession into the most dominant worldwide religion after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and within three days build another made without hands.” Upon Jesus’ death and resurrection, he completed this task setting forth the development of Christianity. Since Jesus left no formal authoritative power, organization, or agreed upon scriptures, a wide variety of sects gained popularity in the development of Christianity. Most of these sects were later deemed as heretic, one of the most notable being Gnosticism. Gnosticism was a dualist religion believing the material world evil and the invisible spirit realm good. This belief obligated Gnosticism to follow Docetic interpretations. Docetism is the belief that Jesus was never truly man but rather a divine from the spirit world. All forms of Christianity, however, believe Jesus is son of God sent as humanity’s savior from damnation. Docetism, along with other aspects of Gnosticism, drove other Christians condemn Gnosticism as heresy. Gnosticism, however, is more comparable to Canonical Christians than realized. Specifically, the distinction between Docetism and strict Canonical belief is not only insignificant but also justifiable due to Canonical contradictions surrounding Jesus’ existence.

Throughout time, Christianity has changed constantly. In order to survive, Christianity has had to evolve and split. It has split into many denominations, some of which have become extinct over the centuries. The religion has changed and divided due to influential people and events in time.

Christianity was born and flourished in an empire where the common language was Latin and Greek. Two important people like Paul and Constantine further influenced and were a major part of the development of Christianity. The history of the Jews leading up to the time of Jesus had a major impact on the development of Christianity. “When Christianity was clearly identified as a distant religion, the new religion was considered by its members to be the fulfillment of Judaism rather than a new religion.” “Since Jesus was a Jew and preached to the Jews, Christianity was closely linked to Judaism.” The development of Christianity was due to several historical, political, and social circumstances.

It cannot be ignored that “religious thinking, religious questioning, religious faith permeated the Revolution and the Founding.” We also cannot ignore the important influence of Christianity on many Americans, “from the Puritans to the present day.” Our nation was founded by the devout Christians, who wanted to spread His nation. The Founding Fathers were mostly Christians who agreed with Christian doctrine. They were strongly influenced by Christianity that later they involved the influence to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The early American colonies were founded and settled by Great Britain. Accordingly, Church of England was the state sponsored religion in this area. Most individuals identified themselves at Protestants and most of the settlers considered themselves church members. Even with these facts the Anglican Church struggled to keep its base in the colonies and to move into newly settled areas. This happened because of the church leadership, several church practices, and the topography of the colonies.

Evangelism in the early church is different then evangelism in the church today. Today some churches do not even share the truth but only talk about money and how to make the church bigger. Some churches do not share the whole true and are not bold like the early church because they are afraid that they will lose members because of the truth. Also in some churches there is a lot of division. In the early church like stated earlier, they were unified and helped each other out. Now there is a lot of gossip and others try to excel above others in the church.

Initially, communities of early Christian believers were able to choose their own leaders; however, as centuries passed, the practice of having secular rulers choose appoint church leaders became routine. These appointed leaders were eventually able to establish permanent institutions, which not only expressed Christian values, but also drew from many Greco-Roman Traditions. The creation of Nicene Creed and the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine Christian (Orthodox) Church allowed the Christian church to expand and thrive.

One of the most influential periods of Christian History began in 1096, after Pope Urban II officially launched the First Crusade in an attempt to regain Jerusalem from its Muslim occupants. As with any other significant historical event, many people rallied in support of the war, while others demanded peace. Hadewijch of Brabant, a renowned thirteenth-century mystic and Beguine stood in opposition to the Crusades as a whole. Her status as a highly respected mystic, coupled with a unique voice and perspective, all gave Hadewijch a substantial platform on which to preach peace over war, love over violence, and forgiveness instead of revenge. Unlike her contemporary, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hadewijch used her opportunity to teach accurate

After close examination of the historical article provided, this document appears to be a letter containing a firsthand account relating the procedures of the interrogation and persecution of Christians during the spread of early Christianity. The author addresses the recipient of the letter by proclaiming, “my lord” and further referring to his lord as his authority throughout the remaining four paragraphs through the use of second person such as “you,” “your name,” and “your instructions” (1, 3-5).

