The complexity and emotional power of this system of belief swept away the primitive religions that preceded it. Tellingly, Christianity made less headway against the religions of the East, which offered a world view that was equally compelling. Sure, I know some profess to take solace in science. But who in his final hour rejoices at the thought, onward to the void?
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Why did Christianity become so popular? By Cecil Adams Aug 25, Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Dear Cecil: Why is Jesus so popular? Can I seek sanctuary in a church?
Is there a God revisited? Were Christians really thrown to the lions? That is not what I meant! I simply wanted to point out the fact that many Christians focus on Missions so much they forsake their families.
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Thanks again! This was a very good post! Keep up the good work Like Liked by 2 people. September 5, at AM Reply. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Email required Address never made public. The great philosophers Plato and Aristotle saw the social hierarchy as absolutely necessary. For someone to leave his or her allotted station in life was a threat to the very fabric of society.
Aristotle, for example, taught that it was natural for human beings to rule over animals, and in the same way, for masters to rule over slaves, and for men to rule over women. The point held in common by all humanity is its distance from God and its failure to respond to him. All people had the same problem, and everyone needed the same solution. This kept early Christianity from becoming elitist, so it could keep growing. This meant that particular religions were closely identifi ed with particular racial and ethnic groups, so that people followed the religious preferences of their parents.
Early Christianity claimed to be a truly universal religion, in which there was no distinction of culture or race. Within the Christian community, differences of race and ethnicity no longer counted. People in the Roman Empire were very rigidly divided according to social status as well. It is true that there were some other cults and societies apart from Christianity where people of different social status could associate together, but Christian communities allowed a breadth of participation for people of all classes that could not be found elsewhere.
Society was also divided very strictly according to gender lines, although in the centuries before Christianity, there had been a gradual liberation of women in the Greco- Roman world, at least in theory if not really much in practice.
The reality was that Roman and Greek culture traditionally totally excluded women from all public or political roles. The letters of the apostle Paul make it clear that his churches accepted women into full participation in their communities, and even in key leadership roles.
They prayed and prophesied, and they taught and led in the various functions of the Pauline communities. Pagans such as Celsus and Porphyry mocked the Christians for allowing women to lead in such roles. While it is true that Paul places some restrictions on women, it was for the protection of the communities within the culture of that time.
Paul is particularly concerned with issues of immortality—both in relation to women and to men. This means that we cannot expect Paul, for example, to understand it or to have put it in practice in the same way that we would try to do it as people living in the 21st century. And so some people have accused Paul of actually repressing women, which was not the case at all. Conclusion What Christianity did was to allow people to enter a new kind of community.
It is obvious that the early Christian communities were suffi ciently attractive to grow rapidly. Their universalism would have appealed to the disenfranchised of society, whether they were disenfranchised on the basis of race, social status, or gender.
The creation of such communities was unquestionably diffi cult, and the letters of Paul demonstrate just how diffi cult it was. They are full of bitter confl icts over his ideas and methods. However, they succeeded. We know that they succeeded because the Christian church survived and became popular. It is true that the Christian church retreated from its origins and became more organized and hierarchical over time.
As it did that, some of the emphasis on moral universalism disappeared, and at times the Christian religion has been a repressive force in society. However, in the ancient world, Christianity was a tremendously liberating force. This has to be considered as an important reason why Christianity became popular. We are still feeling the impact of that today in our 21st-century Western culture. The followers of Jesus had to endure repression and persecution under the authority and power of the Roman emperors.
However, Christianity did not lose its trace in history. The people of the fourth century witnessed the Christianization of the Greco-Roman world and beyond. Why was Christianity still popular among the ancient Mediterranean people after long suffering? Their direct and indirect experiences with Jesus were the key sources for passion and compassion over different regions and ethnic groups. The apostolic leadership was divided into four different groups.
They were the descendants of Jewish culture, but the Jewish diaspora adopted the Greek language and culture in the home and in the synagogues. The leaders for Gentiles did not meet Jesus personally. They knew him only through the resurrection vision and the testimonies of the disciples.
The last leadership regarded those who were interested in Judaism but who were not proselytes. Although the apostolic leadership was under religious pressure, the courage and boldness of each leader became the invisible impetus to carry on the new faith.
The crowds observed the public preaching and miracles, and they marveled and were saved Acts 2: Second, the boredom and exhaustion of the Roman citizens with Greek and Roman religions was energized when Christianity began to be circulated, because the polytheistic Greek and Roman gods did not concern themselves about the perspective of eternal salvation. Instead, the imperial religions required enormous demands of worship and offering.
Each god had his or her set of rules to follow. It was diffi cult for the people to remember. The Christian vision of the afterlife, with a simplifi ed monotheism, progressively affected to transform those people. As Christians refused to worship the Roman gods and pay offerings to them, Christian persecution increased. Nevertheless, the willingness to keep their faith despite death became a witness to potential members.
The Christian ideal of redemption intellectually challenged the outsiders with the message of salvation. Third, gender in society was another signifi cant factor in that women performed a crucial role for the spread of the early Christian movement, for the position of women is presumed higher within the Christian community than those in Greco-Roman societies. Fourth, the study of the Christian doctrine systematically supported newcomers to understand the primary belief of the new religion.
The rigorous training programs refl ected the process of conversion and its relation to discipleship. Finally, the conversion of Emperor Constantine the Great — CE was the offi cial turning point after which Christianity was able to establish its public foundation after years of struggle. The reason Constantine became a Christian in about CE is not certain, whether by the impact of his mother Helena or whether he adopted it gradually over the course of his life. Although there is evidence that Constantine did not patronize Christianity alone, the fi rst Christian emperor made laws that forbade Jews to own Christian slaves.
The Christian church eventually was declared the state religion in CE. The transformative shift of imperial policy changed the social world of the fourth century remarkably. Conclusion Christianity survived and spread all over the world, person to person, family to family, town to town, nation to nation, and empire to beyond. They not only grew in number, but also in geographic spread. Christians advanced socially as well. The success of the new movement did not happen by a single factor, but rather the multiple environments of the era together induced its achievement.
The voluntary and substantial engagement of women played a major role in a personal level of community life. The training programs of the catechumenate subsequently functioned as the professional system the Church used to guide the proselytes.
The legalization of Christianity by Constantine accelerated the social domination of the Jesus movement even beyond the Roman world. Such a historical process, with those fi ve factors, suffi ciently demonstrates why Christianity was so popular while the situation of Greco-Roman religions and Judaism degenerated. CLOSING Knowing why an ancient religion or any group for that matter was appealing to people is an important part of understanding ancient cultures.
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