In the history of Judaism, many have claimed the mantle of Messiah over the centuries. Many preached their message to the masses, inspired disciples to follow them, and died for their efforts. Most of them are forgotten, their names and their ministries swept away with centuries of desert sand.

One of these men and his message caught on, and the world has never been the same. In fact, the largest and most influential of the Big Three monotheistic religions was inspired by the teachings of a humble Jewish carpenter who preached of love and forgiveness. He lived and died in thirty-three brief years, but according to his followers, that is just the beginning of the story.

Jesus of Nazareth

Christianity is the religion that formed around the preaching and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. We know that the historical Jesus taught and had a following, was perceived as a political and social threat to the status quo, and was ultimately executed by the Romans in the grisly manner of crucifixion. There have always been skeptics who doubt that the historical Jesus existed, but secular Roman writings confirm that he did indeed walk the earth. But was he the Son of God, as Christians throughout the world firmly believe?

Little is known about the historical Jesus that does not come from the four gospels, which comprise the first part of the New Testament. These are the “authorized” biographies, authorized some 400 years after the fact. The Church fathers had dozens of chronicles of Jesus from which to choose, and they elected to pick gospels that stressed the divinity of Jesus. There are others that give equal consideration to the humanity of Jesus, but these have been relegated to controversial asterisks in Christian history.

Christians believe that Old Testament prophecy was realized in the person of Jesus, and that in his death on the cross he took on the sins of humanity and offered salvation to all those who believe. The early Christians were all “Jews for Jesus,” thus Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism. Christianity eventually eclipsed Judaism in sheer numbers when, largely though the efforts of St. Paul and other missionaries, the Christian message spread across the ancient world, available to any and all whose minds and hearts were swayed by the Christian philosophy.

Christian Rituals

The key element of faith of the Christians is the belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead after being crucified and entombed for three days. Many accept that Jesus was a wise sage; the Muslims revere him as a very human prophet, but the crux of the Christian faith is belief in the resurrection of Jesus and their own eternal life with him in heaven.

Christianity, like the other two monotheistic religions, has numerous rituals, also known as sacraments. Baptism is an immersion in water and is considered the official initiation into the faith. Some Christians practice the total immersion in a river and wait until the convert is an adult or of the age of reason. Other Christian denominations baptize infants shortly after birth and have two representatives (godparents) who answer the priest's questions on behalf of the child. The other main ritual, or sacrament, is the Eucharist. This is a recreation of the Last Supper, where Jesus shared bread and wine with his apostles and exhorted them to carry on in his name. Catholics believe that there is transubstantiation, that the bread and wine is literally transformed into the body and blood of Christ by the priest during Mass. Many Protestant denominations believe it is a symbolic ritual, and others do not incorporate it into their services.

This is indicative that Christianity is clearly not a monolith. From the death of Jesus through the Renaissance, there was one Church that evolved over time into the Roman Catholic Church in the Western world. In the East, Greek and Russian Orthodox Christianity grew and thrived without any input from the papacy in Rome, and many other smaller sects have always existed through the millennia.

Numerous Denominations

During the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation created numerous Protestant denominations. Jesus Christ and the teachings of the New Testament remain at the core of all, but their differences are legion, and rivalry, bad feeling, and outright hostility have sometimes blemished the relations between these sects that worship the same God.

All preach of the promise of everlasting life through accepting Jesus as your savior. Some are tolerant of other creeds, while other insular Christians seem more obsessed with who else is going to Hell than tending to their own house.

Most Christians believe that Jesus will come again, and there will be quite an upheaval when he does. Mystics and madmen have been telling us the end is nigh almost since Day One. So far so good.

If we keep things simple and reduce all the dogma to the basic Christian belief that “God is Love,” then Christianity is a beautiful faith that gives spiritual succor to millions and does good deeds and charitable works throughout the world.