Christian culture generally includes all the cultural practices which have developed around the religion of Christianity. There are variations in the application of Christian beliefs in different cultures and traditions.
The Bible has had a profound influence on Western civilization and on cultures around the globe; it has contributed to the formation of Western law, art, texts, and education.[30][31][32] With a literary tradition spanning two millennia, the Bible is one of the most influential works ever written. From practices of personal hygiene to philosophy and ethics, the Bible has directly and indirectly influenced politics and law, war and peace, sexual morals, marriage and family life, toilet etiquette, letters and learning, the arts, economics, social justice, medical care and more.[32] The Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed in Europe using movable type.[29]
Although Western culture contained several polytheistic religions during its early years under the Greek and Roman Empires, as the centralized Roman power waned, the dominance of the Catholic Church was the only consistent force in Western Europe.[54] Until the Age of Enlightenment,[55] Christian culture guided the course of philosophy, literature, art, music, and science.[54][56] Christian disciplines of the respective arts have subsequently developed into Christian philosophy, Christian art, Christian music, Christian literature, etc. Art and literature, law, education, and politics were preserved in the teachings of the Church, in an environment that, otherwise, would have probably seen their loss. The Church founded many cathedrals, universities, monasteries and seminaries, some of which continue to exist today. Medieval Christianity created the first modern universities.[57][58] The Catholic Church established a hospital system in Medieval Europe that vastly improved upon the Roman valetudinaria.[59] These hospitals were established to cater to "particular social groups marginalized by poverty, sickness, and age", according to historian of hospitals, Guenter Risse.[60] Christianity also had a strong impact on all other aspects of life: marriage and family, education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy, and the arts.[61]
Christianity had a significant impact on education and science and medicine as the church created the basis of the Western system of education,[62] and was the sponsor of founding universities in the Western world as the university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[63][64] Many clerics throughout history have made significant contributions to science and Jesuits in particular have made numerous significant contributions to the development of science.[65][66][67][68][69][70] Some scholars state that Christianity contributed to the rise of the Scientific Revolution.[71] Protestantism also has had an important influence on science. According to the Merton Thesis, there was a positive correlation between the rise of English Puritanism and German Pietism on the one hand, and early experimental science on the other.[72][73][74]
Christianity played a role in ending practices common among pagan societies, such as human sacrifice, slavery,[90] infanticide and polygamy.[91] Scientists such as Newton and Galileo believed that God would be better understood if God's creation was better understood.[92]
The architecture of cathedrals, basilicas and abbey churches is characterised by the buildings' large scale and follows one of several branching traditions of form, function and style that all ultimately derive from the Early Christian architectural traditions established in the Constantinian period.
The earliest large churches date from Late Antiquity. As Christianity and the construction of churches and cathedrals spread throughout the world, their manner of building was dependent upon local materials and local techniques. Different styles of architecture developed and their fashion spread, carried by the establishment of monastic orders, by the posting of bishops from one region to another and by the travelling of master stonemasons who served as architects.[94] The styles of the great church buildings are successively known as Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, various Revival styles of the late 18th to early 20th centuries and Modern.[81] Overlaid on each of the academic styles are the regional characteristics. Some of these characteristics are so typical of a particular country or region that they appear, regardless of style, in the architecture of churches designed many centuries apart.[81]
Christian art is sacred art which uses themes and imagery from Christianity. Most Christian groups use or have used art to some extent, although some have had strong objections to some forms of religious image, and there have been major periods of iconoclasm within Christianity.
Images of Jesus and narrative scenes from the Life of Christ are the most common subjects, and scenes from the Old Testament play a part in the art of most denominations. Images of the Virgin Mary and saints are much rarer in Protestant art than that of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
Christianity makes far wider use of images than related religions, in which figurative representations are forbidden, such as Islam and Judaism. However, there is also a considerable history of aniconism in Christianity from various periods.
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration. The earliest surviving substantive illuminated manuscripts are from the period AD 400 to 600, primarily produced in Ireland, Constantinople and Italy. The majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many illuminated manuscripts survive from the 15th-century Renaissance, along with a very limited number from Late Antiquity.
Most illuminated manuscripts were created as codices, which had superseded scrolls; some isolated single sheets survive. A very few illuminated manuscript fragments survive on papyrus. Most medieval manuscripts, illuminated or not, were written on parchment (most commonly of calf, sheep, or goat skin), but most manuscripts important enough to illuminate were written on the best quality of parchment, called vellum, traditionally made of unsplit calfskin, although high quality parchment from other skins was also called parchment.
There are few old ceramic icons, such as this St. Theodor icon which dates to ca. 900 (from Preslav, Bulgaria)
Christian art began, about two centuries after Christ, by borrowing motifs from Roman Imperial imagery, classical Greek and Roman religion and popular art. Religious images are used to some extent by the Abrahamic Christian faith, and often contain highly complex iconography, which reflects centuries of accumulated tradition. In the Late Antique period iconography began to be standardised, and to relate more closely to biblical texts, although many gaps in the canonical Gospel narratives were plugged with matter from the apocryphal gospels. Eventually the Church would succeed in weeding most of these out, but some remain, like the ox and ass in the Nativity of Christ.
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Orthodox Christianity. Christianity has used symbolism from its very beginnings.[95] In both East and West, numerous iconic types of Christ, Mary and saints and other subjects were developed; the number of named types of icons of Mary, with or without the infant Christ, was especially large in the East, whereas Christ Pantocrator was much the commonest image of Christ.
Christian symbolism invests objects or actions with an inner meaning expressing Christian ideas. Christianity has borrowed from the common stock of significant symbols known to most periods and to all regions of the world. Religious symbolism is effective when it appeals to both the intellect and the emotions. Especially important depictions of Mary include the Hodegetria and Panagia types. Traditional models evolved for narrative paintings, including large cycles covering the events of the Life of Christ, the Life of the Virgin, parts of the Old Testament, and, increasingly, the lives of popular saints. Especially in the West, a system of attributes developed for identifying individual figures of saints by a standard appearance and symbolic objects held by them; in the East they were more likely to identified by text labels.
Each saint has a story and a reason why he or she led an exemplary life. Symbols have been used to tell these stories throughout the history of the Church. A number of Christian saints are traditionally represented by a symbol or iconic motif associated with their life, termed an attribute or emblem, in order to identify them. The study of these forms part of iconography in Art history.
The dedication of Constantinople as capital in 330 AD created a great new Christian artistic centre for the Eastern Roman Empire, which soon became a separate political unit. Major Constantinopolitan churches built under Constantine and his son, Constantius II, included the original foundations of Hagia Sophia and the Church of the Holy Apostles.[96] As the Western Roman Empire disintegrated and was taken over by "barbarian" peoples, the art of the Byzantine Empire reached levels of sophistication, power and artistry not previously seen in Christian art, and set the standards for those parts of the West still in touch with Constantinople.
Church of Agios Panteleimonos, Greece.
This achievement was checked by the controversy over the use of graven images, and the proper interpretation of the Second Commandment, which led to the crisis of Iconoclasm or destruction of religious images, which racked the Empire between 726 and 843. The restoration of Orthodoxy resulted in a strict standardization of religious imagery within the Eastern Church. Byzantine art became increasingly conservative, as the form of images themselves, many accorded divine origin or thought to have been be painted by Saint Luke or other figures, was held to have a status not far off that of a scriptural text. They could be copied, but not improved upon. As a concession to Iconoclast sentiment, monumental religious sculpture was effectively banned. Neither of these attitudes were held in Western Europe, but Byzantine art nonetheless had great influence there until the High Middle Ages, and remained very popular long after that, with vast numbers of icons of the Cretan School exported to Europe as late as the Renaissance. Where possible, Byzantine artists were borrowed for projects such as mosaics in Venice and Palermo. The enigmatic frescoes at Castelseprio may be an example of work by a Greek artist working in Italy.
The art of Eastern Catholicism has always been rather closer to the Orthodox art of Greece and Russia, and in countries near the Orthodox world, notably Poland, Catholic art has many Orthodox influences. The Black Madonna of Częstochowa may well have been of Byzantine origin – it has been repainted and this is hard to tell. Other images that are certainly of Greek origin, like the Salus Populi Romani and Our Lady of Perpetual Help, both icons in Rome, have been subjects of specific veneration for centuries.
Although the influence has often been resisted, especially in Russia, Catholic art has also affected Orthodox depictions in many respects, especially in countries like Romania, and in the post-Byzantine Cretan School, which led Greek Orthodox art under Venetian rule in the 15th and 16th centuries. El Greco left Crete when relatively young, but Michael Damaskinos returned after a brief period in Venice, and was able to switch between Italian and Greek styles. Even the traditionalist Theophanes the Cretan, working mainly on Mount Athos, nevertheless shows unmistakable Western influence.
Many Eastern Orthodox states in Eastern Europe, as well as to some degree the Muslim states of the eastern Mediterranean, preserved many aspects of the empire's culture and art for centuries afterward. A number of states contemporary with the Byzantine Empire were culturally influenced by it, without actually being part of it (the "Byzantine commonwealth"). These included Bulgaria, Serbia, and Kievan Rus', as well as some non-Orthodox states like the Republic of Venice and the Kingdom of Sicily, which had close ties to the Byzantine Empire despite being in other respects part of western European culture. Art produced by Eastern Orthodox Christians living in the Ottoman Empire is often called "post-Byzantine". Certain artistic traditions that originated in the Byzantine Empire, particularly in regard to icon painting and church architecture, are maintained in Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Russia and other Eastern Orthodox countries to the present day.
Roman Catholic art consists of all visual works produced in an attempt to illustrate, supplement and portray in tangible form the teachings of the Catholic Church. This includes sculpture, painting, mosaics, metalwork, embroidery and even architecture. Catholic art has played a leading role in the history and development of Western art since at least the 4th century. The principal subject matter of Catholic art has been the life and times of Jesus Christ, along with those of his disciples, the saints, and the events of the Jewish Old Testament.
The earliest surviving art works are the painted frescoes on the walls of the catacombs and meeting houses of the persecuted Christians of the Roman Empire. The Christian Church in Rome was influenced by the Roman style of art and the religious Christian artists of the time. The stone sarcophagi of Roman Christians exhibit the earliest surviving carved statuary of Jesus, Mary and other biblical figures. The legalisation of Christianity transformed Catholic art, which adopted richer forms such as mosaics and illuminated manuscripts. The iconoclasm controversy briefly divided the eastern and western churches, after which artistic development progressed in separate directions. Romanesque and Gothic art flowered in the Western Church as the style of painting and statuary moved in an increasingly naturalistic direction. The Protestant Reformation produced new waves of image-destruction, to which the Church responded with the dramatic and emotive Baroque and Rococo styles. In the 19th century the leadership in western art moved away from the Catholic Church which, after embracing historical revivalism was increasingly affected by the modernist movement, a movement that in its "rebellion" against nature, counters the Church's emphasis on nature as a good creation of God.
