Academic literature on the topic 'Christianity'

Steven D. Smith persuasively shows that paganism and Christianity are in a culture war that spans two thousand years. Throughout his book, he shows that Christianity is the exceptional religion in three ways. First, Christianity is more authentically open to philosophy than paganism. Second, Christianity does not sacralize the State. Third, Christianity provides a more fulfilling understanding of sexual ethics. Despite the exceptionalism of Christianity, it is currently facing a significant challenge from a renewed and secularized paganism. This secularized paganism is attractive due to the fallibility of human nature. However, Christianity’s theology and intellectual tradition provide meaningful answers and rebuttals to paganism’s more sensual claims.

AbstractThe article explores the profile, context and consequences of Christianity’s self definition as a philosophy in the ancient world. It proposes a distinction between, on the one hand, the practice of teaching philosophy in small Christian schools, and, on the other hand, an intellectual discourse that proclaimed Christianity as the true and superior philosophy. It is argued that Christianity’s self definition as a philosophy should not be viewed as merely an accommodation to an intellectual fashion. It is shown how Christianity could be understood and practised as a philosophy in the ancient sense of the word. However, as a philosophical practice Christianity underwent a transformation in the 4th century which prevented the emergence of a late antique Christian scholasticism and gave rise to new combinations of Christianity and non-Christian philosophy.

Historical fact indicates that the religious language of Christianity is rife with violence. The spiritual language is echoed in such bloody tragedies as war, murder, and punishment. This study aimed to encourage Christianity to understand violent religious language by viewing it in a reflective frame. The study uses qualitative methods to analyze history, so the literature that records the incidents of Christianity's involvement in violence is used. Analysis of the various literature produced two essential things as critical reflections on Christian theology. Based on historical facts of Christianity's involvement in violence, Christianity was at one time in a phase creating its doctrine (violence is not God's will), and Christianity played God (God did not engage in violence). That discovery is supposed to be part of a critical vehement from a violent point of view.

The philosophy in Christianity is both inert and active. The late Greek metaphysics around which Christian doctrine first developed is Christianity's inert philosophical skeleton. Even if the dehellenizers could succeed in their efforts to remove it, Christianity itself would be unrecognizable without it. But the philosophy that is in Christianity actively, the enterprise of philosophical theology, is in it insecurely and only intermittently because it seems vulnerable to important religious and philosophical objections. As I see it, philosophical theology can be and actually has been successfully defended against those objections, and it is, I believe, incomparably the most interesting and important philosophy in Christianity—in fact, the only philosophy of more than historical interest there really is in Christianity.

The Philippines is known to be the only predominantly Christian country in Asia. Christianity in both Catholic and Protestant forms came with the Western colonizers. However, despite its identification with the colonizers, Christianity became the faith of the ordinary Filipinos. Western Christianity, the religion of the colonizer, became Filipino Christianity, the religion of the struggling people for independence and self-determination. Philippine Christianity developed an anti-West and anti-colonial character. It became part of the Filipino postcolonial national identity. However, neocolonialism and globalization are undermining and eroding Philippine Christianity’s anti-colonial tradition. Philippine Christianity continues to emulate Western spirituality, such as the prosperity gospel and the health and wellness movement. The paper argues for a spirituality using the perspective of the Theology of Struggle (ToS) developed by Filipino Christian activists. The paper claims that ToS can foster a spirituality of resistance, repentance, solidarity, and renewal in the struggle against globalization and neocolonialism.

Even if the study of Christianity’s interreligious and intercultural dialogues is associated with concerns found primarily in the non-Western worlds, the two forms of dialogues actually have their origins in the Western academy. For Christianity, interreligious dialogue is a response to the plurality of religions while intercultural dialogue responds to the cultural plurality within the Christian tradition itself. They are, respectively, Christianity’s engagement with what has come to be known as World Religions and Western Christianity’s engagement with what has come to be known as World Christianity. The present article looks at the genealogy of both these engagements and explores their implications for Christian theology, offering a glimpse into the different methods theologians employ today in apprehending the new situation.

Abstract This short essay introduces the collection of articles featured in this special issue on interreligious learning in Chinese Christianity and religions, setting the contents of the issue in the larger context of world Christianity and Chinese Christianity’s dual quest to understand both the church’s internal diversity and its outward relationships to other faith traditions.

