With Open Arms: Introducing Christianity

Most of us in Western Europe like to believe that we know what Christianity is all about.

Church, values, ethics, morality, and Christendom are all reasonably familiar-feeling concepts. The problem is that, when you get right down to it, Christianity is not really about these things at all.

As a young man, growing up in the cathedral city of Norwich, my own first experience of Christian belief was mediated through the parish church, vicar, priests, pews, pulpit, musty leather-bound Bible, candles, incense, and cassocks.

By the time I was 15 years old I believed that I knew all that I needed to know about Christians. Out of touch, dull, musty old fuddie-duddies who didn’t understand why, at 16, I needed to be working in McDonald’s on Sunday.

Little was I to know that, actually, very little of this stuff was truly relevant to Christian faith.

One Man

Christianity is founded upon the person of Jesus of Nazareth, whom Christians call “Christ”.

This title, Christ, is the English version of the Greek word Khristós, which roughly translates as “Anointed One”, and is itself a translation of the Hebrew word we render in English as Messiah.

To be a Christian is to be a follower of the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, who is believed to be the long-awaited “Anointed One” that the Jewish Prophets had been expecting. There was, at least in the early years of Christianity, a close relationship between Judaism and the new faith.

Jesus lived in the area of modern-day Palestine and Israel towards the early Roman Imperial era, usually reckoned to be sometime around 5BCE till 30CE.

Although Christianity is a somewhat balkanised religion, with many different branches and traditions, it is generally agreed that the New Testament Gospels contain an accurate record of the life, teachings, and ministry of Jesus. The remaining books of the New Testament are the collected writings of the earliest and most influential disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, drawn together over an extended period by the early church.

Jesus is believed to have been conceived of a virgin Jewish girl and to have been born as a child who grew up in the region of Galilee. Jesus’ early life remains largely unimportant to Christians with the record picking up at the moment of Jesus’ ritual baptism at the hand of a prophet known as John the Baptist.

From this point of baptism the Gospels present Jesus as a powerful Jewish Rabbi (teacher) who also worked various miracles, which are said to reveal his identity and power, before being arrested by the authorities.

Jesus was tried for treason against Rome and executed by crucifixion. Essentially he was nailed up to a large man-sized cross of wood and left to die from wounds, heat, exhaustion, and asphyxiation. Jesus died quite quickly and was buried by his followers, under the watchful guard of the Roman legionaries.

The root of Christian excitement, and the moment it could be argued that the religion truly began, was when two of Jesus’ followers, Mary and (later) Peter, examined his tomb (three days following his death) to discover that he had been resurrected, brought back from death, and was in fact alive. Jesus is reported to have appeared several times before very publicly ascending on a cloud back to the heavens.

One Church

You could be forgiven for wondering how Christianity got from Jesus instructing Peter, and giving him care for the disciples, to the monolithic image of Christendom that we often associate with the later Medieval Church.

There is a long and very complex history to explore in answer to that question and we sadly don’t have space in this article. Suffice it to say that Christianity evolved from a small band of followers into a globe-spanning, multi-branched set of traditions which has generated many sub-sects and associated organisations.

The one key idea that you need to keep clear in your mind, however, is that at the beginning the Church was a persecuted minor sect of Judaism existing within the Roman Empire. The story of the development of the later Church is ever-rooted in the idea that there is one true Church, made up of the body of followers who claim allegiance to Christ Jesus as their true King and Lord. Christians were, in Roman times, very actively rejecting the supreme rule of the Roman Emperor in favour of this back-water teacher from Judea.

This idea underpins the whole of Christian theology: Jesus is the Son of the God of Israel, and he alone is the route by which believers are able to access God’s Kingdom. The earthly expression of Jesus’ rule and Kingship is the Church. This is not about buildings or organisation but rather about an allegiance to the person of Christ Jesus.

One Faith

The Christian faith claims to be open to all who would accept the Kingship of Jesus Christ over their lives. Beyond obedience to the teaching of Jesus, the first and highest goal of any Christian is said to be to learn to love all others, and to place them before oneself in priority. This is, Christians may report, easier said than done.

In practical terms, Christians try to model their own lives upon that of the example given by Jesus himself. The central ethics are built upon seeking to match their own daily experience of living to the expectations that Jesus, in his teaching, set before his disciples. Although regularly failing, many Christians would testify to the transforming nature of the effort to achieve the ideals portrayed by Jesus of Nazareth.

This faith is described by an early follower as,  “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews: chapter 11, verse 1). That is to say that Christians are hoping for the promised return of Jesus, at which time he will usher in his global kingdom and rule. There is also an acceptance that faith is not a purely empirical matter.

Into the 21st Century…

As Christianity entered the 21st Century it was, and remains, beset by many challenges. The power and influence of the historical Church institutions have waned in the post-Enlightenment era.

While this article cannot begin to address the many issues that Christians face in the modern world, and it’s perhaps not wise to try, one thing is certainly true: there is a growing sense in Western Europe that further change and development is needed to help 21st Century people connect with the core of the Christian faith. For one example, one might ask the question of how the church will help a sceptical society pay regard to the story of a 2000-year-old teacher from ancient Palestine?

The author is a Christian and so, to be honest, it’s hard to write with any kind of genuine objectivity on these matters. Suffice it to say that, as we aim to do with the other major religions, there is much to explore within the experience of the Christian faith. Future articles will, perhaps, delve deeper into the beliefs, practices, and questions of Christianity.

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For further reading, we’d recommend grabbing a copy of the New Testament in a modern translation and beginning with one of the Gospels… the Gospel of Mark is a good starting point. This will clue you into the basic story of Jesus’ life.

If you want more on the practices and history of the Christian Church then you might enjoy “Christianity: An Introduction” by Alistair McGrath.