British art historian Kenneth Clark wrote that Western Europe's first "great age of civilisation" was ready to begin around the year 1000. From 1100, he wrote, monumental abbeys and cathedrals were constructed and decorated with sculptures, hangings, mosaics and works belonging one of the greatest epochs of art and providing stark contrast to the monotonous and cramped conditions of ordinary living during the period. Abbot Suger of the Abbey of St. Denis is considered an influential early patron of Gothic architecture and believed that love of beauty brought people closer to God: "The dull mind rises to truth through that which is material". Clarke calls this "the intellectual background of all the sublime works of art of the next century and in fact has remained the basis of our belief of the value of art until today".[98]
Later, during The Renaissance and Counter-Reformation, Catholic artists produced many of the unsurpassed masterpieces of Western art – often inspired by biblical themes: from Michelangelo's Moses and David and Pietà sculptures, to Da Vinci's Last Supper and Raphael's various Madonna paintings. Referring to a "great outburst of creative energy such as took place in Rome between 1620 and 1660", Kenneth Clarke wrote:[98]
[W]ith a single exception, the great artists of the time were all sincere, conforming Christians. Guercino spent much of his mornings in prayer; Bernini frequently went into retreats and practised the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius; Rubens attended Mass every morning before beginning work. The exception was Caravaggio, who was like the hero of a modern play, except that he happened to paint very well. This conformism was not based on fear of the Inquisition, but on the perfectly simple belief that the faith which had inspired the great saints of the preceding generation was something by which a man should regulate his life.
Hans Holbein the Younger's Noli me tangere a relatively rare Protestant oil painting of Christ from the Reformation period. It is small, and generally naturalistic in style, avoiding iconic elements like the halo, which is barely discernible.
The Protestant Reformation during the 16th century in Europe almost entirely rejected the existing tradition of Catholic art, and very often destroyed as much of it as it could reach. A new artistic tradition developed, producing far smaller quantities of art that followed Protestant agendas and diverged drastically from the southern European tradition and the humanist art produced during the High Renaissance. In turn, the Catholic Counter-Reformation both reacted against and responded to Protestant criticisms of art in Roman Catholicism to produce a more stringent style of Catholic art. Protestant religious art both embraced Protestant values and assisted in the proliferation of Protestantism, but the amount of religious art produced in Protestant countries was hugely reduced. Artists in Protestant countries diversified into secular forms of art like history painting, landscape painting, portrait painting and still life.
The university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[64][63][99] Prior to the establishment of universities, European higher education took place for hundreds of years in Christian cathedral schools or monastic schools (Scholae monasticae), in which monks and nuns taught classes; evidence of these immediate forerunners of the later university at many places dates back to the 6thcenturyAD.[100]
Missionary activity for the Catholic Church has always incorporated education of evangelized peoples as part of its social ministry. History shows that in evangelized lands, the first people to operate schools were Roman Catholics. In some countries, the Church is the main provider of education or significantly supplements government forms of education. Presently, the Church operates the world's largest non-governmental school system.[101][102] Many of Western Civilization's most influential universities were founded by the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church founded the West's first universities, which were preceded by the schools attached to monasteries and cathedrals, and generally staffed by monks and friars.[103] Universities began springing up in Italian towns like Salerno, which became a leading medical school, translating the work of Greek and Arabic physicians into Latin. Bologna University became the most influential of the early universities, which first specialised in canon law and civil law. Paris University, specialising in such topics as theology, came to rival Bologna under the supervision of Notre Dame Cathedral. Oxford University in England later came rival Paris in Theology and Salamanca University was founded in Spain in 1243. According to the historian Geoffrey Blainey, the universities benefitted from the use of Latin, the common language of the Church, and its internationalist reach, and their role was to "teach, argue and reason within a Christian framework".[103] The medieval universities of Western Christendom were well-integrated across all of Western Europe, encouraged freedom of enquiry and produced a great variety of fine scholars and natural philosophers, including Robert Grosseteste of the University of Oxford, an early expositor of a systematic method of scientific experimentation;[104] and Saint Albert the Great, a pioneer of biological field research[105] The Catholic church has always been involved in education, since the founding of the first universities of Europe. It runs and sponsors thousands of primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities throughout the world.[106][107]
As the Reformers wanted all members of the church to be able to read the Bible, education on all levels got a strong boost. Compulsory education for both boys and girls was introduced. For example, the Puritans who established Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628 founded Harvard College only eight years later. About a dozen other colleges followed in the 18th century, including Yale University (1701). Pennsylvania also became a centre of learning.[108][109] While Princeton University was a Presbyterian foundation. Protestantism also initiated translations of the Bible into national languages and hereby supported the development of national literatures.
A large number of mainline Protestants have played leadership roles in many aspects of American life, including politics, business, science, the arts, and education. They founded most of the country's leading institutes of higher education.[110] The Ivy League universities have strong White Anglo-Saxon Protestant historical ties, and their influence continues today. Until about World War II, Ivy League universities were composed largely of WASP students.
A Pew Center study about religion and education around the world in 2016, found that Christians ranked as the second most educated religious group around in the world after Jews with an average of 9.3 years of schooling,[118] and the highest of years of schooling among Christians found in Germany (13.6),[118] New Zealand (13.5)[118] and Estonia (13.1).[118] Christians were also found to have the second highest number of graduate and post-graduate degrees per capita while in absolute numbers ranked in the first place (220million).[118] Between the various Christian communities, Singapore outranks other nations in terms of Christians who obtain a university degree in institutions of higher education (67%),[118] followed by the Christians of Israel (63%),[119] and the Christians of Georgia (57%).[118] According to the study, Christians in North America, Europe, Middle East, North Africa and Asia-Pacific regions are highly educated since many of the world universities were built by the historic Christian Churches,[118] in addition to the historical evidence that "Christian monks built libraries and, in the days before printing presses, preserved important earlier writings produced in Latin, Greek and Arabic".[118] According to the same study, Christians have a significant amount of gender equality in educational attainment,[118] and the study suggests that one of the reasons is the encouragement of the Protestant Reformers in promoting the education of women, which led to the eradication of illiteracy among females in Protestant communities.[118] According to the same study "there is a large and pervasive gap in educational attainment between Muslims and Christians in sub-Saharan Africa" as Muslim adults in this region are far less educated than their Christian counterparts,[118] with scholars suggesting that this gap is due to the educational facilities that were created by Christian missionaries during the colonial era for fellow believers.[118]
Gutenberg Bible. The Bible was authored by Jews during the Iron Ages and the Classical era. It comprise cultural values, basic human values, mythology and religious beliefs of both Judaism and Christianity.
Christian literature is writing that deals with Christian themes and incorporates the Christian world view. This constitutes a huge body of extremely varied writing. Christian poetry is any poetry that contains Christian teachings, themes, or references. The influence of Christianity on poetry has been great in any area that Christianity has taken hold. Christian poems often directly reference the Bible, while others provide allegory.
While falling within the strict definition of literature, the Bible is not generally considered literature. However, the Bible has been treated and appreciated as literature; the Bible is a corner stone of Western civilization.[121] The King James Version in particular has long been considered a masterpiece of English prose, whatever may be thought of its religious significance. The Authorized Version has been called "the most influential version of the most influential book in the world, in what is now its most influential language", "the most important book in English religion and culture", and "the most celebrated book in the English-speaking world". David Crystal has estimated that it is responsible for 257 idioms in English, examples include feet of clay and reap the whirlwind. Furthermore, prominent atheist figures such as the late Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have praised the King James Version as being "a giant step in the maturing of English literature" and "a great work of literature", respectively, with Dawkins then adding, "A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian".[122][123] Several retellings of the Bible, or parts of the Bible, have also been made with the aim of emphasising its literary qualities. With estimated sales of over 5 billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the best-selling book of all time.[124][125] It sells approximately 100 million copies annually,[126][127] and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West, where the Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed using movable type.
The stories of the saints which are preserved in the Golden Legend
In Byzantine literature, four different cultural elements are recognised: the Greek, the Christian, the Roman, and the Oriental. Byzantine literature is often classified in five groups: historians and annalists, encyclopaedists (Patriarch Photios, Michael Psellus, and Michael Choniates are regarded as the greatest encyclopaedists of Byzantium) and essayists, and writers of secular poetry. The only genuine heroic epic of the Byzantines is the Digenis Acritas. The remaining two groups include the new literary species: ecclesiastical and theological literature, and popular poetry.[128] And it was in Alexandria that Graeco-Oriental Christianity had its birth. There the Septuagint translation had been made; there that that fusion of Greek philosophy and Jewish religion took place which culminated in Philo; there flourished the mystic speculative Neoplatonism associated with Plotinus and Porphyry. At Alexandria the great Greek ecclesiastical writers worked alongside pagan rhetoricians and philosophers; several were born here, e.g. Origen, Athanasius, and his opponent Arius, also Cyril and Synesius. On Egyptian soil monasticism began and thrived. After Alexandria, Antioch held great prestige, where a school of Christian commentators flourished under St. John Chrysostom and where later arose the Christian universal chronicles. In surrounding Syria, we find the germs of Greek ecclesiastical poetry, while from neighboring Palestine came St. John of Damascus, one of the Greek Fathers.
The list of Catholic authors and literary works is vast. With a literary tradition spanning two millennia, the Bible and Papal Encyclicals have been constants of the Catholic canon but countless other historical works may be listed as noteworthy in terms of their influence on Western society. From late Antiquity, St Augustine's book Confessions, which outlines his sinful youth and conversion to Christianity, is widely considered to be the first autobiography of ever written in the canon of Western Literature. Augustine profoundly influenced the coming medieval worldview. The Summa Theologica, written 1265–1274, is the best-known work of Thomas Aquinas (c.1225–1274), and although unfinished, "one of the classics of the history of philosophy and one of the most influential works of Western literature."[129] It is intended as a manual for beginners in theology and a compendium of all of the main theological teachings of the Church. It presents the reasoning for almost all points of Christian theology in the West. The epic poetry of the Italian Dante and his Divine Comedy of the late Middle Ages is also considered immensely influential. The English statesman and philosopher, Thomas More, wrote the seminal work Utopia in 1516. St Ignatius Loyola, a key figure in the Catholic counter-reformation, is the author of an influential book of meditations known as the Spiritual Exercises.
The administration of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires split and the demise of the Western Empire by the 6th century was accompanied by a series of violent invasions and precipitated the collapse of cities and civic institutions of learning, along with their links to the learning of classical Greece and Rome. For the next thousand years, medical knowledge would change very little.[130] A scholarly medical tradition maintained itself in the more stable East, but in the West, scholarship virtually disappeared outside of the Church, where monks were aware of a dwindling range of medical texts.[131]Hospitality was considered an obligation of Christian charity and bishops' houses and the valetudinaria of wealthier Christians were used to tend the sick. And the legacy of this early period was, in the words of Porter, that "Christianity planted the hospital: the well-endowed establishments of the Levant and the scattered houses of the West shared a common religious ethos of charity."
