Christianity essentially started about 2,000 years
ago when a Jewish man named Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, and
the Messiah whom Jewish prophets had prior to that time prophesied
would appear. Jesus said that He had come into the world to redeem
mankind from its sins in the eyes of God by ushering in a new
covenant of how people should live in order for them to have a
meaningful life on earth, and after death to go on to live in heaven.
Jesus performed many miracles, which served as proof of his claimed
deity, the ultimate proof being His resurrection after His
crucifixion and death on the cross. Jesus Christ was a historical
figure, and was written about in the writings of a number of
non-Christian historians who lived around that time. Throughout the
first century A.D. the twelve apostles (i.e. after Judas' death)
together with the apostle Paul, and various other disciples of Christ
such as James, traveled to various places, and together established
the Christian church based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. In the
Bible, the book of Acts chronicles the establishment, growth, and
expansion of the early church. In the fourth century A.D.
Christianity became the official religion of Rome, and the Roman
Catholic Church was subsequently officially founded.
The Christian church continued to spread
throughout the Middle-East and Europe. The most influential and
powerful single organizational member of the Christian church became
the Roman Catholic Church. However, by the 16th century the Roman
Catholic Church had adopted and become tolerate of various doctrines
and practices which ran contrary to what was written in the Bible. In
the mid-16th century, this lead Martin Luther to break away from the
Roman Catholic Church, and to establish the Protestant Church. The
Protestant church spread across Europe, and Protestants eventually
come to North America, and were instrumental in the founding of the
United States of America and creation of its style of representative
democracy.
In the hundreds of years since the time of Martin Luther, the Roman Catholic Church has moved away from a number of the doctrines and practices that were criticized by Luther, but there are still important differences between the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant churches. Over the past 500 years, the Protestantism has branched off into several sub-divisions called "denominations". These denominations have historically differed from one another in their teachings and/or Sabbath service style typically in some significant, yet relatively minor ways. However, over the past 40 years or so, some issues have appeared in modern society have served to make the differences between denominations (and sometimes even the different national denominational sub-groupings within the denominations) more pronounced. Examples of Protestant denominations include Lutherans, Baptists, and Presbyterians. Additionally, over the last 200 years or so, a number of churches have been established whose teachings differ in extremely important ways from the teachings of both the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant churches; so much so that they beckon the theological question of whether they should be considered Christian or not. The two most prominent of these are the Mormon Church, founded by Joseph Smith in 1830, and the Jehovah Witnesses.
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