Christianity

A Brief Introduction

Charles E. Farhadian

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781540960221
• eBook ISBN: 9781493423651
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

An expert on world religions provides a compelling look into the shape and movement of Christianity's past, present, and future. Charles Farhadian accounts for the cultural, social, and theological issues that have shaped Christianity worldwide as he describes the distinctives of the world's largest religion. Addressing the global nature of Christianity without focusing exclusively on that topic, this supplementary text could serve in a variety of courses across the curriculum and is written to be useable in either Christian or secular settings.

1
Who Are Christians?

Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. . . .

Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

Acts 11:19–21, 25–26

My first experience with Christianity was as a member of St. Vartan Armenian Apostolic Church in Oakland, California, where I spent the first decade of my life. Despite having little appreciation for the rich liturgical life of Eastern Orthodoxy as a young boy, I knew something extraordinary was going on in worship as I heard the bells, saw the ornate altar, smelled the fragrant incense wafting through the sanctuary, and ate the bread and drank the wine of the Eucharist. It was a total experience, each week rehearsing the grand narrative of Christian faith in 3D, invoking the names of past saints and current bishops. What I recall was overhearing a dialogue between the fancily dressed priest, situated near a raised altar in the front of the sanctuary, and the elevated choir, standing in the choir loft in the rear of the church. Priest and choir provided the heavenly discourse, and we, the congregation sitting in pews below, were privy to the retelling of the grand narrative of God’s creation and redemption of the world.

After the service my sisters, cousins, and other congregants would gather in the fellowship hall and learn traditional Armenian dancing, enjoying culinary delicacies such as baklava or choereg. When I was about ten years old, our mother decided to take us out of the Armenian Church because, as she would say, “The Armenian Church is all about Armenian culture, not about the gospel. We will never hear the gospel here.” So we changed churches. What was ironic, at least from my perspective, was that we left the Armenian Church to avoid “culture” but moved to the Swedish Covenant Church, a church rooted in the Lutheran Church of Sweden. Had we really left culture to embrace just the gospel? We left the Kazarians, Harotoonians, Ohanesians, and other Armenian families, and were adopted into a community of Larsons, Carlsons, and Johnsons. We exchanged baklava for Swedish meatballs. From one perspective, the change from Orthodoxy to Protestantism meant that we had become Christians—that is, believers in the good news of salvation in Christ. Some Christians believe that only Protestantism or Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy is Christian. Others see that Christianity itself is one, with many streams identified as Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant. From that perspective, we never left Christianity.

Two Marks of Being Christian

When you hear the word “Christian,” what images come to mind? Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King Jr.? Narrow-minded people who follow a set of moralistic beliefs and practices? European Cathedrals? Baptist, Catholic, or Pentecostal? Republican or Democrat? Everyone has an opinion about Christianity. But what does it mean to be Christian?

In this chapter I answer the question, Who are Christians? by discussing “Christian” as both noun and modifier. Most generally, the term “Christian” describes a person (noun) who trusts Jesus and affirms the Triune God as described in the Bible, and it also describes a change in direction (modifier) that creates new meaning and gives new direction to all things.1 To engage the question, What is Christianity? this chapter considers the following six topics: (1) what early Christians said about themselves, (2) how they became a new moral community, (3) how they understood conversion to Christianity, (4) how Christianity engaged with culture, (5) the concept of orthodoxy, and, finally, (6) how the “rules of faith” continue to guide Christians around the world. Before I launch into these subjects, I need to introduce two broad themes about being Christian.

There are two primary marks of being a Christian, with the first being foundational for the second. The first mark centers on the creation of something new, which is often called regeneration. Regeneration is used to describe a process of restoration and growth that brings new life and strength, particularly in the context of disturbance. Being Christian means having received something particular, the gospel of Jesus Christ, whereby God gives new life from a previous state of eternal death and separation from God. There’s a lot here to unpack: “the gospel,” “Jesus Christ,” “God,” are weighty terms that are debated both within and outside of Christian circles. These terms will be discussed throughout this book since they are central to being Christian. The Bible too becomes an essential part of our conversation, for it is from the Bible that we learn that the state of humanity is seriously flawed and yet God still loves human beings. The Bible describes humanity as being deeply sinful (Rom. 3:23; Gal. 3:22), a condition that separates humanity from God, who deeply loves us regardless (John 3:16; Rom. 5:8).