The Byzantine Empire was one of the first empires to have flourishing medical establishments. Prior to the Byzantine Empire the Roman Empire had hospitals specifically for soldiers and slaves. However, none of these establishments were for the public. The hospitals in Byzantium were originally started by the church to act as a place for the poor to have access to basic amenities. Hospitals were usually separated between men and women. Although the remains of these hospitals have not been discovered by archaeologists, recordings of hospitals from the Byzantine Empire describe large buildings that had the core feature of an open hearth.[132] The establishments of the Byzantine Empire resembled the beginning of what we now know as modern hospitals. The first hospital was erected by Leontius of Antioch between the years 344 to 358 and was a place for strangers and migrants to find refuge. Around the same time, a deacon named Marathonius was in charge of hospitals and monasteries in Constantinople. His main objective was to improve urban aesthetics, illustrating hospitals as a main part of Byzantine cities. These early hospitals were designed for the poor. In fact, most hospitals throughout the Byzantine Empire were almost exclusively utilized by the poor. This may be due to descriptions of hospitals similar to "Gregory Nazianzen who called the hospital a stairway to heaven, implying that it aimed only to ease death for the chronically or terminally ill rather than promote recovery".[132] There is debate between scholars as to why these institutions were started by the church. Many scholars believe that the church founded hospitals in order to receive additional donations. Whatever the case for these hospitals, they began to diffuse across the empire. Soon after, St. Basil of Caesarea developed a place for the sick in which provided refuge for the sick and homeless.[133]
Geoffrey Blainey likened the Catholic Church in its activities during the Middle Ages to an early version of a welfare state: "It conducted hospitals for the old and orphanages for the young; hospices for the sick of all ages; places for the lepers; and hostels or inns where pilgrims could buy a cheap bed and meal". It supplied food to the population during famine and distributed food to the poor. This welfare system the church funded through collecting taxes on a large scale and possessing large farmlands and estates.[134] It was common for monks and clerics to practice medicine and medical students in northern European universities often took minor Holy orders. Mediaeval hospitals had a strongly Christian ethos, and were, in the words of historian of medicine Roy Porter, "religious foundations through and through", and Ecclesiastical regulations were passed to govern medicine, partly to prevent clergymen profiting from medicine.[135] During Europe's Age of Discovery, Catholic missionaries, notably the Jesuits, introduced the modern sciences to India, China and Japan. While persecutions continue to limit the spread of Catholic institutions to some Middle Eastern Muslim nations, and such places as the People's Republic of China and North Korea, elsewhere in Asia the church is a major provider of health care services - especially in Catholic Nations like the Philippines.
Today the Roman Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of health care services in the world.[136] It has around 18,000 clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly and those with special needs, and 5,500 hospitals, with 65 percent of them located in developing countries.[137] In 2010, the Church's Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers said that the Church manages 26% of the world's health care facilities.[138] The Church's involvement in health care has ancient origins.
Christian music is music that has been written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life and faith. Common themes of Christian music include praise, worship, penitence, and lament, and its forms vary widely across the world.
Like other forms of music the creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of Christian music varies according to culture and social context. Christian music is composed and performed for many purposes, ranging from aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, or as an entertainment product for the marketplace.
In music, Catholic monks developed the first forms of modern Western musical notation in order to standardize liturgy throughout the worldwide Church,[139] and an enormous body of religious music has been composed for it through the ages. This led directly to the emergence and development of European classical music, and its many derivatives. The Baroque style, which encompassed music, art, and architecture, was particularly encouraged by the post-Reformation Catholic Church as such forms offered a means of religious expression that was stirring and emotional, intended to stimulate religious fervor.[140]
Christian philosophy is a term to describe the fusion of various fields of philosophy with the theological doctrines of Christianity. Scholasticism, which means "that [which] belongs to the school", and was a method of learning taught by the academics (or school people) of medieval universities c. 1100–1500. Scholasticism originally started to reconcile the philosophy of the ancient classical philosophers with medieval Christian theology. Scholasticism is not a philosophy or theology in itself but a tool and method for learning which places emphasis on dialectical reasoning.
Medieval philosophy is the philosophy of Western Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages, roughly extending from the Christianization of the Roman Empire until the Renaissance.[141] Medieval philosophy is defined partly by the rediscovery and further development of classical Greek and Hellenistic philosophy, and partly by the need to address theological problems and to integrate the then widespread sacred doctrines of Abrahamic religion (Islam, Judaism, and Christianity) with secular learning.
The history of western European medieval philosophy is traditionally divided into two main periods: the period in the Latin West following the Early Middle Ages until the 12th century, when the works of Aristotle and Plato were preserved and cultivated; and the "golden age" of the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries in the Latin West, which witnessed the culmination of the recovery of ancient philosophy, and significant developments in the field of philosophy of religion, logic and metaphysics.
Summa theologica, Pars secunda, prima pars. (copy by Peter Schöffer, 1471)
The medieval era was disparagingly treated by the Renaissance humanists, who saw it as a barbaric "middle" period between the classical age of Greek and Roman culture, and the "rebirth" or renaissance of classical culture. Yet this period of nearly a thousand years was the longest period of philosophical development in Europe, and possibly the richest. Jorge Gracia has argued that "in intensity, sophistication, and achievement, the philosophical flowering in the thirteenth century could be rightly said to rival the golden age of Greek philosophy in the fourth century B.C."[142]
Some problems discussed throughout this period are the relation of faith to reason, the existence and unity of God, the object of theology and metaphysics, the problems of knowledge, of universals, and of individuation.
Aquinas, father of Thomism, was immensely influential in Catholic Europe, placed a great emphasis on reason and argumentation, and was one of the first to use the new translation of Aristotle's metaphysical and epistemological writing. His work was a significant departure from the Neoplatonic and Augustinian thinking that had dominated much of early Scholasticism.
The Renaissance ("rebirth") was a period of transition between the Middle Ages and modern thought,[143] in which the recovery of classical texts helped shift philosophical interests away from technical studies in logic, metaphysics, and theology towards eclectic inquiries into morality, philology, and mysticism.[144] The study of the classics and the humane arts generally, such as history and literature, enjoyed a scholarly interest hitherto unknown in Christendom, a tendency referred to as humanism.[145] Displacing the medieval interest in metaphysics and logic, the humanists followed Petrarch in making man and his virtues the focus of philosophy.[146]
These new movements in philosophy developed contemporaneously with larger religious and political transformations in Europe: the Reformation and the decline of feudalism. Though the theologians of the Protestant Reformation showed little direct interest in philosophy, their destruction of the traditional foundations of theological and intellectual authority harmonized with a revival of fideism and skepticism in thinkers such as Erasmus, Montaigne, and Francisco Sanches.[147] Meanwhile, the gradual centralization of political power in nation-states was echoed by the emergence of secular political philosophies, as in the works of Niccolò Machiavelli (often described as the first modern political thinker, or a key turning point towards modern political thinking), Thomas More, Erasmus, Justus Lipsius, Jean Bodin, and Hugo Grotius.[148][149]
Science, and particularly geometry and astronomy, was linked directly to the divine for most medieval scholars. The compass in this 13th-century manuscript is a symbol of creation.
Earlier attempts at reconciliation of Christianity with Newtonian mechanics appear quite different from later attempts at reconciliation with the newer scientific ideas of evolution or relativity.[150] Many early interpretations of evolution polarized themselves around a struggle for existence. These ideas were significantly countered by later findings of universal patterns of biological cooperation. According to John Habgood, all man really knows here is that the universe seems to be a mix of good and evil, beauty and pain, and that suffering may somehow be part of the process of creation. Habgood holds that Christians should not be surprised that suffering may be used creatively by God, given their faith in the symbol of the Cross.[150]Robert John Russell has examined consonance and dissonance between modern physics, evolutionary biology, and Christian theology.[151][152]
Christian philosophersAugustine of Hippo (354–430) and Thomas Aquinas[153] held that scriptures can have multiple interpretations on certain areas where the matters were far beyond their reach, therefore one should leave room for future findings to shed light on the meanings. The "Handmaiden" tradition, which saw secular studies of the universe as a very important and helpful part of arriving at a better understanding of scripture, was adopted throughout Christian history from early on.[154] Also the sense that God created the world as a self operating system is what motivated many Christians throughout the Middle Ages to investigate nature.[155]
Modern historians of science such as J.L. Heilbron,[156]Alistair Cameron Crombie, David Lindberg,[157]Edward Grant, Thomas Goldstein,[158] and Ted Davis have reviewed the popular notion that medieval Christianity was a negative influence in the development of civilization and science. In their views, not only did the monks save and cultivate the remnants of ancient civilization during the barbarian invasions, but the medieval church promoted learning and science through its sponsorship of many universities which, under its leadership, grew rapidly in Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries, St. Thomas Aquinas, the Church's "model theologian", not only argued that reason is in harmony with faith, he even recognized that reason can contribute to understanding revelation, and so encouraged intellectual development. He was not unlike other medieval theologians who sought out reason in the effort to defend his faith.[159] Some of today's scholars, such as Stanley Jaki, have claimed that Christianity with its particular worldview, was a crucial factor for the emergence of modern science.[160] Some scholars and historians attributes Christianity to having contributed to the rise of the Scientific Revolution.[161][162][71][163]
Professor Noah J Efron says that "Generations of historians and sociologists have discovered many ways in which Christians, Christian beliefs, and Christian institutions played crucial roles in fashioning the tenets, methods, and institutions of what in time became modern science. They found that some forms of Christianity provided the motivation to study nature systematically..."[164] Virtually all modern scholars and historians agree that Christianity moved many early-modern intellectuals to study nature systematically.[165]
Isaac Newton, for example, believed that gravity caused the planets to revolve about the Sun, and credited God with the design. In the concluding General Scholium to the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, he wrote: "This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being." Other famous founders of science who adhered to Christian beliefs include Galileo, Johannes Kepler, and Blaise Pascal.[186][187]
luminure from the Hunayn ibn-Ishaq al-'Ibadi manuscript of the Isagoge: Hunayn ibn-Ishaq was a famous and influential Christian scholar, physician, and scientist of ethnic Arab descent
Byzantine science was essentially classical science,[191] and played an important and crucial role in the transmission of classical knowledge to the Islamic world and to Renaissance Italy.[192][193] Many of the most distinguished classical scholars held high office in the Eastern Orthodox Church.[194] Therefore, Byzantine science was in every period closely connected with ancient-pagan philosophy, and metaphysics. Despite some opposition to pagan learning, many of the most distinguished classical scholars held high office in the Church.[195] The writings of antiquity never ceased to be cultivated in the Byzantine empire due to the impetus given to classical studies by the Academy of Athens in the 4th and 5th centuries, the vigor of the philosophical academy of Alexandria, and to the services of the University of Constantinople, which concerned itself entirely with secular subjects, to the exclusion of theology,[196] which was taught in the Patriarchical Academy. Even the latter offered instruction in the ancient classics, and included literary, philosophical, and scientific texts in its curriculum. The monastic schools concentrated upon the Bible, theology, and liturgy. Therefore, the monastic scriptoria expended most of their efforts upon the transcription of ecclesiastical manuscripts, while ancient-pagan literature was transcribed, summarized, excerpted, and annotated by laymen or clergy like Photios, Arethas of Caesarea, Eustathius of Thessalonica, and Basilius Bessarion.[197] Byzantine scientists preserved and continued the legacy of the great Ancient Greek mathematicians and put mathematics in practice. In early Byzantium (5th to 7th century) the architects and mathematicians Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles used complex mathematical formulas to construct the great Hagia Sophia church, a technological breakthrough for its time and for centuries afterwards due to its striking geometry, bold design and height. In late Byzantium (9th to 12th century) mathematicians like Michael Psellos considered mathematics as a way to interpret the world.
