The Cultural Issues Of Christianity

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.

Christianity is one of the most influential religions on both ancient and modern Western society, with the religion based on the teachings of the prophet Jesus Christ who lived approximately between the years of 5 BC and 33 AD. It is claimed that Christ was the son of God whose spirit was embodied and sent to Earth as a human being to bring peace and prosperity to the less fortunate, and absolve the world of its sin. Jesus preached a doctrine of a supreme monotheistic god who ruled over the universe, as well as ethics and morals especially centred on the concept of faith and forgiveness. If one was to live their life in accordance to the Will of God and the teachings of Christ found in the written word of the Holy Bible, one would be absolved of their sin and ascend to the spiritual realm of God, known as Heaven, after their physical death.

The positive influence of Christianity is far reaching especially in the rich history and culture of Western Civilization despite a long standing ignorance or adamant denial of its contributions. The Bible itself is responsible for much of the language, literature, and fine arts we enjoy today as its artists and composers were heavily influenced by its writings. Paul Maier, in writing the forward to the book How Christianity Changed the World by Alvin J. Schmidt, says this about the profound impact Christianity has had on the development of Western Civilization:

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.

Since before the United States was founded, the ideals of Christianity have been integrated into the government in some way, shape, or form. In the early days of the Colonies, Christianity was the centerfold for all government affairs; however, after the constitution was ratified and deemed effective in the United States, the First Amendment was born. The first amendment states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (source). In the early life of the United States, the

To further this argument, research conducted by Dr Kevin Dunn (Christopher & Deresky 2008) exemplified how ‘marginalised’ the minority of Australian Muslims and people of Middle Eastern origin are in the Australian society. Australians are thought to be of the opinion that people with these cultural and religious backgrounds are the least likely to be able to fit into the culture of Australians (Christopher & Deresky, 2008).

Initially, America did not have a Christian foundation in the sense of creating a theocracy. However, it was shaped by Christian moral truths, and the forefathers created a hospitable environment that supported this religion. The relationship linking the state and religion grew strong as most of the people in the nation became Christians. This research paper outlines how Christianity came to be one of the major religions in the United States of America.

The author's main purpose for writing A Myth of a Christian Nation is to explain how the world has claimed to be founded on christian principles but has neglected to see that this is a lie that we as christians and people in society have told ourselves to make it seem like we are “ one nation under God”. Boyd also focuses in on and introducing our role in the kingdom of God vs the kingdom of the world and our role in politics and society.

According to the stats, Christianity in America is declining. A massive research on religion changes from 2007 to 2014 in America showed that Christianity in America has dropped from being the religion of 78.4% to 70.6% to Americans, while those who identify with unaffiliated has risen 6.7% (America’s Changing Religious Landscape). The drop in Christianity, according to the study, is “driven mainly by declines among mainline Protestants and Catholics” (America’s Changing Religious Landscape). A quick observation can tell a person that the percent of Christians going down is about equal to the percent rise of the unaffiliated. Some people might assume that the drop in Christianity comes from the fact that more people are realizing that it is

Since 9/11, support for multiculturalism has dropped in many liberal states like Australia and Britain. In many western democracies Muslims are perceived as potential terrorists who carry illiberal practices and are unable to embrace the values and norms of the liberal system. In Britain, multiculturalism was blamed for the atrocities caused by the terrorist attacks of London 2005. More recently the issue of ISIS has created lots of worries in Britain and the country seems to suffer from not only a multiculturalism crisis but also an identity crisis. Prime Minister David Cameron made it clear in his speech in a security conference held in Munich 2011 that the policies of multiculturalism that were applied in the past have created a fragmented

This is achieved through rhetoric which positions non-Eurocentric groups as alien. Edward Said (1978) argues that this process of Western self-presentation acts to construct orientalist as west’s alter ego. It is argued the this rhetoric uses binary vocabulary such as the West versus East, despotism versus democracy and cruelty versus fair treatment. Jaspal and Cinnirella claims thats muslims are typically constructed as the antithesis of the ethno-national in-group. This is achieved through the juxtapositioning of the negative characteristics inherent in the Muslim in-group with the positive characteristics of the ethno-national in-group. Fatima Poorebrahim (2013) argues how rhetoric of difference is established through pacify and degrade Orientals. The Pluralism Project (2016) claims that newspaper headlines regularly print words such as “islam” and “muslim” next to words like “fanatic” and “fundamentalist” which are foreign ideologies to the west. Joshua Roose (2013) from the Religion and Society Research Centre from the University of Western Sydney argues that media headlines are designed to create an Islam versus the Western dichotomy, he uses the head line “A terror attack in the UK overnight - apparently committed once again in the name of Islam” to illustrate this dichotomy. The term other is often used on Ethnic groups to portray them as a threat to

I rather to be in the middle of the road to decide that American nation is a Christian nation, because neither the US Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence indicate any of Christianity in it, even when the founding fathers mentioned the word God specifically, they used an extended metaphor the “Creator”, which it has broader meaning than the word God. Of course, there were other religions beside Christianity which had been practiced. But, it is an obvious that the foundation of the American nation established on a Christian foundation.

Religious identity can come in two forms, one from a nation of people all believing in the same values and another from the personal view of each individual or family within that nation. In a family or local community sense, it ties the smaller community together against its neighbouring ethnicities. It provides a feeling of togetherness and strength for the society. It is the basis for 'ethnic honour: the excellence of one's own customs and the inferiority of alien ones' (Weber, cited in Bruce 1996, p. 96). Religious identity brings great pride and hope to the citizens of any particular society and lends itself towards social cohesion (Browne 2005).

Dewayne, you said that America lives in a Christian culture, and dwell in a Christian culture. If we talk about the beliefs and practices based on Christianity (that is prevalent in America), I do think that you can certainly say that there is such thing as Christian culture. However, I do not think that defining Christian culture is simple because Christianity does not bound by the culture. If American lives in a Christian culture, then other countries with Christianity should share the same culture. American is one of the most famous countries that was founded on the Christian values. Therefore, I think we often confuse Christian culture with American 'church' culture. For example, Korean Christian might have hard time understanding the practices

As the majority of people have different definitions of the word multiculturalism as well as different views on the cultural and political impacts, I will put forward the different views throughout the chosen texts. As stated in the text ‘The successes and failures of multiculturalism’, the author defines the idea of multiculturalism as “the essence of multiculturalism is the idea that, if one makes immigrants feel welcome by allowing them to retain their culture and by seeking to address discrimination against them.” (Manning, A. 2011, page 1) This text argues that the apprehension about multiculturalism is interconnected to the conviction that in the United Kingdom, not all the minority groups that are living here consider themselves to be British, due to their ethnicity. In the table showing the Percentages Reporting a British National Identity by Ethnicity, on the second page of the ‘The successes and failures of multiculturalism’ text written by Alan Manning in 2011, it is shown that each different ethnic minority group have certain percentage of their population living in the United Kingdom that consider themselves to be British nationals, whether they were born in the United Kingdom, or abroad. Though the percentages diverge between each minority group, there are still a large number of people that consider themselves as British Nationals (Manning,