Christianity in China has achieved a rapid growth in population since the 1980s. This article mainly reviews empirical studies on Christianity from 2000 to the present. Drawing on statistics from the China Academic Journal Network Publishing Database (cajd), this article begins with an analysis of the trends in both quantity and research interests of large-scale empirical studies. Categories of churches are defined and applied to the analysis of various topics related to Christianity in China and to academic questions addressed by Chinese scholars. The article also discusses theoretical frameworks used to explain the dynamics behind the revival of Christianity and studies of the social functions of Christian churches. In addition, the article reviews investigations of Christianity in social life in contemporary China, studies of religious boundaries and civil society, the causal relationship between Christianity and economic development, its functions in urbanization, and other related subjects. It ends with discussions of Christianity’s global dimension, its identity as a global religion, and its relation to the emergence of a global China.

AbstractHobbes regarded traditional Christianity as one of the leading threats to the preservation of civil peace. This article argues that he responded to this threat by developing an innovative reinterpretation of Christianity designed to tame it from within. This reinterpretation involved the reshaping of leading Christian doctrines around the same liberal principles that underlie his conception of political authority, the natural law principles of equality of right and inalienable rights. Although this political “liberalization” of Christianity may well have enhanced the prospects of civil peace, it did so by undermining doctrines central to Christianity's biblical roots.

Abstract For the last thirty-five years, the majority of Japanese wedding ceremonies have involved Christianity, but scholars have struggled with Christianity’s increasingly prominent place within the Japanese religious landscape. The tendency has been to refute the religiosity of Christian weddings and embrace the rhetoric of Japanese essentialism. However, following its prohibition in 1612, the ongoing “eradication” of Christianity defined the very nature of Japanese subjecthood, made Christianity indispensable to the Japanese state, and entrenched ritualized acts of disassociation from the religion within the lives of every individual. Modern arguments, too, continue to assert Christianity’s foreignness, portraying it as the religion of colonialism or contending that “foreign” conceptions of religion are inappropriate within the Japanese context. However, the popularity of Christian wedding ceremonies within the context of postwar Japan owes much to prewar and wartime Japanese state policy where the Japanese government adopted policies toward religion that helped set the stage for the later acceptance of the Christian marriage rite.

This qualitative frame analysis examines how print media handles the concept of Fundamentalist Christianity. The researcher examined news reports in four prominent national newspapers over the ten-year period between 2000 and 2009 for references made to Fundamentalist Christianity. The sample is examined on the basis of Mark Silk's "topoi," a term taken from classical rhetoric meaning commonplaces or themes (1995). Silk outlines seven common topoi on which stories about religion are written, and these are utilized as a framework for this present study. While much has been written and researched on how religious groups, Fundamentalist Christians, and Evangelicals use mass media to promote their message to a secular audience, few studies have examined how the secular press frames Fundamentalist Christianity. This study, therefore, fills an existing literature gap by dissecting the portrayal of a demographic that has had a historical and cultural media presence for more than a century.

It will be demonstrated, in conclusion, that in art as in life, the contingencies Britten imposed upon the Christian element are ultimately displaced by other 'non-Christian' elements related to the Classical paradigm.