Many scholars of the House of Wisdom were of Christian background;[200] the House of Wisdom was a library, translation institute, and academy established in Abbasid-era Baghdad, Iraq.[201][202] Nestorians played a prominent role in the formation of Arab culture,[43] with the Jundishapur school being prominent in the late Sassanid, Umayyad and early Abbasid periods.[203] Notably, eight generations of the Nestorian Bukhtishu family served as private doctors to caliphs and sultans between the 8th and 11th centuries.[204][205]
The migration waves of Byzantine scholars and émigrés in the period following the Crusadersacking of Constantinople in 1204 and the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, is considered by many scholars key to the revival of Greek and Roman studies that led to the development of the Renaissance humanism,[206] and science. These émigrés brought to Western Europe the relatively well-preserved remnants and accumulated knowledge of their own (Greek) civilization, which had mostly not survived the Early Middle Ages in the West. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica: "Many modern scholars also agree that the exodus of Greeks to Italy as a result of this event marked the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance".[207]
While refined and clarified over the centuries, the Roman Catholic position on the relationship between science and religion is one of harmony, and has maintained the teaching of natural law as set forth by Thomas Aquinas. For example, regarding scientific study such as that of evolution, the church's unofficial position is an example of theistic evolution, stating that faith and scientific findings regarding human evolution are not in conflict, though humans are regarded as a special creation, and that the existence of God is required to explain both monogenism and the spiritual component of human origins. Catholic schools have included all manners of scientific study in their curriculum for many centuries.[208]
Galileo once stated "The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."[209] In 1981 John Paul II, then pope of the Roman Catholic Church, spoke of the relationship this way: "The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise, but in order to state the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expresses itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer".[210]
The influence of the Church on Western letters and learning has been formidable. The ancient texts of the Bible have deeply influenced Western art, literature and culture. For centuries following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, small monastic communities were practically the only outposts of literacy in Western Europe. In time, the Cathedral schools developed into Europe's earliest universities and the church has established thousands of primary, secondary and tertiary institutions throughout the world in the centuries since. The Church and clergymen have also sought at different times to censor texts and scholars. Thus different schools of opinion exist as to the role and influence of the Church in relation to western letters and learning.
Numbers written with Cistercian numerals. From left to right: 1 in units place, 2 in tens place (20), 3 in hundreds place (300), 4 in thousands place (4000), then compound numbers 5555, 6789, 9394.
The Catholic Cistercian order used its own numbering system, which could express numbers from 0 to 9999 in a single sign.[211][212] According to one modern Cistercian, "enterprise and entrepreneurial spirit" have always been a part of the order's identity, and the Cistercians "were catalysts for development of a market economy" in 12th-century Europe.[213] Until the Industrial Revolution, most of the technological advances in Europe were made in the monasteries.[213] According to the medievalist Jean Gimpel, their high level of industrial technology facilitated the diffusion of new techniques: "Every monastery had a model factory, often as large as the church and only several feet away, and waterpower drove the machinery of the various industries located on its floor."[214] Waterpower was used for crushing wheat, sieving flour, fulling cloth and tanning – a "level of technological achievement [that] could have been observed in practically all" of the Cistercian monasteries.[215] The English science historian James Burke examines the impact of Cistercian waterpower, derived from Roman watermill technology such as that of Barbegal aqueduct and mill near Arles in the fourth of his ten-part Connections TV series, called "Faith in Numbers". The Cistercians made major contributions to culture and technology in medieval Europe: Cistercian architecture is considered one of the most beautiful styles of medieval architecture;[216] and the Cistercians were the main force of technological diffusion in fields such as agriculture and hydraulic engineering.[216]
One view, first propounded by Enlightenment philosophers, asserts that the Church's doctrines are entirely superstitious and have hindered the progress of civilization. Communist states have made similar arguments in their education in order to inculcate a negative view of Catholicism (and religion in general) in their citizens. The most famous incidents cited by such critics are the Church's condemnations of the teachings of Copernicus, Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler.
The Jesuits have made numerous significant contributions to the development of science. For example, the Jesuits have dedicated significant study to earthquakes, and seismology has been described as "the Jesuit science".[217] The Jesuits have been described as "the single most important contributor to experimental physics in the seventeenth century".[218] According to Jonathan Wright in his book God's Soldiers, by the 18th century the Jesuits had "contributed to the development of pendulum clocks, pantographs, barometers, reflecting telescopes and microscopes, to scientific fields as various as magnetism, optics and electricity. They observed, in some cases before anyone else, the colored bands on Jupiter's surface, the Andromeda nebula and Saturn's rings. They theorized about the circulation of the blood (independently of Harvey), the theoretical possibility of flight, the way the moon affected the tides, and the wave-like nature of light."[219]
Protestantism had an important influence on science. According to the Merton Thesis there was a positive correlation between the rise of Puritanism and ProtestantPietism on the one hand and early experimental science on the other.[220] The Merton Thesis has two separate parts: Firstly, it presents a theory that science changes due to an accumulation of observations and improvement in experimental techniques and methodology; secondly, it puts forward the argument that the popularity of science in 17th-century England and the religious demography of the Royal Society (English scientists of that time were predominantly Puritans or other Protestants) can be explained by a correlation between Protestantism and the scientific values.[221] In his theory, Robert K. Merton focused on English Puritanism and German Pietism as having been responsible for the development of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries. Merton explained that the connection between religious affiliation and interest in science was the result of a significant synergy between the ascetic Protestant values and those of modern science.[222] Protestant values encouraged scientific research by allowing science to study God's influence on the world and thus providing a religious justification for scientific research.[220]
According of Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States by Harriet Zuckerman, a review of American Nobel prizes winners awarded between 1901 and 1972, 72% of American Nobel Prize laureates, have identified from Protestant background.[223] Overall, Protestant have won a total of 84.2% of all the American Nobel Prizes in Chemistry,[223] 60% in Medicine,[223] 58.6% in Physics,[223] between 1901 and 1972.
The notion of "Christian finance" refers to banking and financial activities which came into existence several centuries ago. Whether the activities of the Knights Templar (12th century), Mounts of Piety (appeared in 1462) or the Apostolic Chamber attached directly to the Vatican, a number of operations of a banking nature (money loan, guarantee, etc.) or a financial nature (issuance of securities, investments) is proved, despite the prohibition of usury and the Church distrust against exchange activities (opposed to production activities).[224]
Francisco de Vitoria, a disciple of Thomas Aquinas and a Catholic thinker who studied the issue regarding the human rights of colonized natives, is recognized by the United Nations as a father of international law, and now also by historians of economics and democracy as a leading light for the West's democracy and rapid economic development.[225]Joseph Schumpeter, an economist of the 20th century, referring to the Scholastics, wrote, "it is they who come nearer than does any other group to having been the 'founders' of scientific economics."[226] Other economists and historians, such as Raymond de Roover, Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, and Alejandro Chafuen, have also made similar statements.
The Protestant concept of God and man allows believers to use all their God-given faculties, including the power of reason. That means that they are allowed to explore God's creation and, according to Genesis 2:15, make use of it in a responsible and sustainable way. Thus a cultural climate was created that greatly enhanced the development of the humanities and the sciences.[227] Another consequence of the Protestant understanding of man is that the believers, in gratitude for their election and redemption in Christ, are to follow God's commandments. Industry, frugality, calling, discipline, and a strong sense of responsibility are at the heart of their moral code.[228][229] In particular, John Calvin rejected luxury. Therefore, craftsmen, industrialists, and other businessmen were able to reinvest the greater part of their profits in the most efficient machinery and the most modern production methods that were based on progress in the sciences and technology. As a result, productivity grew, which led to increased profits and enabled employers to pay higher wages. In this way, the economy, the sciences, and technology reinforced each other. The chance to participate in the economic success of technological inventions was a strong incentive to both inventors and investors.[230][231][232][233] The Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that influenced the development of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. This idea is also known as the "Protestant ethic thesis".[234] In the book The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save It from Itself Lawrence E. Harrison argues that Protestantism along with Confucianism, and Judaism have been more successful in promoting progress, culture and society. Due to the Protestant virtues of education, achievement, work ethic, merit, frugality, and honesty.
The rise of Protestantism in the 16th contributed to the development of banking in Northern Europe. In the late 18th century, Protestant merchant families began to move into banking to an increasing degree, especially in trading countries such as the United Kingdom (Barings), Germany (Schroders, Berenbergs)[244] and the Netherlands (Hope & Co., Gülcher & Mulder) At the same time, new types of financial activities broadened the scope of banking far beyond its origins. One school of thought attributes Calvinism with setting the stage for the later development of capitalism in northern Europe.[245] The Morgan family is an American Episcopal Church family and banking dynasty, which became prominent in the U.S. and throughout the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[235] Catholic banking families includes House of Medici,[246]Welser family, Fugger family,[247] and Simonetti family.
Some academics have theorized that Lutheranism, the dominant traditional religion of the Nordic countries, had an effect on the development of social democracy there and the Nordic model. Schröder posits that Lutheranism promoted the idea of a nationwide community of believers and led to increased state involvement in economic and social life, allowing for nationwide welfare solidarity and economic co-ordination.[248][249][250] Esa Mangeloja says that the revival movements helped to pave the way for the modern Finnish welfare state. During that process, the church lost some of its most important social responsibilities (health care, education, and social work) as these tasks were assumed by the secular Finnish state.[251] Pauli Kettunen presents the Nordic model as the outcome of a sort of mythical "Lutheran peasant enlightenment", portraying the Nordic model as the result of a sort of "secularized Lutheranism";[252] however, mainstream academic discourse on the subject focuses on "historical specificity", with the centralized structure of the Lutheran church being but one aspect of the cultural values and state structures that led to the development of the welfare state in Scandinavia.[253]
Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Christians, and traditional Protestant communities frame worship around the liturgical year. The liturgical cycle divides the year into a series of seasons, each with their theological emphases, and modes of prayer, which can be signified by different ways of decorating churches, colours of paraments and vestments for clergy,[255] scriptural readings, themes for preaching and even different traditions and practices often observed personally or in the home.
Western Christian liturgical calendars are based on the cycle of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church,[255] and Eastern Christians use analogous calendars based on the cycle of their respective rites. Calendars set aside holy days, such as solemnities which commemorate an event in the life of Jesus or Mary, the saints, periods of fasting such as Lent, and other pious events such as memoria or lesser festivals commemorating saints. Christian groups that do not follow a liturgical tradition often retain certain celebrations, such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost: these are the celebrations of Christ's birth, resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, respectively. A few denominations make no use of a liturgical calendar.[256]
In Christian belief and practice, a sacrament is a rite, instituted by Christ, that mediates grace, constituting a sacred mystery. The term is derived from the Latin word sacramentum, which was used to translate the Greek word for mystery. Views concerning both what rites are sacramental, and what it means for an act to be a sacrament vary among Christian denominations and traditions.[280]
Worship can be varied for special events like baptisms or weddings in the service or significant feast days. In the early church, Christians and those yet to complete initiation would separate for the Eucharistic part of the worship. In many churches today, adults and children will separate for all or some of the service to receive age-appropriate teaching. Such children's worship is often called Sunday school or Sabbath school (Sunday schools are often held before rather than during services).
