The Development of Christianity in America

Religion is an important feature in most cultures throughout time. Different religions have been more prominent than others, one of the most popular being Christianity. Christianity developed during the time of the Roman Empire. It began as a minority religion and grew into something much more than that. Christianity’s importance to the empire increased over time. At first, Christian values seemed different than those of pagan Roman civilization and Romans were not sure how to react to this growing minority religion. The difference between the two religions became clearer as Christianity became more prominent.

Christianity was frowned upon by the Romans. The Roman Emperor wanted the people to worship him and the Roman Gods. Christians were blamed for many of the misfortunes that happened in Rome. Due to the belief that Christians were to blame they were ostracized, tortured and even killed.

Christianity during the early century was very difficult for many Christians. As many Christians were persecuted for not worshipping pagan gods.

From the third to the fourth century, the Roman Empire witnessed a widespread attempt to stop the spread of Christianity. Initially, leaders of the church were predominately targeted, but later anyone admitting to Christianity became a target. The persecutions hit a climax during Diocletian’s reign. These persecutions actually helped the spread of Christianity by glorifying Christians and beginning a tradition of martyrdom that shaped the Church, and the strength that Christians displayed shows that the persecutions could not have possible stopped the spread of Christianity.

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

Religion played a key role in the daily life and social system of Ancient Rome. Religion included the worship of many gods and more gods were often adopted from conquered areas. Because most religions were polytheist at the time, the Romans rarely disallowed a cult from a conquered region to continue. A few cults ran into controversy and opposition from citizens or government, such as the cult of Deus Sol Invictus, and that of Isis. Romans were also not keen on monotheistic religion which explains their separation from the Jews. But above all other religions, the Romans disagreed with, persecuted and were threatened most by Christianity.  The introduction of Christianity to the Roman Empire

There are many differences between Christianity and Roman religion. There are also similarities between the two of how they both worshipped in a place even if the place was different. Big difference is that they believed in gods and also they had different ways of religious. Roman did not like people turning away from Roman religion, and that caused harsh punishment to Christian to occur. Christianity became popular in Rome is after “the Jesus movement” occurred in Judea. Another key point that needs to be discussed is what the Roman did to deal with the people who turned away from Roman religion to Christianity.

A lot has happened over the this course learning everything from music in the 1960s to interrogation techniques of the current. The last ting we learned about our country is how Christians played a role in it. The history of we came to be in America, how we have an influence and the social enigmas with wanting it in politics. The main things we covered in the past eight weeks is how different events have effected or influenced the United States. We begin in the sixties and worked our way through the major events and crises of our country.

In the initial response of Rome to the Christian religion The Great Persecution under Diocletian did not work. This is because it did not solve the problems that were still being faced in Rome at the time. Instead of helping it divided Rome because people were not able to practice the new religion that they wanted to practice. The Christian church had a strong secular and administration organization. This is shown by the number of followers that they have.

In the Roman Empire centralized religion based off of who was ruling at the time was practiced to an extent. As long as citizens respected the emperor and didn’t try to revolt they were left in peace. One example of a religion that were prosecuted against because of the potential of revolt was Christianity, derived from Judaism until the point of the worship of Jesus. Christianity went from being prosecuted against to becoming a dominate religion in Rome. There were many changes that allowed Christianity to become a dominate religion in the Roman empire. Two main things that contributed were in the end of the teachings of Jesus and the reign of emperor Constantine.

With the up and coming development of Christianity as a major religion, came a lot of resistance from those in power. The Roman empire was very good at accepting new traditions into their vast empire, but everyone had to recognize the empire’s authority by making sacrifice for the emperors prosperity. Many Christians refused to do this because making sacrifices to someone other than their one true God is abhorrent to them. Christians did not participate in a lot of different activities within the Roman empire and from time to time Christians were persecuted because of it.

In the 1st Century A.D. Britain had its own set of religious icons: Pagan gods of the earth and Roman gods of the sky. Into this superstitious and violent world came a new religion Christianity. Christianity was just considered another  cult among many, but unlike the cults of Rome, Christianity demanded exclusive allegiance from its followers. It was this intolerance of other gods, and its secrecy, which rattled the Roman authorities and led to repeated persecutions of Christians. Christians were forced to meet and worship in secret.

     The beginnings of the Christian church are shrouded in mystery. With the lack of evidence about that time in history, it is hard to draw conclusions of any type. However, the historical analyst, Hans Kung, has written a book to shed some light on the subject. In this book, Kung discusses his opinion on the development of the early church, and its hierarchical structure. In the following paper, I will address two of the chapters of Kung’s book, “The Beginnings of the Early Church” and “The Early Catholic Church”. The points that I will focus on are: The makeup and persecution of the early church

It would be simple enough to say that the Christian faith has much to do with Rome’s political status and the instatement of the Pax Romana, but there are so many other factors that had the great empire closely correlated with the Christian faith. For one, a succession of rulers with different types of ruling styles would force believers and converts to flee in fear of persecution, but one important and overlying factor was the spread of the Word of God and his works through his son, Jesus. Throughout history, the Roman Empire has had a great impact on the Christian faith both positively and negatively,

The main competitor of Christianity during the first couple centuries of its existence continued to be Roman Paganism, because it remained the religion of the empire. These two religions have completely different fundamental beliefs, and values, however it was very hard to avoid paganism during this time. Also in the beginning, these pagans viewed Christianity as one of the mystery religions that were also present at the time, because it seemed to be more emotional and required you to dedicate yourself to it, however Christianity was not in fact one of these mystery religions, and eventually this was recognized.