Крайняя малочисленность связанных с христианством находок и их неравномерное распределение во времени создает значительные трудности при восстановлении истории Фанагорийской христианской общины. Восполнить лакуны до некоторой степени помогают имеющиеся сведения об истории христианства в других центрах Северо-Восточного Причерноморья, неотъемлемой частью которого являлась Фанагория. Несомненно, новая религия проникает в Фанагорию, как и в другие центры Боспорского царства, в последней четверти 3 в. из Малой Азии, откуда готы, возвращаясь из своих пиратских набегов, привозили пленных христиан. Именно к периоду после морских походов варваров относятся первые зафиксированные на Боспоре признаки христианства: различные вещи с христианскими символами, христианские участки на некрополе в Керчи. Незначительное количество раннехристианских памятников говорит о том, что в этот период распространение религии в регионе происходило, главным образом, благодаря деятельности миссионеров, и число приверженцев христианства было невелико. С включением Боспора в сферу влияния Византийской империи церковь и государство предпринимают совместные усилия по христианизации региона: скорее всего, именно в это время по обе стороны Керченского пролива строятся церкви, в Фанагории учреждается епископская кафедра и строится христианский храм, внутреннему убранству которого, скорее всего, принадлежали два мраморных резервуара для воды, сигмовидный стол и рельеф с изображением Орфея, найденные при раскопках на «Нижнем городе». Форма и материал, из которого изготовлен один из найденных резервуаров, позво ляет интерпретировать его как крещальную купель. Причем небольшая глубина найден ной емкости не означает, что в ней крестили только детей, поскольку в большинстве случаев крещение совершалось без полного погружения: стоявшего в купели крещаемого просто обливали водой. Однако уже с 4 в. при крещении начали использовать стоячую воду, а наполнять купель предписывалось вручную. Поэтому объяснить назначение двух отверстий в фанагорийском резервуаре в случае его использования в качестве купели трудно. Лучше объясняет наличие двух отверстий другой возможный вариант использования резервуара: в качестве реликвария, в котором хранились мощи, их частицы или какие-то другие реликвии. Через верхнее отверстие в реликварий на хранящиеся в нем мощи наливали масло, которое выливалось через отверстие в нижней части. Что касается чаши с ручками-выступами вдоль края, то подобные емкости, как правило, определяют либо как купели для крещения детей, либо, чаще, как чаши для освященной воды, которую в раннехристианское время использовали для ритуального омовения рук перед входом в храм. Известные автору точные аналогии фанагорийскому сосуду происходят исключительно с территории провинций Мезия Секунда и Фракия. Не исключено, что именно оттуда фанагорийская емкость была привезена войсками, присланными на Боспор Юстинианом для подавления восстания против ставленника Византии Грода. Мраморный сигмовидной стол с арочной каймой также мог входить в состав инвентаря христианского храма. В церковном обиходе использование таких столов было вторичным, взятым из светской жизни и идет от раннехристианской традиции совместных поминальных трапез, совершавшихся над могилами мучеников. Позже их использовали в храмах в качестве престолов и столов для приношений, а также в трапезных монастырей. Несмотря на то, что сигмовидные столы, в частности столы с арочной каймой, использовали как в светском, так и христианском обиходе, их находки вне контекста обычно связывают с христианскими храмами. Однако в подобных случаях нельзя исключать возможность их использования и в качестве обычного обеденного стола. Наконец, с христианством может быть связана мраморная плитка с изображением Орфея, образ которого перешел в христианскую иконографию из языческого искусства. Незначительные размеры и сильная потертость фанагорийского фрагмента, к сожалению, не позволяют уверенно определить религиозный статус изображения, который, как правило устанавливают по составу «слушателей» и контексту. Строго говоря, из перечисленных находок только одну, мраморную чашу с вырезанным крестом, можно отнести к предметам интерьера христианского храмового комплекса безусловно. Сигмовидный стол могли использовать и в христианском культе, и по его прямому назначению – в качестве обеденного стола. Образ Орфея одинаково использовался как язычниками, так и христианами. Разным целям мог служить и мраморный резервуар. Но среди аргументов за и против их использования в христианском культе, все же превалируют первые. Кроме того, обнаружение всех предметов на довольно небольшом участке «Нижнего города» позволяет надеяться на то, что в ходе будущих раскопок здесь будет открыт христианский храм, и таким образом подтвердится предложенная интерпретация найденных предметов. Храм, к которому, возможно, относились перечисленные находки, по-видимому, был разрушен в середине 6 в. Тогда же, скорее всего, прекратила существование и Фанагорийская епархия. Какие-либо сведения о фанагорийских христианах более позднего времени полностью отсутствуют, но, судя по информации о христианских общинах, имевшихся в других центрах региона, а также в городах Хазарского каганата, были они и в Фанагории, которая в этот период, скорее всего, входила в состав Зихийской епархии. У нас нет сви детельств о притеснениях христиан в городах Хазарского каганата. Наоборот, согласно сведениям, содержащимся в письменных источниках, жизнь христиан там протекала до вольно спокойно. О благосклонном отношении хазарской элиты к христианству говорят и браки с византийским императорским домом, в частности брак Юстиниана II и сестры кагана Феодоры, после заключения которого он «уехал в Фанагорию и жил там с Феодорой» (Theoph. Chron. 704–705; пер. И.С. Чичурова). 2 Что же касается археологических свидетельств, то число связанных с христианством находок 8–10 вв. чрезвычайно мало, и их невозможно связать непосредственно с христианским населением Фанагории. Extremely low amounts of finds related to Christianity and their uneven distribution over time presents difficulties in reconstructing the history of the Phanagorian Christian community. The information on the history of Christianity in other centres of the North-Eastern Black Sea, a region where Phanagoria played a crucial part, can help fill the blanks to a certain extent. Without any doubt, the new religion arrived to Phanagoria, as well as to the other centres of the Bosporan kingdom, in the last quarter of the third century AD from Asia Minor, when the Goths brought Christians as captives from their pirate raids. The first recorded signs of Christianity in the Bosporos belong to the period after the sea campaigns of the “barbarians”. These include personal possessions with Christian symbols and Christian burial plots in the necropolis in Kerch. A small number of early Christian monuments points to the fact that during this period the spread of Christianity in the region heavily relied on the activities of missionaries, while the number of christians was still small. Later, after the inclusion of the Bosporos in the sphere of influence of the Byzantine Empire, the church and the state were making joint efforts to Christianize the region: most likely, it was at this time that Christian churches were built on both sides of the Kerch Strait, an episcopal chair was established in Phanagoria and a Christian church was built, decorated with two marble water tanks, a sigmoid table and a relief depicting Orpheus. All this was found during the excavations in the “Lower City” trench. 2 Чичуров 1980, 62. Христианство в Фанагории. Археологические свидетельства 71 The shape and material from which one of the found tanks is made allows for its interpreta tion as a baptistery. The small depth of the found container does not necessarily mean that only children were baptised in it, since in most cases baptism was performed without complete immersion. The baptised stood in the font and water was poured over him. However, from the fourth century AD stagnant water was used for baptism, and the font had to be filled manually. It is, therefore, difficult to explain the purpose of the two holes in the Phanagorean reservoir if it was used as a font. Their presence is better explained by another possible use of the tank – as a reliquary. Oil was poured into the reliquary through the upper opening to cover the relics stored in it, and then came out through the opening in the lower part. Regarding the bowls with protruding handles along the edge, such vessels are considered to serve either as fonts for child baptism, or, more often, as bowls for consecrated water, which, during the early Christian times, were used to wash hands before entering the temple. Their exact analogies, known to the author, come exclusively from the provinces of Moesia Secunda and Thrace. It is possible that it was from there that the Phanagorian container was brought by the troops, which were sent to the Bosporos by Justinian to suppress the uprising against the Byzantine ruler named Grod. A marble sigmoid table with an arched border could also be part of the inventory of a Christian church. In church life, the use of such tables was secondary. It comes from secular life, from the early Christian tradition of communal meals served on the graves of martyrs. Later they were used in temples and monasteries as thrones and tables for offerings. Despite the fact that sigmoid tables, particularly those with an arched border, were used both in secular and Christian everyday life, they are usually associated with Christian churches when found out of context. However, one cannot exclude the possibility of them being used as a regular dining table. Finally, a marble tile with the image of Orpheus, which came to the Christian iconography from pagan art, can also be associated with Christianity. Unfortunately, due to its insignificant size and severe damage, this fragment does not allow us to determine the religious status of the image with any degree of certainty. Usually such assumptions can be made based on the amount of depicted listeners and the find’s context. Strictly speaking, only one of the listed finds, a marble bowl with a carved cross, can be attributed to the items from the interior of the Christian temple. The sigmoid table could be used both in the Christian cult and for its original purpose, as a dining table. The image of Orpheus was used by both pagans and Christians. A marble tank could possibly also serve different purposes. However, between the arguments “for” and “against” its use in a Christian context, the former prevail. In addition, the discovery of all the objects together in a rather small area of the “Lower City” excavation site allows us to hope that, during future excavations, a Christian church will be discovered here, confirming our interpretations. The temple to which the finds may have belonged was apparently destroyed in the middle of the sixth century AD. At the same time, most likely, the Phanagorian diocese also ceased to exist. There is no information on Phanagorian Christians during later periods, but, judging by the information about the Christian communities that existed in other centres of the region, as well as in the cities of the Khazar Khaganate, Christians were present in Phanagoria, which, during this period was likely a part of the Zikhia diocese. So far, we have no evidence of the oppression of Christians in the cities of the Khazar Khaganate. On the contrary, according to the information from written sources, the life of Christians there was a rather calm one. The favourable attitude of the Khazar elite towards Christianity is also evidenced by marriages with the Byzantine imperial family. Of particular interest is the marriage of Justinian II and the sister of the Khagan, Theodora, after which he “left for Phanagoria and lived there with Theodora”. As for archaeological evidence, the number of finds associated with Christianity from the 8th to 10th centuries AD is extremely low, and it is impossible to connect them directly with the Christian population of Phanagoria.