Most Christian denominations practice infant baptism[299] to enter children into the faith. Some form of confirmation ritual occurs when the child has reached the age of reason and voluntarily accepts the religion. Ritual circumcision is used to mark Coptic Christian[300] and Ethiopian Orthodox Christian[301] infant males as belonging to the faith. During the early period of capitalism, the rise of a large, commercial middle class, mainly in the Protestant countries of the Netherlands and England, brought about a new family ideology centred around the upbringing of children. Puritanism stressed the importance of individual salvation and concern for the spiritual welfare of children. It became widely recognized that children possess rights on their own behalf. This included the rights of poor children to sustenance, membership in a community, education, and job training. The Poor Relief Acts in Elizabethan England put responsibility on each Parish to care for all the poor children in the area.[302] And prior to the 20th century, three major branches of Christianity—Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism[303]—as well as leading Protestant reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin generally held a critical perspective of birth control.[304]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints puts notable emphasis on the family, and the distinctive concept of a united family which lives and progresses forever is at the core of Latter-day Saint doctrine.[305] Church members are encouraged to marry and have children, and as a result, Latter-day Saint families tend to be larger than average. All sexual activity outside of marriage is considered a serious sin. All homosexual activity is considered sinful and same-sex marriages are not performed or supported by the LDS Church. Latter-day Saint fathers who hold the priesthood typically name and bless their children shortly after birth to formally give the child a name and generate a church record for them. Mormons tend to be very family-oriented and have strong connections across generations and with extended family,[306] reflective of their belief that families can be sealed together beyond death. Mormons also have a strict law of chastity, requiring abstention from sexual relations outside heterosexual marriage and fidelity within marriage.
A Pew Center study about Religion and Living arrangements around the world in 2019, found that Christians around the world live in somewhat smaller households, on average, than non-Christians (4.5 vs. 5.1 members). 34% of world's Christian population live in two parent families with minor children, while 29% live in household with extended families, 11% live as couples without other family members, 9% live in household with least one child over the age of 18 with one or two parents, 7% live alone, and 6% live in single parent households.[307] Christians in Asia and Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, and in Sub-Saharan Africa, overwhelmingly live in extended or two parent families with minor children.[307] While more Christians in Europe and North America live alone or as couples without other family members.[307]
Christian cooking combines the food of many cultures in which Christian have lived. A special Christmas family meal is traditionally an important part of the holiday's celebration, and the food that is served varies greatly from country to country. Some regions, such as Sicily, have special meals for Christmas Eve, when 12 kinds of fish are served. In the United Kingdom and countries influenced by its traditions, a standard Christmas meal includes turkey, goose or other large bird, gravy, potatoes, vegetables, sometimes bread and cider. Special desserts are also prepared, such as Christmas pudding, mince pies, fruit cake and Yule log.[329][330]
Christianity has always placed a strong emphasis on hygiene,[333] Despite the denunciation of the mixed bathing style of Roman pools by early Christian clergy, as well as the pagan custom of women naked bathing in front of men, this did not stop the Church from urging its followers to go to public baths for bathing,[334] which contributed to hygiene and good health according to the Church Fathers, Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian. The Church also built public bathing facilities that were separate for both sexes near monasteries and pilgrimage sites; also, the popes situated baths within church basilicas and monasteries since the early Middle Ages.[335] Pope Gregory the Great urged his followers on value of bathing as a bodily need.[336]
Christian pop culture (or Christian popular culture), is the vernacular Christian culture that prevails in any given society. The content of popular culture is determined by the daily interactions, needs and desires, and cultural 'movements' that make up everyday lives of Christians. It can include any number of practices, including those pertaining to cooking, clothing, mass media and the many facets of entertainment such as sports and literature.
In modern urban mass societies, Christian pop culture has been crucially shaped by the development of industrial mass production, the introduction of new technologies of sound and image broadcasting and recording, and the growth of mass media industries—the film, broadcastradio and television, radio, video game, and the book publishing industries, as well as the print and electronic news media.
Items of Christian pop culture most typically appeal to a broad spectrum of Christians. Some argue that broad-appeal items dominate Christian pop culture because profit-making Christian companies that produce and sell items of Christian pop culture attempt to maximize their profits by emphasizing broadly appealing items. And yet the situation is more complex. To take the example of Christian pop music, it is not the case that the music industry can impose any product they wish. In fact, highly popular types of music have often first been elaborated in small, counter-cultural circles such as Christian punk rock or Christian rap.
Because the Christian pop industry is significantly smaller than the secular pop industry, a few organizations and companies dominate the market and have a strong influence over what is dominant within the industry.
Another source of Christian pop culture which makes it differ from pop culture is the influence from mega churches. Christian pop culture reflects the current popularity of megachurches, but also the uniting of smaller community churches. The culture has been led by Hillsong Church in particular, which resides in many countries including Australia, France, and the United Kingdom.[353]
Televangelism (tele- "distance" and "evangelism", meaning "ministry", sometimes called teleministry) is the use of media, specifically radio and television, to communicate Christianity.[361] Televangelists are ministers, whether official or self-proclaimed, who devote a large portion of their ministry to television broadcasting. Some televangelists are also regular pastors or ministers in their own places of worship (often a megachurch), but the majority of their followers come from TV and radio audiences. Others do not have a conventional congregation, and work primarily through television. The term is also used derisively by critics as an insinuation of aggrandizement by such ministers.[362]
Televangelism began as a uniquely American phenomenon, resulting from a largely deregulated media where access to television networks and cable TV is open to virtually anyone who can afford it, combined with a large Christian population that is able to provide the necessary funding. It became especially popular among Evangelical Protestant audiences, whether independent or organized around Christian denominations.[363][364] However, the increasing globalisation of broadcasting has enabled some American televangelists to reach a wider audience through international broadcast networks, including some that are specifically Christian in nature, such as Trinity Broadcasting Network (the world's largest religious television network),[365]The God Channel, Christian Broadcasting Network, Australian Christian Channel, SAT-7 and Emmanuel TV. Domestically produced televangelism is increasingly present in some other nations such as Brazil. Christian television may include broadcast television or cable television channels whose entire broadcast programming schedule is television programs directly related to Christianity or shows including comedy, action, drama, reality, dramatizations and variety shows, movies, and mini-series; which are part of the overall programming of a general-interest television station.
Some countries have more regulated media with either general restrictions on access or specific rules regarding religious broadcasting. In such countries, religious programming is typically produced by TV companies (sometimes as a regulatory or public service requirement) rather than private interest groups.
G. K. Chesterton has been called a Christianophile; he wrote in the early 20th century about the benefits of Christianity. Famous for his use of paradox, Chesterton explained that while Christianity had the most mysteries, it was the most practical religion.[391][392] He pointed to the advance of Christian civilizations as proof of its practicality.[393]T. S. Eliot has shown a strong affinity to the Christian culture; according to him, the common tradition of Christianity and its culture which has made Europe what it is, and the culture of Europe been rooted in Christianity.[394]Winston Churchill has shown a strong affinity to Protestant culture because he felt it "a step nearer Reason".[395] Historian Geoffrey Blainey on his book A Short History of Christianity, discussed the role of Christianity in civilization, and the extent of Christian influence on the world.[396] Some scholars criticize the concept Eurocentrism as a "Christianophile myth" because it has favored the components (mainly Christianity) of European civilization and allowed eurocentrists to brand diverging societies and cultures as "uncivilized".[397]
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, professing that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and is the Son of God, whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible and chronicled in the New Testament. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with over 2.4 billion followers, comprising around 31.2% of the world population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories.
Christendom refers to Christian states, Christian-majority countries or countries in which Christianity is dominant or prevails.
Western Christianity is one of two subdivisions of Christianity. Western Christianity is composed of the Latin Church and Western Protestantism, together with their offshoots such as the Old Catholic Church, Independent Catholicism and Restorationism.
Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in the Eastern Mediterranean region or locations further east, south or north. The term does not describe a single communion or religious denomination. Eastern Christianity is a category distinguished from Western Christianity, which is composed of those Christian traditions and churches that originally developed further west.
Greek Orthodox Church is a term that can refer to any one of three classes of Christian churches, each associated in some way with Greek Christianity, Levantine Arabic-speaking Christians or more broadly the rite used in the Eastern Roman Empire.
In ecclesiology, the Christian Church is what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus Christ. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a synonym for Christianity, despite the fact that it is composed of multiple churches or denominations, many of which hold a doctrinal claim of being the one true church to the exclusion of the others.
Christianity and other religions documents Christianity's relationship with other world religions, and the differences and similarities.
A Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity that comprises all church congregations of the same kind, identifiable by traits such as a name, particular history, organization, leadership, theological doctrine, worship style and, sometimes, a founder. It is a secular and neutral term, generally used to denote any established Christian church. Unlike a cult or sect, a denomination is usually seen as part of the Christian religious mainstream. Most Christian denominations refer to themselves as churches, whereas some newer ones tend to interchangeably use the terms churches, assemblies, fellowships, etc. Divisions between one group and another are defined by authority and doctrine; issues such as the nature of Jesus, the authority of apostolic succession, biblical hermeneutics, theology, ecclesiology, eschatology, and papal primacy may separate one denomination from another. Groups of denominations—often sharing broadly similar beliefs, practices, and historical ties—are sometimes known as "branches of Christianity". These branches differ in many ways, especially through differences in practices and belief.
Cultural Christians are those who received Christian values or appreciate Christian culture. They may be non-practicing Christians, non-theists, apatheists, transtheists, deists, pantheists, or atheists. These individuals may identify as culturally Christian because of family background, personal experiences, or the social and cultural environment in which they grew up.
The Western religions are the religions that originated within Western culture, which are thus historically, culturally, and theologically distinct from Eastern, African and Iranian religions. The term Abrahamic religions is often used instead of using the East and West terminology, as these originated in the Middle East.
Religion has been a major influence on the societies, cultures, traditions, philosophies, artistic expressions and laws within present-day Europe. The largest religion in Europe is Christianity. However, irreligion and practical secularisation are also prominent in some countries. In Southeastern Europe, three countries have Muslim majorities, with Christianity being the second-largest religion in those countries. Ancient European religions included veneration for deities such as Zeus. Modern revival movements of these religions include Heathenism, Rodnovery, Romuva, Druidry, Wicca, and others. Smaller religions include Indian religions, Judaism, and some East Asian religions, which are found in their largest groups in Britain, France, and Kalmykia.
Christianity is the predominant religion in Europe. Christianity has been practiced in Europe since the first century, and a number of the Pauline Epistles were addressed to Christians living in Greece, as well as other parts of the Roman Empire.
The Christian community in Qatar is a diverse mix of European, North and South American, Asian, Middle Eastern and African expatriates. In 2023, they form around 15.4% of the total population. Many of them are from the Philippines, Europe, and India. Most Christians in Qatar are not Arab Christians.
The Abrahamic religions are a grouping of three of the major religions together due to their historical coexistence and competition; it refers to Abraham, a figure mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Quran respectively, and is used to show similarities between these religions and put them in contrast to Indian religions, Iranian religions, and the East Asian religions. Furthermore, some religions categorized as "Abrahamic" also share elements from other categories, such as Indian religions, or for example, Islam with Eastern religions.
Christianity has been intricately intertwined with the history and formation of Western society. Throughout its long history, the Church has been a major source of social services like schooling and medical care; an inspiration for art, culture and philosophy; and an influential player in politics and religion. In various ways it has sought to affect Western attitudes towards vice and virtue in diverse fields. Festivals like Easter and Christmas are marked as public holidays; the Gregorian Calendar has been adopted internationally as the civil calendar; and the calendar itself is measured from an estimation of the date of Jesus's birth.
A Christian is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words Christ and Christian derive from the Koine Greek title Christós, a translation of the Biblical Hebrew term mashiach (מָשִׁיחַ). While there are diverse interpretations of Christianity which sometimes conflict, they are united in believing that Jesus has a unique significance. The term Christian used as an adjective is descriptive of anything associated with Christianity or Christian churches, or in a proverbial sense "all that is noble, and good, and Christ-like." It does not mean "of Christ" or "related or pertaining to Christ".
