Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with approximately 1.3 billion baptised Catholics worldwide as of 2017. As the world’s oldest continuously functioning international institution, it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilisation. The church is headed by the Bishop...
Christian Ethics Christian ethics, also known as moral theology, is a multi-faceted ethical system: it is a virtue ethic which focuses on building moral character, and a deontological ethic which emphasizes duty. It also incorporates natural law ethics, which is built on the belief that it is the very nature of humans – created in the...
Christian Conditionalism Christian Conditionalism (conditionalism or conditional immortality) in Christian theology, is a concept in which the gift of immortality is attached to (conditional upon) belief in Jesus Christ. This doctrine is based in part upon another theological argument, that the human soul is naturally mortal, immortality (“eternal life“) is therefore granted by God as...
Eternal Life In Christianity This article covers Eternal Life in Christianity. Eternal life traditionally refers to continued life after death, as outlined in Christian eschatology. The Apostles’ Creed testifies: “I believe… the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” In this view, eternal life commences after the second coming of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead, although...
History Of The Latter Day Saint Movement The Latter Day Saint movement is a religious movement within Christianity that arose during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century and that led to the set of doctrines, practices, and cultures called Mormonism, and to the existence of numerous Latter Day Saint churches....
What Is Rapture? The rapture is an eschatological concept of certain Christians, particularly within branches of American evangelicalism, consisting of an end time event when all Christian believers who are alive will rise along with the resurrected dead believers into Heaven and join Christ. This is a theory that grew out...
Poetry And Wisdom It has been said that the proper language of wisdom is poetry. We realize this when we read the classic texts of the world’s great sapiential traditions. The literature of antiquity, indeed, when not merely factual or legislative, lives most often within an aura which is at...
The Philosophy Of Mormonism CHAPTER I In this attempt to treat the philosophy of “Mormonism” it is assumed that no discussion of Christianity in general nor of the philosophy of Christianity is required. The “Mormon” creed, so far as there is a creed professed by the Latter-day Saints, is pre-eminently...
Historicity Of The Bible The historicity of the Bible is the question of the Bible‘s “acceptability as a history”. This can be extended to the question of the Christian New Testament as an accurate record of the historical Jesus and the Apostolic Age. When examining the books of the Bible, scholars...
Messianic Secret In biblical criticism, the Messianic Secret refers to a motif primarily in the Gospel of Mark in which Jesus is portrayed as commanding his followers to maintain silence about his Messianic mission. Attention was first drawn to this motif in 1901 by William Wrede. Part of Wrede’s theory involved...
The Gospel Of Luke The Gospel According to Luke, also called the Gospel of Luke, or simply Luke, is the third of the four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Luke is the longest of the four gospels and the longest book in...
The Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message itself, but in the 2nd century it came to be used for the books in which the message was set out. The four canonical gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — were written between AD 70 and 100, building on older sources and traditions,...
Prophets Of Christianity Here is the list of prophets in Christianity. In Christianity, the figures widely recognised as prophets are those mentioned as such in the Old Testament and the New Testament. It is believed that prophets are chosen and called by God. The main list below consists of only...
The Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (מָשִׁיחַ, مسيح, masîḥ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of moshiach, messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible; a moshiach (messiah) is a king or High Priest traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil. Messiahs were not exclusively Jewish:...
What Is Christmas? Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ observed on December 25. as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, it is preceded by the season of Advent or the Nativity...
Date Of Birth Of Jesus The date of birth of Jesus is not stated in the gospels or in any historical reference, but most theologians assume a date of birth between 6 BC and 4 BC. The historical evidence is too incomplete to allow a definitive dating, but the date is estimated...
Great Commission In Christianity, the Great Commission is the instruction of the resurrected Jesus Christ to his disciples to spread his teachings to all the nations of the world. The most famous version of the Great Commission is in Matthew 28:16–20, where on a mountain in Galilee Jesus calls on his followers to make disciples of and baptize all nations in the name of the Father,...
Sources For The Historicity Of Jesus This article covers the sources for the historicity of Jesus. Christian sources, such as the New Testament books in the Christian Bible, include detailed stories about Jesus, but scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus. The only...
Brothers of Jesus The New Testament describes James, Joseph (Joses), Judas (Jude), and Simon as brothers of Jesus( ἀδελφοὶ, adelphoi, ‘brothers’). Also mentioned, but not named, are sisters of Jesus. Some scholars argue that these brothers, especially James, held positions of special honor in the early Christian church. Catholic, Assyrian, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox believe in the perpetual virginity of...
Last Adam The Last Adam, also given as the Final Adam or the Ultimate Adam, is a title given to Jesus in the New Testament. Similar titles that also refer to Jesus include Second Adam and New Adam. Twice in the New Testament an explicit comparison is made between Jesus and Adam. In Romans 5:12–21, Paul argues that...