In his Deconstruction of Christianity, the contemporary French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy described Christianity as “the exit from religion and the expansion of the atheist world”. Inspired by this assertion, we will reassess the traces of atheism in Christianity and its secular supplements. We will examine the broad context of Christianity and some seemingly external factors such as the Enlightenment and the development of science. Several features of Christianity, such as the emphasis on spirituality, individual faith, and the deinstitutionalization of religious experience, have prepared the ground for the rise of atheism. First, Christianity, most clearly in the Protestant denominations, places great emphasis on the inner spiritual experience of the believer, the conscience as the inner presence of God. The subjective personal relationship with God and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit are central tenets of Christian theology. However, this emphasis on individual, private spirituality can inadvertently lead to a devaluation of external religious structures and communal rituals and even pave the way for atheistic isolation. Moreover, throughout its history, Christianity has repeatedly produced its own critics, movements that have challenged institutional authority and hierarchical structures within the church. From the Hussites to the Protestant Reformation to today's movements advocating spiritual autonomy, the goal has always been to decentralize religious authority, separate it from worldly powers (secularization) and empower individual believers. While this deinstitutionalization is certainly meant to promote a more authentic and personal faith that is closer to God's will, it can also create room for doubt and scepticism, which in turn can lead to atheism. Furthermore, Christianity has grappled more than other religions with the tension between faith and reason, two completely different areas of our relationship with reality and the world. This relationship has completely changed with advances in science and philosophy, as traditional religious doctrines and supernatural explanations are increasingly challenged and even rendered obsolete. The struggle to reconcile faith and reason has led some people to the practical solution of rejecting religious faith altogether in favour of a purely secular worldview. We should also mention that even the pervasive influence of Christianity on Western culture may have inadvertently facilitated its own decline. Because Christianity is deeply embedded in societal norms, people who have grown up in Christian cultures may take their faith for granted, not as something out of the ordinary, but as something normal, leading to complacency or indifference toward religious beliefs. Over time, this cultural familiarity with Christianity can erode the foundations of religious belief and eventually contribute to the rise of atheism. Given this internal dynamic, it is clear that Christianity itself has played a crucial role in its own atheization. This paper will highlight some of the key features of Christian atheism and one of its most notorious examples, socialist atheization.