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and states in the regions of Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also constitute the West. The Western world likewise is called the Occident in contrast to the Eastern world known as the Orient. The West is considered an evolving concept; made up of cultural, political, and economic synergy among diverse groups of people, and not a rigid region with fixed borders and members. Definitions of "Western world" vary according to context and perspectives.
Western culture, also known as Western civilization, European civilization, Occidental culture, or Western society, refers to the diverse culture of the Western World. The term "Western" encompasses the social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, artifacts and technologies primarily rooted in European and Mediterranean histories. A broad concept, "Western culture" does not relate to a region with fixed members or geographical confines. It generally refers to the classical era cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome that expanded across the Mediterranean basin and Europe, and later circulated around the world predominantly through colonization and globalization.
Most scientific and technical innovations prior to the Scientific Revolution were achieved by societies organized by religious traditions. Ancient Christian scholars pioneered individual elements of the scientific method. Historically, Christianity has been and still is a patron of sciences. It has been prolific in the foundation of schools, universities and hospitals, and many Christian clergy have been active in the sciences and have made significant contributions to the development of science.
In some denominations of Christianity, there are a number of regulations involving cleanliness before prayer, observing days of ritual purification, as well as those concerning diet and apparel. The Bible has many rituals of purification in areas ranging from the mundane private rituals of personal hygiene and toilet etiquette to the complex public rituals of social etiquette.
↑ Caltron J.H Hayas, Christianity and Western Civilization (1953), Stanford University Press, p.2: "That certain distinctive features of our Western civilization – the civilization of western Europe and of America— have been shaped chiefly by Judaeo – Graeco – Christianity, Catholic and Protestant."
1 2 Cambridge University Historical Series, An Essay on Western Civilization in Its Economic Aspects, p. 40: Hebraism, like Hellenism, has been an all-important factor in the development of Western Civilization; Judaism, as the precursor of Christianity, has indirectly had had much to do with shaping the ideals and morality of western nations since the christian era.
1 2 Dawson, Christopher; Glenn Olsen (1961). Crisis in Western Education (reprinted.). CUA Press. p.108. ISBN9780813216836.
1 2 3 Curtis, Michael (2017). Jews, Antisemitism, and the Middle East. Routledge. p.173. ISBN9781351510721.
1 2 D. Barr, Michael (2012). Cultural Politics and Asian Values. Routledge. p.81. ISBN9781136001666.
1 2 Sheridan Gilley; Brian Stanley, eds. (2006). The Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 8, World Christianities C.1815-c.1914. Cambridge University Press. p.164. ISBN0521814561. Many of the scientists who contributed to these developments were Christians
1 2 Steane, Andrew (2014). Faithful to Science: The Role of Science in Religion. OUP Oxford. p.179. ISBN978-0191025136. the Christian contribution to science has been uniformly at the top level, but it has reached that level and it has been sufficiently strong overall
1 2 L. Johnson, Eric (2009). Foundations for Soul Care: A Christian Psychology Proposal. InterVarsity Press. p.63. ISBN978-0830875276. Many of the early leaders of the scientific revolution were Christians of various stripes, including Roger Bacon, Copernicus, Kepler, Francis Bacon, Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Pascal, Descartes, Ray, Linnaeus and Gassendi
1 2 S. Kroger, William (2016). Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis in Medicine, Dentistry and Psychology. Pickle Partners Publishing. ISBN978-1787203044. Many prominent Catholic physicians and psychologists have made significant contributions to hypnosis in medicine, dentistry, and psychology.
1 2 3 E. McGrath, Alister (2006). Christianity: An Introduction. John Wiley & Sons. p.336. ISBN1405108991. Virtually every major European composer contributed to the development of church music. Monteverdi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, and Verdi are all examples of composers to have made significant contributions in this sphere. The Catholic church was without question one of the most important patrons of musical developments, and a crucial stimulus to the development of the western musical tradition.
↑ A. Spinello, Richard (2012). The Encyclicals of John Paul II: An Introduction and Commentary. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p.147. ISBN978-1442219427. The insights of Christian philosophy 'would not have happened without the direct or indirect contribution of Christian faith' (FR 76). Typical Christian philosophers include St. Augustine, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas Aquinas. The benefits derived from Christian philosophy are twofold.
↑ Roy Vincelette, Alan (2009). Recent Catholic Philosophy: The Nineteenth Century. Marquette University Press. ISBN978-0874627565. Catholic thinkers contributed extensively to philosophy during the Nineteenth Century. Besides pioneering the revivals of Augustinianism and Thomism, they also helped to initiate such philosophical movements as Romanticism, Traditionalism, Semi-Rationalism, Spiritualism, Ontologism, and Integralism
↑ Hyman, J.; Walsh, J.J. (1967). Philosophy in the Middle Ages: The Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Traditions. New York: Harper & Row. OCLC370638.
↑ Brown, J. (24 July 2014). Encyclopaedia Perthensis, Or, Universal Dictionary of the Arts, Sciences, Literature, Etc.: Intended to Supersede the Use of Other Books of Reference, Volume 18. University of Minnesota. p.179. ISBN978-0191025136. Christians has also contributed greatly to the abolition of slavery, or at least to the mitigation of the rigour of servitude.
↑ Löffler, Klemens (1910). "Humanism". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. VII. New York: Robert Appleton Company. pp. 538–542.
↑ Hillerbrand, Hans J. (2016). Encyclopedia of Protestantism: 4-volume Set. Pickle Partners Publishing. p.174. ISBN978-1787203044. In the centuries succeeding the Reformation the teaching of Protestantism was consistent on the nature of work. Some Protestant theologians also contributed to the study of economics, especially the nineteenth-century Scottish minister Thomas Chalmers.
↑ Baruch A. Shalev, 100 Years of Nobel Prizes (2003), Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, p.57: between 1901 and 2000 reveals that 654 Laureates belong to 28 different religions. Most (65.4%) have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference. ISBN978-0935047370
↑ G. Koenig, Harold (2009). Religion and Spirituality in Psychiatry. Cambridge University Press. p.31. ISBN9780521889520. The Bible is the most globally influential and widely read book ever written. ... it has been a major influence on the behavior, laws, customs, education, art, literature, and morality of Western civilization.
↑ Burnside, Jonathan (2011). God, Justice, and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible. Oxford University Press. p.XXVI. ISBN9780199759217.
1 2 Ferguson, Kitty Pythagoras: His Lives and the Legacy of a Rational Universe Walker Publishing Company, New York, 2008, (page number not available – occurs toward end of Chapter 13, "The Wrap-up of Antiquity"). "It was in the Near and Middle East and North Africa that the old traditions of teaching and learning continued, and where Christian scholars were carefully preserving ancient texts and knowledge of the ancient Greek language."
↑ Caltron J.H Hayas, Christianity and Western Civilization (1953), Stanford University Press, p. 2: "That certain distinctive features of our Western civilization—the civilization of western Europe and of America—have been shaped chiefly by Judaeo – Graeco – Christianity, Catholic and Protestant."
↑ Jack Zipes (2001). The great fairy tale tradition: from Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm: texts, criticism. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN0-393-97636-X. OCLC44133076.
↑ Dawson, Christopher; Olsen, Glenn (1961). Crisis in Western Education (reprinted.). CUA Press. ISBN978-0-8132-1683-6.
↑ Rüegg, Walter: "Foreword. The University as a European Institution", in: A History of the University in Europe. Vol. 1: Universities in the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN0-521-36105-2, pp. xix–xx
1 2 Rüegg, Walter: "Foreword. The University as a European Institution", in: A History of the University in Europe. Vol. 1: Universities in the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN0-521-36105-2, pp. XIX–XX
↑ Wallace, William A. (1984). Prelude, Galileo and his Sources. The Heritage of the Collegio Romano in Galileo's Science. NJ: Princeton University Press.
↑ Cohen, I. Bernard (1990). Puritanism and the rise of modern science: the Merton thesis. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. ISBN978-0813515304.
↑ Weber, Max (1905). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
↑ Cf. Jeremy Waldron (2002), God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke's Political Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK), ISBN978-0-521-89057-1, pp. 189, 208
↑ Buringh, Eltjo; van Zanden, Jan Luiten: "Charting the 'Rise of the West': Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries", The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 69, No. 2 (2009), pp.409–445 (416, table 1)
1 2 Eveleigh, Bogs (2002). Baths and Basins: The Story of Domestic Sanitation. Stroud, England: Sutton.
↑ Christianity has always placed a strong emphasis on hygiene:
Warsh, Cheryl Krasnick; Strong-Boag, Veronica (2006). Children's Health Issues in Historical Perspective. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. p.315. ISBN978-0-88920-912-1. ... From Fleming's perspective, the transition to Christianity required a good dose of personal and public hygiene ...
Cheryl Krasnick Warsh; Veronica Strong-Boag, eds. (2006). Children's Health Issues in Historical Perspective. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. p.315. ISBN9780889209121. ... Thus bathing also was considered a part of good health practice. For example, Tertullian attended the baths and believed them hygienic. Clement of Alexandria, while condemning excesses, had given guidelines for Christians who wished to attend the baths ...
Squatriti, Paolo (2002). Water and Society in Early Medieval Italy, AD 400–1000, Parti 400–1000. Cambridge University Press. p.54. ISBN9780521522069. ... but baths were normally considered therapeutic until the days of Gregory the Great, who understood virtuous bathing to be bathing "on account of the needs of body" ...
Eveleigh, Bogs (2002). Baths and Basins: The Story of Domestic Sanitation. Stroud, England: Sutton.
Christianity's role in the development and promotion of spas:
Bradley, Ian (2012). Water: A Spiritual History. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN9781441167675.
Contribution of the Christian missionaries of better health care of the people through hygiene and introducing and distributing the soaps:
Channa, Subhadra (2009). The Forger's Tale: The Search for Odeziaku. Indiana University Press. p.284. ISBN9788177550504. A major contribution of the Christian missionaries was better health care of the people through hygiene. Soap, tooth–powder and brushes came to be used increasingly in urban areas.
Thomas, John (2015). Evangelising the Nation: Religion and the Formation of Naga Political Identity. Routledge. p.284. ISBN9781317413981. cleanliness and hygiene became an important marker of being identified as a Christian
↑ Rawson, Beryl Rawson (2010). A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds. John Wiley & Sons. p.111. ISBN978-1-4443-9075-9. ...Christianity placed great emphasis on the family and on all members from children to the aged...
↑ Pritchard, Colin Pritchard (2006). Mental Health Social Work: Evidence-Based Practice. Routledge. p.111. ISBN9781134365449.
↑ T. Mathews, The early churches of Constantinople: architecture and liturgy (University Park, 1971); N. Henck, "Constantius ho Philoktistes?", Dumbarton Oaks Papers 55 (2001), 279–304 (available onlineArchived 27 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine ).
1 2 Kenneth Clarke; Civilisation, BBC, SBN 563 10279 9; first published 1969.
↑ Verger, Jacques. "The Universities and Scholasticism", in The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume V c. 1198–c. 1300. Cambridge University Press, 2007, 257.
↑ Riché, Pierre (1978): "Education and Culture in the Barbarian West: From the Sixth through the Eighth Century", Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, ISBN0-87249-376-8, pp.126–7, 282–98
↑ Clifton E. Olmstead (1960), History of Religion in the United States, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., pp. 69–80, 88–89, 114–117, 186–188
↑ M. Schmidt, Kongregationalismus, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3. Auflage, Band III (1959), Tübingen (Germany), col. 1770
↑ McKinney, William. "Mainline Protestantism 2000". Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 558, Americans and Religions in the Twenty-First Century (July 1998), pp. 57–66.
