A History of Christianity

Diarmaid MacCulloch teacher – one of the leading historians in the world – reveals the origins of Christianity and explores what it means to be Christian. Diarmaid MacCulloch When a young boy, his parents used to drive around historic churches. Little did they know that they had created a monster, with the history of the Christian Church to become his life’s work. In a series sweep in four continents, Professor MacCulloch goes in search of forgotten origins of Christianity.

1. First Christianity. The shift of the family history it started when the apostle Paul was Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome. Instead, it shows that the true origins of Christianity are found further east, and at one point he was about to succeed in Asia, including China. The headquarters of Christianity could have been Bagdad, not Rome, and if it had happened then Western Christianity have been very different.

2. Catholicism: The Rise of Rome unpredictable. More than a billion Christians look to Rome, more than half of all Christians on the planet. But how a small Jewish sect of rural first-century Palestine, who preached the virtue of humility and poverty, become the religion of Western Europe – the unflinching obedience rich, powerful and hopes of the faithful?

3. Orthodoxy – From Empire to Empire. Today, Eastern Orthodox Christianity flourishes in the Balkans and Russia, with over 150 million members worldwide. It’s different Catholicism or Protestantism – worship is carefully choreographed, the icons get the faithful to a mystical union with Christ, and everywhere there is a symbol of a fierce-looking bird, the eagle with two heads.

4. Reform: The individual before God. The Amish are a peaceful people today, but five centuries ago, their ancestors were regarded as some of the most dangerous in Europe. They were the radicals – the protesters – who destroyed the Catholic Church. In the fourth part of the series, Diarmaid MacCulloch sense of the Reformation, and how a faith based on obedience and authority gave birth to one based on individual conscience.

5. Protestantism – The Gospel Explosion. Diarmaid MacCulloch an overview of the emergence of an exuberant expression of faith that has spread around the world – evangelical Protestantism. Today is associated with conservative politics, but the story is clearly unexpected. It’s easy to forget that the evangelical explosion has been driven by a concern for social justice and the assertion that one could be in direct emotional relationship with God.

6. God in the Dock. Life history Diarmaid MacCulloch makes it a symbol of a distinctive feature of Western Christendom – the skepticism, a tendency to doubt what has transformed Western culture and Christianity. In the final program of the series, asked that the change came. He challenges the simplistic notion that faith in Christianity has been steadily leaking to the relentless advance of science, reason and progress, and instead shows how the tide of evil faith flows back in.

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