This article addresses an issue of growing political importance: the global rise of civilizational populism. From Western Europe to India and Pakistan, and from Indonesia to the Americas, populists are increasingly linking national belonging with civilizational identity—and at times to the belief that the world is divided into religion-based civilizations, some of which are doomed to clash with one another. As part of this process, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity have all been commandeered by populist parties and movements, each adept at using the power of religion—in different ways and drawing on different aspects of religion—to define the boundary of concepts such as people, nation, and civilization.

The paper traces the development from the medieval, traditional union, through the modern disunion, toward a possible post-modern reunion of the sacred and the profane. It concentrates on the modern disunion and conflict between the religious and the secular, revelation and enlightenment, faith and autonomous reason in the Western world and beyond. It deals specifically with Christianity and the modern age, particularly liberalism, socialism and fascism of the 2Oth and the 21st centuries. The problematic inclination of Western Catholicism toward fascism, motivated by the fear of and hate against socialism and communism in the 20th century, and toward exclusive, authoritarian, and totalitarian populism and identitarianism in the 21st. century, is analyzed, compared and critiqued. Solutions to the problem are suggested on the basis of the Critical Theory of Religion and Society, derived from the Critical Theory of Society of the Frankfurt School. The critical theory and praxis should help to reconcile the culture wars which are continually produced by the modern antagonism between the religious and the secular, and to prepare the way toward post-modern, alternative Future III - the freedom of All on the basis of the collective appropriation of collective surplus value. Distribution and recognition problems are equally taken seriously.