Since God is divine, holy, perfect, all-powerful, and all-knowing, human beings cannot stand before God without being conspicuously guilty of their imperfection—a condition that the Bible refers to as “sin.” An illustration will suffice: If we attend a formal wedding but wear clothes with large stains, we feel out of place, even ashamed. Much more so when humans recognize their stained condition before the Holy God. Because of God’s love for creation, God sent Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God, to pay the penalty for our sin—the stain—and satisfy God’s wrath by dying on the cross in our place, thus enabling a relationship with God to be restored (Gal. 4:4–7; 1 Tim. 2:4–6).

Christians place their faith in the work that Christ did on the cross to enable a relationship with the living God. Therefore, the first and most important mark of being a Christian is that we must first ask God to forgive us of our sins and then be committed to follow Christ. Grace—the unmerited favor of God—is what effects the change in the human relationship with God, since there is nothing human beings can do to gain God’s forgiveness by their own efforts. When we ask God for forgiveness for the sin in our life and have faith in what Christ did on the cross by shedding his blood, we are Christians. People all around the world have experienced this forgiveness and regeneration.

A second mark of being a Christian entails the reception of gifts from God for the betterment of the church, society, and the natural world. While there are forms of Christianity that entail retreating from the common life of society, Christianity itself is not a movement of withdrawal. Rather than being isolationist, being Christian propels one into the world to make all things better. The Bible tells of spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit to Christians in order to strengthen the church and to benefit the world. Some of these include apostles, healing, service, mercy, teaching, wisdom, and exhortation (Rom. 12:3–8; 1 Cor. 12:7–11; Eph. 4:11–12). The purpose of these gifts is to serve and glorify God and uplift others. Spiritual gifts are often distinguished from natural talents that enable us to do physical abilities, such as music, art, or carpentry. Christians employ their gifts and talents toward purposeful living so that Christians might “do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10). This kind of living has contributed to the shaping of societies and cultures around the world, as Christians often were the first to establish centers of education and healthcare as an expression of Christian commitment to the betterment of others. Some of the greatest universities and hospitals in the world were started by Christians living out their Christian faith to help others.

These two primary marks of being Christian, being oriented toward the Triune God and being oriented toward our fellow human beings and the natural world, are sometimes referred to as “orthodoxy” and “orthopraxy,” where orthodoxy refers to right belief (faith) and orthopraxy to right practice (works, actions). Together, orthodoxy and orthopraxy give us a fairly broad way to see being Christian as an orientation that is at once vertical, since it enables a relationship with the Triune God, and horizontal, since it cannot exist without its expression toward others. Becoming Christian is so profound that the Bible describes the process as being “born again,” “made alive,” and becoming “saints” and “children of God” (e.g., John 1:12; Rom. 8:14; Gal. 3:26; Eph. 2:5; 1 John 3:1).

Being Christian does not entail being a part of a particular political party, economic system, culture, race, or ethnicity. Christianity is at once above these categories since all Christians are united regardless of these identifications and are deeply engaged in these particular features of individual and social life.

In the first few centuries of Christianity, a community of Christians would gather around a particular teacher, paralleling the teacher-disciple relationship popular in that day. While there were similarities with other communities, much in the way of Christian thinking and acting contrasted starkly with the religious and moral life propounded in the Greco-Roman world. That Christians too had a school of thought was reflected in Justin Martyr’s comment that Christianity was “the true philosophy” when compared to other schools of antiquity. Paul and other early church leaders of his circle, like other moral teachers of their day, carried on teaching and discipling activities. New believers were instructed in the beliefs and norms and admonished where needed, similar to the way people were instructed and admo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Who Are Christians?
• 2. Where Are Christians?
• 3. Why Is the Bible So Important to Christians?
• 4. What Is the Christian Church?
• 5. How Do Christians Worship?
• 6. Where Is Christianity Going?
• 7. How Does Christianity Relate to Other Religions?
• Index
• Back Cover