- Humor as an Education
- Just in Time Journalism
- Exposing The Big Lie
- Press Self Control Wanes as Virulent Partisanship Grows
- Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest
- Wall Street Journal Opinions
- NYTimes Tops the Irene Charts
- Conservative Press Speaking Liberal; Liberal Speaking Conservative
- Murdoch/News Corp Scandal: Implications for US
- Agatha Christie's Poirot Mystery - Cards on the Table
©Imagenation 2001-2009 - If you found this page or site useful, please let others know
The Evolution of Christianity
Mon, 06/25/2007 - 00:00 | 
jbsurv
The Evolution of Christianity: Twelve Crises that Shaped the Church
by Marshall D. Johnson Continuum Press, 2005
Attention is focused on Islam these days, and well it should be. How a major faith could be used to sanction if not directly condone a massacre of thousands be it in Darfur against infidels, Iraq with Sunni - Shia violent massacres, or in NewYork's 9/11 in an indiscriminate attack - these aberrations of faith-sponsored slaughters are hard to fathom in a modern world.
Meanwhile worldwide Islamic leadership remains ambiguous if not complicit by its comparative silence in speaking out against "these aberrations" as but a few moderate Islamists, primarily situated in the West, try to reassure their non-Islamic colleagues. So as an antidote to righteous indignation, readers should consider The Evolution of Christianity.
What Marshall shows in his book is the continuing series of crises that confronted Christianity and the profoundly varying ability of different Church leaders to successfully adress the core issues and challenges. From the begginings of the Church in Palestine one of the problem the leaders had to deal with was its survival in the face of being a condemned religion for much of its coexistence with the Roman Empire where paradoxically it prospered greatly. Theis problem forced the church to develop a hierarchy of administration and within 60 years of its origin. This administration soon took on the role of Apostolic authority for matters of interpretation of spiritual beliefs and teachings. By the year 200AD, the Church has started to establish core beliefs while rejecting as heresy dozens of variations teeming all over the Mediterranean .
But the criucible of core belifiefs is tried again in 325 under Constantine as the Church becomes the state religion for the Roman Empire and then in 451 at Chalcedon the relationship of Jesus to God literally hammered out infoundational doctrines as stated and refined in the Apostles Creed of core Christian beliefs.
From 600 to 1200AD But by 750AD and continuing through to the
