After analyzing the two maps on the content page, answer the following question:
What type of Christianity would be found at location #1 (Catholic or Protestant)? How do you know this?
2.
After analyzing the two maps on the content page, answer the following question:
What type of Christianity would be found at location #2 (Catholic or Protestant)? How do you know this?
3.
After analyzing the two maps on the content page, answer the following question:
What type of Christianity would be found at location #3 (Catholic or Protestant)? How do you know this?
4.
After analyzing the two maps on the content page, answer the following question:
What type of Christianity would be found at location #4 (Catholic or Protestant)? How do you know this?
(hint: when you analyze the religion map on the content page, look at the religion in France that is the majority)
5.
Using the two maps on the content page, what would account for the U.S. being a majority Protestant nation today as seen in the graph to the right, yet also having a good portion of Catholics also?
(Hint: the original 13 colonies were English colonies)
6.
The Papal Bull "Inter Caetera," (seen above) issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493, played a central role in the Spanish conquest of the New World. The document supported Spain’s strategy to ensure its exclusive right to the lands discovered by Columbus the previous year.
(a "bull" is an official statement from the Pope)
“Wherefore, as becomes Catholic kings and princes, after earnest consideration of all matters, especially of the rise and spread of the Catholic faith,… you have purposed with the favor of divine clemency to bring under your sway the said mainlands and islands with their residents and inhabitants and to bring them to the Catholic faith.” - The Doctrine of Discovery, 1493. Pope Alexander VI
What is the Pope telling The King and Queen of Spain to do in the above excerpt?
How does the letter from the Pope (from question #6), written in 1493, affect the culture of areas like Mexico and South America in modern times? (hint: look at the maps again)
Answers
WRITTEN BY
Matt Stefon See All Contributors
Matt Stefon was a religion editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. He earned B.A. degrees in English and American studies from the Pennsylvania State University and an M.A. in religion and literature and an...
See Article History
Christianity, major religion stemming from the life, teachings, and death of Jesus of Nazareth (the Christ, or the Anointed One of God) in the 1st century CE. It has become the largest of the world’s religions and, geographically, the most widely diffused of all faiths. It has a constituency of more than two billion believers. Its largest groups are the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Protestantchurches. The Oriental Orthodox churches constitute one of the oldest branches of the tradition but had been out of contact with Western Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy from the middle of the 5th century until the late 20th century because of a dispute over Christology (the doctrine of Jesus Christ’s nature and significance). Significant movements within the broader Christian world and sometimes transcending denominational boundaries are Pentecostalism, Charismatic Christianity, Evangelicalism, and fundamentalism. In addition, there are numerous independent churches throughout the world. See also Anglicanism; Baptist; Calvinism; Congregationalism; Evangelical church; Lutheranism; Oriental Orthodoxy; presbyterian; Reformed and Presbyterian churches.
Christ as Ruler, with the Apostles and Evangelists (represented by the beasts). The female figures are believed to be either Santa Pudenziana and Santa Práxedes or symbols of the Jewish and Gentile churches. Mosaic in the apse of Santa
This article first considers the nature and development of the Christian religion, its ideas, and its institutions. This is followed by an examination of several intellectual manifestations of Christianity. Finally, the position of Christianity in the world, the relations among its divisions and denominations, its missionary outreach to other peoples, and its relations with other world religions are discussed. For supporting material on various topics, see angel and demon; Bible; biblical literature; canon law; creed; Christology; doctrine and dogma; ecumenism; eschatology; exegesis; faith; grace; heaven; hell; heresy; Jesus Christ; liturgical movement; millennialism; miracle; monasticism; monotheism; New Testament; Old Testament; original sin; papacy; prayer; priesthood; purgatory; sacrament; salvation; schism; scripture; theism; theology;
Christianity Quiz
What country was the first to adopt Christianity as its national religion? What is the Parousia? Test your knowledge of Christianity with this quiz.
The Church And Its History
The essence and identity of Christianity
At its most basic, Christianity is the faith tradition that focuses on the figure of Jesus Christ. In this context, faith refers both to the believers’ act of trust and to the content of their faith. As a tradition, Christianity is more than a system of religious belief. It also has generated a culture, a set of ideas and ways of life, practices, and artifacts that have been handed down from generation to generation since Jesus first became the object of faith. Christianity is thus both a living tradition of faith and the culture that the faith leaves behind. The agent of Christianity is the church, the community of people who make up the body of believers.
To say that Christianity “focuses” on Jesus Christ is to say that somehow it brings together its beliefs and practices and other traditions in reference to a historical figure. Few Christians, however, would be content to keep this reference merely historical. Although their faith tradition is historical—i.e., they believe that transactions with the divine do not occur in the realm of timeless ideas but among ordinary humans through the ages—the vast majority of Christians focus their faith in Jesus Christ as someone who is also a present reality. They may include many other references in their tradition and thus may speak of “God” and “human nature” or of the “church” and the “world,” but they would not be called Christian if they did not bring their attentions first and last to Jesus Christ.
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While there is something simple about this focus on Jesus as the central figure, there is also something very complicated. That complexity is revealed by the thousands of separate churches, sects, and denominations that make up the modern Christian tradition. To project these separate bodies against the background of their development in the nations of the world is to suggest the bewildering variety. To picture people expressing their adherence to that tradition in their prayer life and church-building, in their quiet worship or their strenuous efforts to change the world, is to suggest even more
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