Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is the most popular religion in the world with over 2 billion adherents. 42 million Britons see themselves as nominally Christian, and there are 6 million who are actively practising.

• Christians believe that Jesus was the Messiah promised in the Old Testament.
• Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
• Christians believe that God sent his Son to earth to save humanity from the consequences of its sins.
• One of the most important concepts in Christianity is that of Jesus giving his life on the Cross (the Crucifixion) and rising from the dead on the third day (the Resurrection).
• Christians believe that there is only one God, but that there are three elements to this one God:

• God the Father
• God the Son
• The Holy Spirit

• Christians worship in churches.
• Their spiritual leaders are called priests or ministers.
• The Christian holy book is the Bible, and consists of the Old and New Testaments.
• Christian holy days such as Easter and Christmas are important milestones in the Western secular calendar

Origin of Christianity and its relation with other religions

Christianity is the name given to that definite system of religious belief and practice which was taught by Jesus Christ in the country of Palestine, during the reign of the Roman Emperor, Tiberius, and was promulgated, after its Founder's death, for the acceptance of the whole world, by certain chosen men among His followers. 

According to the accepted chronology, these began their mission on the day of Pentecost, A.D. 29, which day is regarded, accordingly, as the birthday of the Christian Church. In order the better to appreciate the meaning of this event, we must first consider the religious influences and tendencies previously at work in the minds of men, both Jews and Gentiles, which prepared the way for the spread of Christianity amongst them.
The whole history of the Jews as detailed in the Old Testament is seen, when read in the light of other events, to be a clear though gradual preparation for the preaching of Christianity. In that nation alone, the great truths of the existence and unity of God, His providential ruling of His creatures and their responsibility towards Him, were preserved unimpaired amidst general corruption. The ancient world was given to Pantheism and creature-worship; Israel only, not because of its "monotheistic instinct" (Renan), but because of the periodic interposition of God through His prophets, resisted in the main the general tendency to idolatry. Besides maintaining those pure conceptions of Deity, the prophets from time to time, and with ever increasing distinctness until we come to the direct and personal testimony of the Baptist, foreshadowed a fuller and more universal revelation — a time when, and a Man through Whom, God should bless all the nations of the earth. 

The essentials of Christianity

We have so far seen, in its origin and growth, the essential independence of Christianity of all other religious systems, except that of Judaism, with which, however, its relation was merely that of substance to shadow. It is now time to point out its distinctive doctrines.
In early Christianity there was much that was transitory and exceptional. It was not presented full-grown to the world, but left to develop in accordance with the forces and tendencies that were implanted in it from the first by its Founder. And we, having His assurance that His Spirit would abide with it for all time, to inspire and regulate its human elements, can see in its subsequent history the working out of His design. Hence, it does not trouble us to find in primitive Christianity qualities which did not survive after they had served their purpose. Natural causes and the course of events, always under the Divine guidance, resulted in Christianity taking on the form which would best secure its permanence and efficiency. In Apostolic times, supreme authority as to faith and morals was vested in twelve representatives of Christ, each of whom was commissioned to proclaim and infallibly interpret His Gospel. The hierarchy was in an inchoate condition. Special charismata, like the gifts of prophecy and tongues, were bestowed on individuals outside the official teaching body. The Church was in process of organization, and the various Christian communities, united, doubtless, in a strong bond of charity, and in the sense that they had one Lord, one faith, and one baptism, were to a large extent independent of one another in the matter of government.
Such was the fashion in which Christ allowed His Church to be established. It has greatly changed in outward appearances during the ages. Has there been any corresponding change in substance? Are the essentials of Christianity the same now as they were then? We affirm that they are, and we prove our assertion by examining the main points of the teaching, both of Christ and His Apostles. We must look upon the matter as a whole. We cannot judge of Christianity properly before the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Gospels describe a process which was not consummated till after Pentecost. The Apostles themselves were not fully Christians till they knew through faith all that Christ was — their God and their Redeemer as well as their Master. And as Christianity furnishes a regulative principle for both mind and will, teaching us what to believe and what to do, faith no less than works must characterize the perfect Christian.

Christianity is meant to be a perfect religion

A priori, we should expect that a religious system which was revealed and instituted, not by a prophet or even an angel, but by the personal action of God Himself, and was designed, moreover, to supplant an imperfect and provisional form of religion, would lack nothing of possible perfection in end or means. Christ's own teaching satisfied this expectation, and precludes the notion entertained by some early heretics, and still alive in the minds of men, of a fuller and more perfect revelation to come.

• First of all, He, its Founder, is God, and therefore had all the knowledge and all the power requisite to establish a perfect religion.
• Secondly, He promised His Apostles the abiding presence of the Spirit of Truth, who should teach them all truth.
• Thirdly, He promised that the body enshrining this deposit should never be vitiated by error — "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18; cf. Ephesians 5:27).
• Fourthly, the same truth is insinuated by St. Paul's words: "God, who at sundry times . . .last of all . . .hath spoken to us by His Son" (Hebrews 1:1), and by the expression, the fulness of time, used in Galatians 4:4, to indicate the epoch of the Incarnation.
• Fifthly, by the character of the Christian revelation itself and the Christian ethical ideal which is the imitation of Christ, the Perfect Being. No possible development of mankind can be thought of which should not find all that it needs in Christ.
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Christianity, a supernatural religion and the only absolute one; in a sense (developed in the Epistle to the Hebrews), the oldest, for the Church is not an afterthought, but instituted by God in the fullness of time, and containing a revelation of Himself, which all to whom it has been adequately presented are bound under pain of eternal loss to accept (Mark 16:16), offering to all, who are sincere in seeking, the solution of all the world's problems; enabling human nature to rise to the sublimest heights and "to play the immortal"; full itself of mysteries and Divine paradoxes, as bringing the Infinite into contact with the finite; the one bond of civilization, the one condition of progress, the one hope of humanity. Its fortunes have been the fortunes of its Founder; "not all obey the gospel" (Romans 10:16). The Jews rejected Christ in spite of the evidence of prophecy and miracle; the world rejects the Church of Christ, the "city set upon a hill", conspicuous though she be through the notes that proclaim her Divine. What men call the failure of Christianity is no proof that it is not God's final revelation. It only makes evident how real is human liberty and how grave human responsibility. Christianity is furnished with all the necessary evidence to create conviction of its truth, given goodwill. — "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear".


Christianity is India's third-largest religion, with approximately 24 million followers, constituting 2.3 per cent of India's population.^[2] The works of scholars and Eastern Christian writings state that Christianity was introduced to India by Thomas the Apostle, who visited Muziris in Kerala in 52 AD to spread the gospel amongst Kerala's Jewish settlements.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} Although the exact origins of Christianity in India remain unclear, there is a general scholarly consensus that Christianity was rooted in India by the 6th century AD, including some communities who used Syriac liturgically, and it is a possibility that the religion's existence there extends to as far back as the 1st century.^[8] Christianity was as such established in India even before some nations of Europe had been Christianised.^[9]
Christians are found all across India and in all walks of life, with major populations in parts of South India, the Konkan Coast and the North-East. Indian Christians have contributed significantly to and are well represented in various spheres of national life. They include former and current chief ministers, governors and chief election commissioners.^[10][11] Indian Christians have the highest literacy, work participation and sex ratio figures among the various religious comm