Comment by whall6

6 hours ago

What blew me away was the proliferation of the Church of the East. I never knew Christianity had that much of a foothold in Asia. I wonder if geographically it appears more significant due to that region’s sparse population?

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whall6

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graemep  6 hours ago

Also because the region was conquered by Muslims so it did not last. It was the majority religion of the Asian parts of the Byzantine Empire.

North Africa played a very important part in the development of Christianity. Augustine, Tertullian, Jerome and Origen were North Africans. Monasticism evolved in Egypt.

_DeadFred_  2 hours ago

If you come from a American Christian background these are really worth exploring. Being ex-catholic/ex-Christian I found that they share enough to make them more accessible (I guess) than other religions, but also different in thought from what I grew up in, and those combined really help me expand on my personal thinking. I did a study group that a Greek orthodox priest put on for non-orthodox and it was awesome. Watching him shutdown old school American Christians and their focus on decoding a few sentences in English when he pointed out 'that's not even really what the words mean in the original text' and then getting mini-lessons on old languages and meanings I felt like I was back in school and completely changed a lot of my surface level understand of Christianity (asking my family religious questions the answer was don't questions/it's this because it's this).

From the comments here I think I'm going to look into the Indian off shoots. Up until now I've mainly explored through Egyptian, Syrian, and Greek/Russian orthodox friends. I wonder if there is an Indian style church established in the US that would have literature created to be accessible to an American church centric point of view? I've always envied the deep spirituality my Indian Christian/Muslim friends have had, I wonder if exploring the Indian church could help me with that. I did a couple year long study with a Pakistani Muslim friend but I didn't really connect with it, though his beautiful spirituality/groundedness/family beleifs have been a godsend as a life mentor.

pstuart  5 hours ago

Way back when I heard someone state that the reason Christianity spread so wildly was because it was foundational to proselytize and convert non-Christians to the faith. That makes complete sense to me.

It's not like it was this passive meme that spread because people who encountered it loved it so much they wanted to join.

  • senkora  5 hours ago

    This is called being a “universalizing” religion.

    The big three universalizing religions are Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.

    You can understand a lot of religious history as just those three religions expanding and displacing other belief systems.

    Contrast with non-universalizing religions like Judaism, Hinduism, and Shinto.

  • lanfeust6  3 hours ago

    That is one important aspect, but there are several to my mind

    - Life in the bronze age was very rough, and quality of life in cities was basically inhumane. Women were highly represented among earliest converts, as Christianity comparatively was rather progressive and demanded baseline respect for them. Also, pagan religions of the time, despite cultural significance, didn't promise much of a payoff for plebeians for all their toil. Conversion was easy after Paul pushed the case that they shouldn't have to convert to Judaism, with all that would entail.

    - Especially in the early days, this was very much a pacifist religion, in addition to having an apocalyptic fixation. To Rome, "Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's" is a handy sentiment for the populace to have. They fought and won several uprisings just from the Jews who wanted their independence (and expected their forthcoming Savior would literally help deliver this), and the vast empire was beginning it's slow decline. Killing Christians and making martyrs out of them didn't make much sense in the long-run.

    - There is a magic sauce in universalizing, it extends the shared culture within territories and makes it easier to convince people to wage war for you. Prior, the motivators were mainly tribal/blood connections, and money.

    The Jews for their part were content with what they had, Christianity didn't provide much value-added, especially for the "zealots" who were ready to die for freedom. The "Love-thy-neighbor" sentiment is sort of similar to parts of Leviticus, but the cranked up pacifism and relaxed outlook over some rules was a departure. I think the "afterlife" bit was a lot more persuasive for gentiles. Then of course the rituals and conception in the collective consciousness evolved over time, from influences like Augustine and others.

    By the time there was a true Christendom, powers that be dropped the (absolute) significance of pacifism, as that was no longer as useful as it was.

  • krapp  4 hours ago

    The reason Christianity spread so wildly is that Emperor Constantine found it more politically useful for Christians to die in his military than the lions den, so he put the military might of the Roman empire behind it. If not for Rome and the imperial powers that followed, Christianity would probably have died out like all of the other weird Jewish apocalypse cults of the day. We might all rather be Mithrainists or something.

dismalaf  5 hours ago

No, it's because your education is western-centric and Islamic invasions took over the east. Eastern Christians have been subjected to genocide at the hands of Muslims for 1300 years.

Edit - really, someone is asking for a citation that the Islamic conquests happened? Next should ask for a citation that the sky is blue...

This is basic world history, like the discovery of the new world, Alexander the Great's conquests or the Roman empire...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests

And yes, it happened over 1300 years ago, the first decisive battle was the Battle of Yarmuk, year 636 CE.