↑ Princeton University Office of Communications. "Princeton in the American Revolution". Retrieved 24 May 2011. The original Trustees of Princeton University "were acting in behalf of the evangelical or New Light wing of the Presbyterian Church, but the College had no legal or constitutional identification with that denomination. Its doors were to be open to all students, 'any different sentiments in religion notwithstanding.'"
1 2 McCaughey, Robert (2003). Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University in the City of New York. New York, New York: Columbia University Press. p.1. ISBN0-231-13008-2.
↑ "Duke University's Relation to the Methodist Church: the basics". Duke University. 2002. Archived from the original on 12 June 2010. Retrieved 27 March 2010. Duke University has historical, formal, on-going, and symbolic ties with Methodism, but is an independent and non-sectarian institution... Duke would not be the institution it is today without its ties to the Methodist Church. However, the Methodist Church does not own or direct the University. Duke is and has developed as a private non-profit corporation which is owned and governed by an autonomous and self-perpetuating Board of Trustees.
↑ Ross, James F., "Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (ca. 1273), Christian Wisdom Explained Philosophically", in The Classics of Western Philosophy: A Reader's Guide, (eds.) Jorge J. E. Gracia, Gregory M. Reichberg, Bernard N. Schumacher (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), p. 165.
↑ Roy Porter; The Greatest Benefit to Mankind - a Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present; Harper Collins; 1997; pp82-83
↑ Roy Porter; The Greatest Benefit to Mankind - a Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present; Harper Collins; 1997; p.90.
1 2 Miller, Timothy (1985). "The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire". The Henry E. Sigerist Supplements to the Bulletin of the History of Medicine (10). Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins: 142–146. PMID3902734.
↑ Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume II: From Augustine to Scotus (Burns & Oates, 1950), p. 1, dates medieval philosophy proper from the Carolingian Renaissance in the 8th century to the end of the 14th century, although he includes Augustine and the Patristic fathers as precursors. Desmond Henry, in Paul Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Macmillan, 1967), vol. 5, pp. 252–257, starts with Augustine and ends with Nicholas of Oresme in the late 14th century. David Luscombe, Medieval Thought (Oxford University Press, 1997), dates medieval philosophy from the conversion of Constantine in 312 to the Protestant Reformation in the 1520s. Christopher Hughes, in A.C. Grayling (ed.), Philosophy 2: Further through the Subject (Oxford University Press, 1998), covers philosophers from Augustine to Ockham. Jorge J.E. Gracia, in Nicholas Bunnin and E.P. Tsui-James (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Blackwell, 2003), p. 620, identifies medieval philosophy as running from Augustine to John of St. Thomas in the 17th century. Anthony Kenny, A New History of Western Philosophy, Volume II: Medieval Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2005), begins with Augustine and ends with the Lateran Council of 1512.
↑ Charles Schmitt and Quentin Skinner (eds.), The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 5, loosely define the period as extending "from the age of Ockham to the revisionary work of Bacon, Descartes and their contemporaries."
↑ Brian Copenhaver and Charles Schmitt, Renaissance Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 4: "one may identify the hallmark of Renaissance philosophy as an accelerated and enlarged interest, stimulated by newly available texts, in primary sources of Greek and Roman thought that were previously unknown or partially known or little read."
↑ Jorge J.E. Gracia in Nicholas Bunnin and E.P. Tsui-James (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Blackwell, 2002), p. 621: "the humanists... restored man to the centre of attention and channeled their efforts to the recovery and transmission of classical learning, particularly in the philosophy of Plato."
↑ Charles B. Schmitt and Quentin Skinner (eds.), The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, pp. 61 and 63: "From Petrarch the early humanists learnt their conviction that the revival of humanae literae was only the first step in a greater intellectual renewal" "the very conception of philosophy was changing because its chief object was now man—man was at centre of every inquiry".
↑ Richard Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle (Oxford University Press, 2003).
↑ Copenhaver and Schmitt, Renaissance Philosophy, pp. 274–284.
↑ Schmitt and Skinner, The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, pp. 430–452.
1 2 Religion and Science, John Habgood, Mills & Brown, 1964, pp., 11, 14–16, 48–55, 68–69, 90–91, 87
↑ Russell, Robert John (2008). Cosmology: From Alpha to Omega. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. p.344. ISBN978-0-8006-6273-8.
↑ Grant, Edward (2006). Science and Religion, 400 B.C. to A.D. 1550: from Aristotle to Copernicus (Johns Hopkins Paperbacksed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. p.222. ISBN0-8018-8401-2.
↑ Sheridan Gilley; Brian Stanley, eds. (2006). The Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 8, World Christianities C.1815-c.1914. Cambridge University Press. p.164. ISBN0521814561.
↑ Pro forma candidate to Prince-Bishop of Warmia, cf. Dobrzycki, Jerzy, and Leszek Hajdukiewicz, "Kopernik, Mikołaj", Polski słownik biograficzny (Polish Biographical Dictionary), vol. XIV, Wrocław, Polish Academy of Sciences, 1969, p. 11.
↑ Sharratt, Michael (1994). Galileo: Decisive Innovator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp.17, 213. ISBN0-521-56671-1.
↑ "Because he would not accept the Formula of Concord without some reservations, he was excommunicated from the Lutheran communion. Because he remained faithful to his Lutheranism throughout his life, he experienced constant suspicion from Catholics." John L. Treloar, "Biography of Kepler shows man of rare integrity. Astronomer saw science and spirituality as one." National Catholic Reporter, 8 October 2004, p. 2a. A review of James A. Connor Kepler's Witch: An Astronomer's Discovery of Cosmic Order amid Religious War, Political Intrigue and Heresy Trial of His Mother, Harper San Francisco.
↑ Peter J. Bowler, Reconciling Science and Religion: The Debate in Early-Twentieth-Century Britain (2014). University of Chicago Press. p. 35. ISBN9780226068596. "Both Lord Rayleigh and J. J. Thomson were Anglicans."
↑ Seeger, Raymond. 1986. "J. J. Thomson, Anglican," in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, 38 (June 1986): 131–132. The Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation. ""As a Professor, J.J. Thomson did attend the Sunday evening college chapel service, and as Master, the morning service. He was a regular communicant in the Anglican Church. In addition, he showed an active interest in the Trinity Mission at Camberwell. With respect to his private devotional life, J.J. Thomson would invariably practice kneeling for daily prayer, and read his Bible before retiring each night. He truly was a practicing Christian!" (Raymond Seeger 1986, 132)."
↑ Robins, Robert Henry (1993). "Chapter I". The Byzantine Grammarians: Their Place in History. Walter de Gruyter. p.8. ISBN978-3-11-013574-9.
↑ The faculty was composed exclusively of philosophers, scientists, rhetoricians, and philologists (Tatakes, Vasileios N.; Moutafakis, Nicholas J. (2003). Byzantine Philosophy. Hackett Publishing. p.189. ISBN0-87220-563-0.)
↑ The faculty was composed exclusively of philosophers, scientists, rhetoricians, and philologists (Tatakes, Vasileios N.; Moutafakis, Nicholas J. (2003). Byzantine Philosophy. Hackett Publishing. p.189. ISBN0-87220-563-0.)
↑ Anastos, Milton V. (1962). "The History of Byzantine Science. Report on the Dumbarton Oaks Symposium of 1961". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 16. Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University: 409–411. doi:10.2307/1291170. JSTOR1291170.
↑ Hyman and Walsh Philosophy in the Middle Ages Indianapolis, 1973, p. 204' Meri, Josef W. and Jere L. Bacharach, Editors, Medieval Islamic Civilization Vol.1, A-K, Index, 2006, p. 304.
↑ Hyman and Walsh Philosophy in the Middle Ages Indianapolis, 3rd edition, p. 216
↑ Meri, Josef W. and Jere L. Bacharach, Editors, Medieval Islamic Civilization Vol.1, A – K, Index, 2006, p. 451
↑ The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 22:2 Mehmet Mahfuz Söylemez, The Jundishapur School: Its History, Structure, and Functions, p.3.
↑ Gregory, Andrew (1998), Handout for course 'The Scientific Revolution' at The Scientific Revolution
↑ Becker, George (1992), "The Merton Thesis: Oetinger and German Pietism, a significant negative case". Sociological Forum (Springer) 7 (4), pp. 642–660
1 2 3 4 Harriet Zuckerman, Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States New York, The Free Press, 1977, p.68: Protestants turn up among the American-reared laureates in slightly greater proportion to their numbers in the general population. Thus 72 percent of the seventy-one laureates but about two-thirds of the American population were reared in one or another Protestant denomination-)
↑ J. Le Goff, Marchands et banquiers au Moyen Âge, Puf Quadrige, 2011, p. 75
↑ Schumpeter, Joseph (1954). History of Economic Analysis. London: Allen & Unwin.
↑ Gerhard Lenski (1963), The Religious Factor: A Sociological Study of Religion's Impact on Politics, Economics, and Family Life, Revised Edition, A Doubleday Anchor Book, Garden City, N.Y., pp.348–351
↑ Cf. Robert Middlekauff (2005), The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789, Revised and Expanded Edition, Oxford University Press, ISBN978-0-19-516247-9, p. 52
↑ Jan Weerda, Soziallehre des Calvinismus, in Evangelisches Soziallexikon, 3. Auflage (1958), Stuttgart (Germany), col. 934
↑ Eduard Heimann, Kapitalismus, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3. Auflage, Band III (1959), Tübingen (Germany), col. 1136–1141
↑ Hans Fritz Schwenkhagen, Technik, in Evangelisches Soziallexikon, 3. Auflage, col. 1029–1033
↑ Georg Süßmann, Naturwissenschaft und Christentum, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3. Auflage, Band IV, col. 1377–1382
↑ C. Graf von Klinckowstroem, Technik. Geschichtlich, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3. Auflage, Band VI, col. 664–667
↑ Kim, Sung Ho (Fall 2008). "Max Weber". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, CSLI, Stanford University. Retrieved 21 August 2011.
↑ W. Williams, Peter (2016). Religion, Art, and Money: Episcopalians and American Culture from the Civil War to the Great Depression. University of North Carolina Press. p.176. ISBN9781469626987. The names of fashionable families who were already Episcopalian, like the Morgans, or those, like the Fricks, who now became so, goes on interminably: Aldrich, Astor, Biddle, Booth, Brown, Du Pont, Firestone, Ford, Gardner, Mellon, Morgan, Procter, the Vanderbilt, Whitney. Episcopalians branches of the Baptist Rockefellers and Jewish Guggenheims even appeared on these family trees.
↑ B. Rosenbaum, Julia (2006). Visions of Belonging: New England Art and the Making of American Identity. Cornell University Press. p.45. ISBN9780801444708. By the late nineteenth century, one of the strongest bulwarks of Brahmin power was Harvard University. Statistics underscore the close relationship between Harvard and Boston's upper strata.
↑ C. Holloran, Peter (1989). Boston's Wayward Children: Social Services for Homeless Children, 1830-1930. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. p.73. ISBN9780838632970.
↑ J. Harp, Gillis (2003). Brahmin Prophet: Phillips Brooks and the Path of Liberal Protestantism. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p.13. ISBN9780742571983.
