Introduction to World Christian History

Derek Cooper

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780830840885
• eBook ISBN: 9780830899067
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: World History

Christianity is a global faith. Today, people are increasingly aware that Christianity extends far beyond Europe and North America, permeating the Eastern and Southern hemispheres. What we may know less well is that Christianity has always been a global faith. A vast untold story waits to be heard beyond the familiar tale of how the Christian faith spread across Europe. Not only was Jesus born in Asia, but in the early years of the church Christianity found fertile soil in Africa and soon extended to East Asia as well.In this brief introduction to world Christian history, Derek Cooper explores the development of Christianity across time and the continents. Guiding readers to places like Iraq, Ethiopia and India, Scandanavia, Brazil and Oceania, he reveals the fascinating—and often surprising—history of the church.

Part One

Christianity from the First to the Seventh Centuries

This first section of the book narrates the exciting history of the church in the three major world zones where Christianity took root in the first seven centuries: Asia, Africa and Europe. Although we neatly distinguish these continents from one another today, the Roman Empire ruled over parts of each of them. And where the Roman Empire ruled, it bestowed a common language, culture and worldview. As mentioned in the introduction, however, Christianity has never been bound by the borders of the Roman Empire. Indeed, there’s good reason to believe that some Christians were living outside of the Roman Empire as early as the first century, such as in Iran or India. As we will see, Christian communities were blanketed across parts of Asia, Africa and Europe. Though sharing many similarities, Christian communities did not often see eye to eye. Like a seed scattered across various lands, some fertile and others barren, Christianity developed in relation to the cultural and political climate in which it was embedded. The unique traits that formed among one group were just as often demonized as they were accepted by other Christian groups.

Briefly, and speaking in general terms, Christianity in each of the three continents discussed in this section held to a different form of Christianity. In Asia, one of the most dominant groups was East Syrian Christians. Recent historians have settled on referring to the church these Christians were part of as the Church of the East. More often than not, East Syrian Christians lived outside of the Roman Empire, partly due to preference and partly to the fact that such Christians were not tolerated among the dominant Christians living in that empire. Who was that dominant group? They were the Christians living in Europe, who were divided among Catholic Christians (in the West) or Eastern Orthodox or Byzantine Christians (in the East). Although not exactly correct, it has been common to say that Europe was divided in the fourth century into western and eastern halves, that is, the West Roman and the East Roman (or simply Byzantine) Empires. Over time this division became more pronounced. Though there were Catholics and Orthodox living in Africa, the dominant groups of Christians in this region were West Syrian Christians. Scholars regard such Christians as part of the Oriental Orthodox Church, which includes those Christians who were located principally in Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, Armenia and the western parts of Syria.

Each of the major forms of Christianity in these regions often emphasized their differences more so than their similarities, which led to ongoing friction, fragmentation and even violence. The litmus test of orthodoxy for these Christians was how they interpreted the relation between Christ’s humanity and divinity. Though each group affirmed that Christ was both human and divine, they disagreed vigorously when it came to fleshing out this mystery. In short, Catholic and Byzantine Christians believed that one could not be a Christian unless he or she affirmed that Christ consisted of fully human and divine (two) natures that existed side by side yet not mixed in the (one) person of Christ; East Syrian Christians believed that it was essential to affirm the complete humanity and divinity of Christ within two loosely related natures and one personhood; while West Syrian Christians believed that Christ the Word was fully human and fully divine yet had only one nature, which is why they are called miaphysites (see table 0.1).

Although such stark divisions often get lost on modern readers, they were the stuff of early worldwide Christianity. Failure to affirm belief in one group’s definition of orthodoxy meant not only that such a person was in serious theological peril but was not even a Christian. The third and fourth ecumenical councils, held in 431 and 451 in what is now Turkey and under the authority of Byzantine Christians, led to the permanent division among these different groups that lasts to this day. In addition to these four major Christian traditions scattered across Asia, Africa and Europe, there were also minor Christian groups such as Arians, Donatists, Gnostics, Manichaeans, Marcionites, Montanists and Novatianists. These Christian groups had their heydays. But unlike the East and West Syrian traditions, however, which were also condemned by the Byzantine and Catholic Churches, the churches from these traditions all but vanished from the historical record.

Table 0.1. Division of major Christian groups according to theological traditions