The church had a huge influence on daily medieval life. The church helped reinforce the system of feudalism through creating the Great Chain of Being. The Great Chain of Being means that everybody has a fixed and unchangeable role (Richardson). This system meant that nobody could leave their fixed class, and it stated that people in the nobility are better than the lower classes (Richardson). The great chain of being supports feudalism because it says that nobles are better than serfs, while this may not have been true, nobles certainly had many more privileges than serfs (Richardson). Although it may have not been fair, people trusted this system because the church promised them salvation, which meant entry into heaven and everybody desired

The Jewish community started Christianity, but Christianity later spread and convert from all over the Greco-Roman world were attracted by this religion during the progress of the first century CE. Ideas, traditions, ways of worship and traditions were brought along by the new convert of Christianity and it was adopted by their faith. This is through art because Christians who were once pagans of the Roman Empire stick to their artistic heritage when they became followers of Jesus Christ. Roman artistic forms and motifs and also Roman architecture were being used by this new convert to express their new faith. In further explanation, we’ll see how Roman art influenced the developing art of early Christians.

The Church in medieval times played a dominate role in their lives. Everyone, whether they're peasants or nobles, believed that God existed, and along with Heaven and Hell. People were taught that the only way they could get to Heaven was if the Church let them, and to be granted that acceptance meant you had to be faithful. Hell, on the other hand, was terrifying. Priests would often read passages out of the bible and preaching the word of God, along with that the suffering that could be experienced if you sinned and were sent to hell. The idea of torture kept people's faith in check, after all eternal suffering was more threatening then it was to pray to God. The Church also had a lot of wealth and power. Mainly the wealth they got from

After Jesus was born, he came with a new religion known as Christianity. Christianity focus on the laws and elements that called for the inner transformation of a person (Jackson & McTighe, 2013). Although this new religion came with great happiness, suffering also came along. The rise of Christianity effected history in many different ways including, Leaders, Roman religion, and.

It's no question that Jesus played the biggest part in the forming of Christianity. The question is how much of Christianity is based off of his teachings? For starters, there are a lot of his teachings that are not used in modern day. Christianity is built off of a whole lot. Namely the Pharisee tradition of Judaism and all that comes with it (the old testament, the concept of heaven/hell, the resurrection, the devil, etc). Furthermore, Christianity is not based solely off of the teachings of Jesus per say, rather it is based off of the story. Namely the crucifixion and resurrection. As far as how we should live, we get a lot of that from Jesus, Paul, John, Peter, and the early church. Unfortunately, denominations, churches, and theologies tend to give principals and rules rather than equip the average believer to actually walk with and know God. As far as doctrines such as the trinity, and general Christology we get this very much from the early Church. So ultimately you have the Old Testament through the lens of the Pharisee's, the life of Christ, the teachings and histories in the new testament, and then the doctrines found to be truth by the early Christians.

One can argue that religion has existed since the existence of humanity. All people had something that they worshiped or revered. Every community believed in the existence of supernatural being of beings that they strived to please so that they would lead a comfortable life (Hinds, 2007). For example, the early civilizations of Mesopotamia were farmers, they worshiped gods and prayed so that their crops prospered and yield abundantly. The Greek and Roman came up soon after Mesopotamians and continued the worship of gods. They invented rituals that they used to please their gods. After the Greeks and Romans, a wave of philosophy hit the people. The emergence of philosophers such Plato attempted to reform their governments. Many were convicted of the attempts to reform their government as they questioned their leaders, who said they were guided by the gods that they worshiped. Socrates, for example, was killed for failing to recognize the religion practiced in Athens (Smith & Woodruff, 2000). Jesus was also crucified for attempting to spread Christianity and the belief in one God and not the many that Romans worshiped. Buddha, who ruled over Nepal, denounced his throne in search of truth.