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Christianity: The world's largest religion.

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Quotations:

	"Christianity started out in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise." Sam Pascoe 1
	"Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words." -- Francis of Assisi.
	"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Paul, Ephesians 3:16-19 (NIV)

A word about the meaning of "Christianity" and why this web site concentrates on it so much:

There are many  definitions for this term. Some people regard "Christianity" and their own denomination's name to be synonyms. Others view Christianity as including a full range of faith groups from the most conservative fundamentalist faith group to the most progressive Christian denomination. We use the following definition: "We accept as Christian any individual or group who devoutly, sincerely, thoughtfully, seriously, and prayerfully regards themselves to be Christian. That is, they honestly believe that they follow Yeshua of Nazareth's (a.k.a. Jesus Christ's) teachings as they understand them to be." This generates a lot of angry Emails from some visitors to this site who are insistent on excluding the Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholic Church, the Mormons, and/or some other denominations as sub-Christian, quasi-Christian, non-Christian, or anti-Christian.

We treat Christianity in much greater detail than other religions, simply because about 75% of North Americans identify themselves with that religion. Christians outnumber the next largest organized religions, Judaism and Islam,  by at least 35 to 1 in the U.S. and Canada. We are not in any way implying that Christianity is superior or inferior to other religions. It is simply much more popular in our primary catchment area.

A place to begin:

1. A brief introduction to the founders, history, & current status of Christianity
   
   
2. A more detailed introduction to Christianity
   This menu contains links to essays that describe:

   	A very brief history of Christianity
   	Who is a Christian?
   	Divisions among Protestant denominations (Some people look upon the Protestant wing of Christianity as composed of two or more separate religions.)
   	Differences between Roman Catholicism and conservative Protestantism (There are major gaps, and they are growing.)
   	How Christians interpret the Bible. (They start with different assumptions and reach totally different conclusions.)

3. Background information on Christianity, and why this web site is very different from most religious sites.
   

About the Bible:

	Christian books in and out of the Bible: Content, stories, organization, origin, versions, inerrancy, forgeries, copying errors, inspiration, tools, early Gospels and Epistles that were never accepted into the Bible.....
	Codes in the Bible: Real, imaginary, or a hoax?
	The world and the Bible: archaeology; cosmology; prophecy; Wicca/Witchcraft and the Bible; are some Bible verses hate literature?
	Themes & topics in the Bible: A range of Christian interpretations about the Ten Commandments, abortion, anti-semitism, homosexuality, the role of women, predictions of the end of the world, salvation....
	Apparently immoral passages in the Bible: Incitements to genocide, intolerance, oppression, violence, etc. in the Bible.
	Objective and subjective standards. What the Bible says vs. what one's interpretation of what the Bible says: An essay by Susan Humphreys
	Don't Read the Bible Alone: Study the Bible with a Commentary and with Other Students An essay by Rabbi Allen S. Maller

Personalities within Christianity:

God, Yeshua/Jesus, Mary, Saints, and, of course, Satan & demons

Christianity, the religion:

	Beliefs, creeds, history, practices, rituals, ecumenicalism, joint efforts, schismatic forces, holy days, trends, urban legends, hoaxes, relics, movies.
	Relations with, and comparisons to, other religions

Christian faith groups:

One source estimates that there are 34,000 separate Christian groups in the world. We have descriptions of

Christian faith groups can be sorted by:

	Denomination, (from the Amish to The Way)
	Meta-group, (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism......)
	Wing, (conservative, mainline and liberal)
	Religious family, (Adventist, Baptist, Lutheran, Reform....)
	Systems of belief (Arminianism, British Israelism, Calvinism...)

Links to web sites of Christian denominations, churches, para-church groups, etc:

	Official web sites of Christian denominations
	Conservative Protestant web sites
	Progressive & liberal web sites
	Roman Catholic web sites
	Other Christian web sites
	Christian search engines & directories

Terms and Tools:

Religious terms, test, and tools:

You can safely order these Christian books from Amazon.com

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Links to other inclusive religious web sites:

There are probably tens of millions of religious web sites on the Internet. A Google search for "God" returned almost 500 million hits. Most describe and promote only a single tradition or faith group within a single religion. It is typically the faith group of the Webmaster or of the agency that sponsors the web site.

Some of the sites that do cover a broad range of faith groups are:

• Beliefnet.com discusses topics from all religions re: inspiration, spirituality, faith, news etc.
• Churchbud is a free social network dedicated to the entire Christian world.
• Patheos.com provides balanced views of religion and spirituality

References used:

1. There are problems with this quotation:

   It has been variously attributed to Sam Pascoe, an American scholar and to Richard Halverson, former chaplain to the U.S. Senate. Pascoe is cited on the Internet as the author more than ten times as often as Halverson. A case can be made that Christianity did not start in Palestine. According to Acts 11, the followers of Jesus were first called Christians in Antioch. Also, the Romans imposed the name "Palestine" on the Holy Land only circa 135 CE, long after most or all of the books of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) were written. Finally, the first followers of Yeshua of Nazareth, led by Jesus' brother James the Just, considered themselves as Jews, as a new tradition within Judaism, not the followers of a new religion.

2. David Barrett et al, "World Christian Encyclopedia: A comparative survey of churches and religions - AD 30 to 2200," Oxford University Press, (2001). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
3. We have been invited to exchange links with Jesus Christ Saves Ministries (JCSM).

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Copyright © 1998 to 2013 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Last updated 2013-MAY-27
Author: Bruce A Robinson

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