Huston Smith- Christianity

1. What is the Christ of Faith?

The Christ of faith is the persona or the qualities that made people want to follow his teachings. The main three reasons why people believed in Jesus and followed him were his actions, his teachings, and the type of person he was. He followed his teachings and helped people because it was the right thing to do. Although he performed many miracles, he did not try to emphasize them to the public and always tried to keep people focused on God instead of himself. Also, his teachings and the way he talked about them was different than anything people had experienced before. He made his teachings personal through things like parables and inviting people to listen to what he said instead of forcing them. his other quality that inspired faith in his followers was the way he carried himself and his lifestyle. He did not contradict his teachings through his actions and seemed to be a person who did not make decisions based off of his personal ego, but was focused completely on God. Through these qualities he made people want to emulate him and follow his teachings so they could be more like him.

2. What is the Good News?

The Good News is the quality of life that the early Christians experienced through embracing God's love, and the idea that anyone could lead the type of life they did. As the early followers of Christ travelled around the world preaching his teachings, people were astonished at how happy they were, because they had been released from their fear, guilt, and egos. It was evident that their lives had become filled with joy through first accepting Christ's teachings and love and then accepting God's love, and they preached this to many people in the world, which made more people want to follow what they were preaching. Although the early Christians had been persecuted and faced many problems, their joy and love towards God, each other and life was evident through their preaching and people wanted to have this lifestyle too.

Vocab Pt. 2

Concept of God

Logos, Trinity, Redemption

Christians believe in logos, meaning that the universe is controlled by an intelligent higher power. They believe that there is only one God and that this God controls the universe. Although Christianity is a monotheistic religion, God is believed to be a holy trinity of three beings, the father, the son and the holy spirit. Christianity developed from Judaism and has many similarities with the Jewish concept of God, such as God’s merciful qualities, which are portrayed through the concept of redemption, or redeeming yourself in the eyes of God.

Goal For Humans

Salvation, Redemption, Ecumenism

In Christianity, the goal for humans is to enter into heaven after a person dies. A person can achieve this goal by having good moral conduct in his or her life. Through the study of eschatology, people can look towards the future and the final judgment of humans and the church and the role they play in the world. The concept of heaven can be applied to the concept of salvation, which is deliverance from suffering. Salvation can only come from God or Jesus and can be achieved by accepting God. Another way of reaching heaven is through redemption by worshipping God to be redeemed for a person’s sins or wrongdoings.

Sacred Texts

Parable, Gospel, Canon

A canon is a group of religious or biblical texts that are seen as authoritative texts or scripture that outline or teach different doctrines of a religion. For example, the Biblical Canon is the set of texts that constitute the Bible. The Bible is a combination of many religious texts including the gospels and parables. The Gospels are writings that describe the life of Jesus and they are comprised of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They describe the life of Jesus and his teachings but are written to different audiences during different time periods. A parable is a story that portrays a moral or religious lesson. Jesus used parables to teach people and used them as analogies for the religious and moral lessons that he taught.

Religious Experience

Miracle, Sacrament, Church, Agape

A large part of the religious experience for a Christian is the community of Christians all over the world who belong to the church. The church provides a community far all Christians to connect with each other, although the church can mean the worldwide group of followers, it can also mean a group of followers on a smaller scale in just one community as well. One of the major parts of being in this community is agape, an attitude of love that Christians have towards each other and the rest of humanity. Another large part of the Christian religious experience is performing sacraments and other rituals to show their faith to God and communicate with God. Another way for Christians to experience God is through miracles, which are considered to be acts of God that cannot be explained.

Summary 4- In The Catacombs

In the middle of the third century, the catacombs under Rome began to grow and the system for digging out the catacombs and burying the dead became more complex. It is estimated that there are about 6.5 million people buried in the catacombs, which consisted of pagan, Jewish and Christian burials. In the middle of the third century, the Christian burials increased, and some of the burials and tombs were very elaborate with paintings and frescoes. The art in the catacombs symbolized a Christian tradition in art and as Christian art was seen more and more in Roman society, Christians had a more prominent role in Roman society in general. The catacombs may have also played a role in Christian worship, because they provided a place a place for Christians to hide and worship when they were being persecuted. They also provided a place for Christians to hold meals for the dead, where families would hold a meal in memory of the person who died. In most of the art, Jesus is portrayed as a healer who is usually healing members of the lower class, which may have helped Christianity spread because at first Jesus was portrayed as a regular person who was helping people.

Summary 3- What Are the Gospels?

The gospels are stories that are told to convey a message about Jesus and his importance to the people who are reading the gospels. The four gospels in the New Testament are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Although the Gospels focus on Jesus and his message, they are not biographical, and usually are a way for the author to portray his message about Christianity through Jesus, they are not to provide a direct account of Jesus' life. The gospels of Mark and John portray two different images of Jesus; Mark portrays Jesus as begining his life in Galilee, and ending up in Jerusalem while John's narrative suggests that Jesus spent a lot of his life in Jerusalem. Matthew, Luke and Mark are synoptic because Matthew and Luke depend on Mark so they all share similar stories. Many people debate about whether or not the gospels were meant to be taken literally or as allegories, especially because they were viewed as allegories and stories with some true events in them to early Christians. One of the main issues with using the gospels as evidence is that they were all written by different people at different times, so although they are someone historically accurate, they may not be completely true. Also, they all portray Jesus in different ways to make him appeal to the different audiences that they were writing to. The gospels also portray the progressive movement of Jesus's followers away from Judaism, and towards their own religion and provide a way for people to remember what Jesus taught.

Summary 2-John The Baptist

John the Baptist is a historical figure who was alive during Jesus's life and knew Jesus and he called for a return to piety and wanted people to follow God intensely. He is known for baptizing people, but is not the first person to practice baptism because a lot of people practiced baptism or something close to it at the time. Baptism symbolized being cleansed before entering the temple, and a rededication to God. There are theories that Jesus was baptized by John, but some people reject these theories because it could mean that Jesus is inferior to John. John ans Jesus shared similar beliefs that the world was changing, but Jesus believed that God wanted a major change in the entire world's ethics and John believe that God would descend in an apocalyptic event to bring peace to earth. John was later executed for criticizing the Roman ruler.

Jesus' Social Class

Although Jesus has historically been viewed as a peasant, new archaeological discoveries suggest the he might have been in a slightly higher social class and was probably an artisan but was still close to peasant life. It is also suggested that he grew up in a village near a large city instead of in the more rural country side, which allowed him to experience Greek and Jewish culture at the same time. These discoveries have been very controversial and have caused people to reconsider his social class, some believe that he was in the upper-lower class and some believe that he was in the middle class, especially if he lived in the urban area near his childhood home. Although there is evidence to suggest the Jesus was above the lower class, some people still believe there is evidence that he was a peasant because there was no solid middle class in that society, and sometimes artisans and carpenters were in a lower class than peasants. Also, most of his parables and stories that he told were things that peasants could relate to and understand. There is a lot of evidence for both social classes, so it is hard to determine exactly what social class Jesus was in.