Theological Tradition (Other Designations)	Understanding of Christ (on the Relation Between His Humanity and Divinity)	Churches (Geographic Regions)
Byzantine (Chalcedonian, Melkite, Imperial, Eastern Orthodox)	Two (human and divine) natures of Christ that come together in one hypostatic union without confusion, change, division or separation; “Two natures in the incarnate Jesus, and one hypostasis”	Eastern Orthodox Church (Turkey, Palestine, Israel, Syria and Jordan) Church of Cyprus (Cyprus) Maronite Church (Lebanon) Georgian Apostolic Church (Georgia and Jerusalem)
Catholic (Catholic Church, Imperial Church)	Affirms same definition as given in the Byzantine tradition	Catholic Church (Western and Southern Europe)
East Syrian (Assyrian, Diophysite, Church of the East, Nestorian, Persian Church)	Two natures of Christ: a human one (from Mary) and a divine one (from God) that are united without being mixed; “Two natures in the incarnate Jesus with their two Qnomi and one Parsopa”	(Assyrian) Church of the East (Syria, Iraq, Iran, India, China and Central Asia)
West Syrian (Jacobite, Miaphysite, Monophysite, Oriental Orthodox Church)	One nature of Christ whose humanity and divinity were united after the incarnation; “One nature of the incarnate Word of God after the union and one hypostasis”*	Armenian Apostolic Church (Armenia and Jerusalem) Syrian Orthodox Church (Syria/Turkey) Coptic Orthodox Church (Egypt) Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (Ethiopia)

*The phrases in quotations for each section come from Suha Rassam, Christianity in Iraq: Its Origins and Development to the Present Day (Leominster, UK: Gracewing, 2005), xxviii-xxix.

one

ASIA

Christianity is Asian in origin and character. Jesus was Asian.

Dale Johnson, Jesus on the Silk Road

Asia, the Cradle of the Christian Faith

Asia is the birthplace of Christianity, the largest religion on the planet. Two thousand years ago a woodworker from a village in Western Asia gathered a hodgepodge of followers, traveled around the countryside teaching and performing miracles, and disputed with religious and political leaders who later crucified him for sedition and blasphemy. Three days later he was reported to have risen from the dead. Many have called the story of this man’s life, death and resurrection the greatest story ever told, but few have associated the story with Asia, the only continent where this world Savior walked, taught and died.

The story of Jesus of Nazareth spread rapidly across the known world. Not only did people groups in what are now Armenia, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Turkey become followers of Jesus the Messiah, but people in what are now Afghanistan, India, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Yemen also adopted the new Asian religion he inspired. By the seventh century even the emperor of China was promoting Christianity. According to a decree issued by Emperor Taizong in 638, Christianity was to be proclaimed “everywhere for the salvation of the people.”1

Despite its rapid growth, the Christian religion experienced great challenges in the continent where it was born. Baha’i, Bon, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Manichaeism, Sikhism, Shamanism, Shintoism and Zoroastrianism would all sprout from the same Asian soil, and it should come as no surprise that they did not always get along. At times the competition among these Asian religions was fierce. In Iran the thought and practices of Christianity clashed with Zoroastrianism, just as they did with Shintoism in Japan. And it was not just other religions that the Christian religion contended with—Christians also frequently fought among themselves. Such intramural squabbling likely contributed just as much as any other outside religious factor to its decline after centuries of expansion and growth in Asia.

Chapter Overview

In this chapter we will discover that Christianity was originally an Asian religion. This is a helpful fact to keep in mind as we begin our study of the history of world Christianity. Some of us will be surprised to discover that Christianity was thriving in what is now Iraq and Syria centuries before it existed in many parts of Europe and the Americas. In fact, Christianity was not only widespread on the Asian continent during the earliest years of the church but it was also extremely diverse, which was also regrettably the cause of many controversies and church schisms. Although we will discuss some of these issues later, our survey of Asian Christianity during this time period aims to provide a general overview rather than a detailed outline. As you read through this chapter, be mindful of the vast extent of early Asian Christianity, and try to imagine living in a world where the church in Asia was the most populous and most vibrant of any global region. That was the reality for Christians during the earliest centuries of the church.

Western Asia

We will start our overview of early Asian Christianity in Western Asia, the place where the church was born and nurtured during its earliest years. The origins of Christianity can be traced back to the Jewish festival of Pentecost around AD 30 in the Western Asian city of Jerusalem. According to Acts, the Spirit of God overpowered Jesus’ disciples, and “about three thousand” (Acts 2:41) accepted the message of salvation that disciples like Peter proclaimed. At long last, it seemed, the prophecy that the law would “go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem” (Is 2:3) was being fulfilled, as people from all over the world accepted the message that Christ rose from the grave, who then spread it to their respective families and tribes. Commenting on Pentecost, New Testament historian Richard Bauckham notes that the location names and peoples in Acts 2:9-11 corresponded to the four points of a compass, “beginning in the east and moving counterclockwise.”2 With Jerusalem at the center, the message radiated out into all cardinal directions: to the East in what is now Iran and Iraq; to the North in what is now Turkey; to the West in Northern Africa and parts of Italy and Greece; and to the South in what are now parts of the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula (see table 1.1).

Table 1.1. Hypothetical expansion of Christia...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Christianity as a World Religion
• PART ONE: Christianity from the First to the Seventh Centuries
• PART TWO: Christianity from the Eighth to the Fourteenth Centuries
• PART THREE: Christianity from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries
• Conclusion: World Christianity Blowing Where It Wills
• Appendix 1: United Nations Geoscheme for Nations
• Appendix 2: Glossary
• Notes
• Name and Subject Index
• Praise for Introduction to World Christian History
• About the Author
• More Titles From InterVarsity Press
• Copyright