↑ Baltzell, E. Digby (2011). Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class. Transaction Publishers. p.236. ISBN9781412830751.
↑ Percy Ernst Schramm, Neun Generationen: Dreihundert Jahre deutscher "Kulturgeschichte" im Lichte der Schicksale einer Hamburger Bürgerfamilie (1648–1948). Vol. I and II, Göttingen 1963/64.
↑ Crum, Roger J. Severing the Neck of Pride: Donatello's "Judith and Holofernes" and the Recollection of Albizzi Shame in Medicean Florence . Artibus et Historiae, Volume 22, Edit 44, 2001. pp. 23–29.
↑ Negotiating the French Pox in Early Modern Germany by Claudia Stein
↑ Schröder, Martin (2013). Integrating Varieties of Capitalism and Welfare State Research. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp.96, 144–145, 149, 155, 157.
↑ Markkola, Pirjo (2011). Kettunen, Pauli; Petersen, Klaus (eds.). "The Lutheran Nordic Welfare States". Beyond Welfare State Models. Transnational Historical Perspectives on Social Policy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing: 102–118. ISBN9781849809603– via Google Books.
↑ Gamman, Andrew; Bindon, Caroline (2014). Stations for Lent and Easter. Kereru Publishing Limited. p.7. ISBN978-0473276812. Easter Day, also known as Resurrection Sunday, marks the high point of the Christian year. It is the day that we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
↑ Boda, Mark J.; Smith, Gordon T. (2006). Repentance in Christian Theology. Liturgical Press. p.316. ISBN978-0814651759. Retrieved 19 April 2014. Orthodox, Catholic, and all Reformed churches in the Middle East celebrate Easter according to the Eastern calendar, calling this holy day "Resurrection Sunday," not Easter.
↑ Bernard Trawicky; Ruth Wilhelme Gregory (2000). Anniversaries and Holidays. American Library Association. ISBN978-0838906958. Easter is the central celebration of the Christian liturgical year. It is the oldest and most important Christian feast, celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The date of Easter determines the dates of all movable feasts except those of Advent.
↑ Anne Jordan (2000). Christianity. Nelson Thornes. ISBN978-0748753208. Retrieved 7 April 2012. Easter eggs are used as a Christian symbol to represent the empty tomb. The outside of the egg looks dead but inside there is new life, which is going to break out. The Easter egg is a reminder that Jesus will rise from His tomb and bring new life. Eastern Orthodox Christians dye boiled eggs red to represent the blood of Christ shed for the sins of the world.
↑ The Guardian, Volume 29. H. Harbaugh. 1878. Retrieved 7 April 2012. Just so, on that first Easter morning, Jesus came to life and walked out of the tomb, and left it, as it were, an empty shell. Just so, too, when the Christian dies, the body is left in the grave, an empty shell, but the soul takes wings and flies away to be with God. Thus you see that though an egg seems to be as dead as a stone, yet it really has life in it; and also it is like Christ's dead body, which was raised to life again. This is the reason we use eggs on Easter. (In olden times they used to color the eggs red, so as to show the kind of death by which Christ died, – a bloody death.)
↑ Gordon Geddes, Jane Griffiths (2002). Christian belief and practice. Heinemann. ISBN978-0435306915. Retrieved 7 April 2012. Red eggs are given to Orthodox Christians after the Easter Liturgy. They crack their eggs against each other's. The cracking of the eggs symbolizes a wish to break away from the bonds of sin and misery and enter the new life issuing from Christ's resurrection.
↑ Collins, Cynthia (19 April 2014). "Easter Lily Tradition and History". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 April 2014. The Easter Lily is symbolic of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Churches of all denominations, large and small, are filled with floral arrangements of these white flowers with their trumpet-like shape on Easter morning.
↑ Schell, Stanley (1916). Easter Celebrations. Werner & Company. p.84. We associate the lily with Easter, as pre-eminently the symbol of the Resurrection.
↑ Vicki K. Black (2004). The Church Standard, Volume 74. Church Publishing, Inc. ISBN978-0819225757. Retrieved 7 April 2012. In parts of Europe, the eggs were dyed red and were then cracked together when people exchanged Easter greetings. Many congregations today continue to have Easter egg hunts for the children after the services on Easter Day.
↑ The Church Standard, Volume 74. Walter N. Hering. 1897. Retrieved 7 April 2012. When the custom was carrierd over into Christian practice the Easter eggs were usually sent to the priests to be blessed and sprinked with holy water. In later times the coloring and decorating of eggs was introduced, and in a royal roll of the time of Edward I., which is preserved in the Tower of London, there is an entry of 18d. for 400 eggs, to be used for Easter gifts.
↑ Brown, Eleanor Cooper (2010). From Preparation to Passion. Xulon Press. ISBN978-1609577650. Retrieved 7 April 2012. So what preparations do most Christians and non-Christians make? Shopping for new clothing often signifies the belief that Spring has arrived, and it is a time of renewal. Preparations for the Easter Egg Hunts and the Easter Ham for the Sunday dinner are high on the list too.
1 2 3 Cross/Livingstone. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. p. 1435f.
↑ N. Stearns, Peter (2008). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World. Oxford University Press. p.179. ISBN9780195176322. Uniformly practiced by Jews, Muslims, and the members of Coptic, Ethiopian, and Eritrean Orthodox Churches, male circumcision remains prevalent in many regions of the world, particularly Africa, South and East Asia, Oceania, and Anglosphere countries.
"The Coptic Christians in Egypt and the Ethiopian Orthodox Christians— two of the oldest surviving forms of Christianity— retain many of the features of early Christianity, including male circumcision. Circumcision is not prescribed in other forms of Christianity... Some Christian churches in South Africa oppose the practice, viewing it as a pagan ritual, while others, including the Nomiya church in Kenya, require circumcision for membership and participants in focus group discussions in Zambia and Malawi mentioned similar beliefs that Christians should practice circumcision since Jesus was circumcised and the Bible teaches the practice."
"The decision that Christians need not practice circumcision is recorded in Acts 15; there was never, however, a prohibition of circumcision, and it is practiced by Coptic Christians." "circumcision", The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2001–05.
↑ Pitts-Taylor, Victoria (2008). Cultural Encyclopedia of the Body [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p.394. ISBN9781567206913. For most part, Christianity does not require circumcision of its followers. Yet, some Orthodox and African Christian groups do require circumcision. These circumcisions take place at any point between birth and puberty.
↑ S. Ellwood, Robert (2008). The Encyclopedia of World Religions. Infobase Publishing. p.95. ISBN9781438110387. It is obligatory among Jews, Muslims, and Coptic Christians. Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians do not require circumcision. Starting in the last half of the 19th century, however, circumcision also became common among Christians in Europe and especially in North America.
↑ Gruenbaum, Ellen (2015). The Female Circumcision Controversy: An Anthropological Perspective. University of Pennsylvania Press. p.61. ISBN9780812292510. Christian theology generally interprets male circumcision to be an Old Testament rule that is no longer an obligation ... though in many countries (especially the United States and Sub-Saharan Africa, but not so much in Europe) it is widely practiced among Christians
↑ Hunting, Katherine (2012). Essential Case Studies in Public Health: Putting Public Health Into Practice. Jones & Bartlett Publishers. pp.23–24. ISBN9781449648756. Neonatal circumcision is the general practice among Jews, Christians, and many, but not all Muslims.
↑ R. Wylie, Kevan (2015). ABC of Sexual Health. John Wiley & Sons. p.101. ISBN9781118665695. Although it is mostly common and required in male newborns with Moslem or Jewish backgrounds, certain Christian-dominant countries such as the United States also practice it commonly.
↑ R. Peteet, John (2017). Spirituality and Religion Within the Culture of Medicine: From Evidence to Practice. Oxford University Press. pp.97–101. ISBN9780190272432. male circumcision is still observed among Ethiopian and Coptic Christians, and circumcision rates are also high today in the Philippines and the US.
↑ Creighton, Sarah; Liao, Lih-Mei (2019). Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery: Solution to What Problem?. Cambridge University Press. p.63. ISBN9781108435529. Christians in Africa, for instance, often practise infant male circumcision.
↑ Bakos, Gergely Tibor (2011). On Faith, Rationality, and the Other in the Late Middle Ages:: A Study of Nicholas of Cusa's Manuductive Approach to Islam. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p.228. ISBN9781606083420. Although it is stated that circumcision is not a sacrament necessary for salvation, this rite is accepted for the Ethiopian Jacobites and other Middle Eastern Christians.
↑ J. Sharkey, Heather (2017). A History of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East. Cambridge University Press. p.63. ISBN9780521769372. On the Coptic Christian practice of male circumcision in Egypt, and on its practice by other Christians in western Asia.
↑ "Circumcision protest brought to Florence". Associated Press. 30 March 2008. However, the practice is still common among Christians in the United States, Oceania, South Korea, the Philippines, the Middle East and Africa. Some Middle Eastern Christians actually view the procedure as a rite of passage.
↑ Ian Ross, Jeffrey (2015). Religion and Violence: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict from Antiquity to the Present. Routledge. p.169. ISBN9781317461098. For instance, the majority of South Koreans, Americans, and Filipinos, as well as African Christians, practice circumcision.
↑ L. Armstrong, Heather (2021). Encyclopedia of Sex and Sexuality: Understanding Biology, Psychology, and Culture [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. pp.115–117. ISBN9781610698757.
↑ Rawson, Beryl Rawson (2010). A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds. John Wiley & Sons. p.111. ISBN9781444390759. Christianity placed great emphasis on the family and on all members from children to the aged
↑ Pritchard, Colin Pritchard (2006). Mental Health Social Work: Evidence-Based Practice. Routledge. p.111. ISBN9781134365449. in cultures with stronger 'extended family traditions', such as Asian and Catholic countries
↑ Bushman (2008, p.59) (In the temple, husbands and wives are sealed to each other for eternity. The implication is that other institutional forms, including the church, might disappear, but the family will endure); "Mormons in America". Pew Research Center. January 2012. (A 2011 survey of Mormons in the United States showed that family life is very important to Mormons, with family concerns significantly higher than career concerns. Four out of five Mormons believe that being a good parent is one of the most important goals in life, and roughly three out of four Mormons put having a successful marriage in this category); "New Pew survey reinforces Mormons' top goals of family, marriage". Deseret News. 12 January 2012.; See also: "The Family: A Proclamation to the World".
1 2 3 [Religion and Living Arrangements Around the World: Muslims and Hindus have larger households than Christians and religious 'nones,' in patterns influenced by regional norms], Pew Research Center, 12 December 2019
↑ Wright, Professor Robin M; Vilaça, Aparecida (28 May 2013). Native Christians: Modes and Effects of Christianity among Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p.171. ISBN978-1-4094-7813-3. Before Christianity, they could not eat certain things from certain animals (uumajuit), but after eating they can now do anything they want to.
↑ Geisler, Norman L. (1 September 1989). Christian Ethics: Contemporary Issues and Options. Baker Books. p.334. ISBN978-1-58558-053-8. The eating of animals is not forbidden. The Scriptures do not forbid the eating and partaking of animals. This does not mean that all animals are to be eaten (Mark 7:19; Acts 11:9; 1 Tim. 4:4). It is clear in the Scriptures that we are not supposed to eat animals that are alive or with blood (Gen. 9:2–4; Deut. 12:16, 23–24).
↑ Ehrman, Bart D. (1 May 2006). Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend. Oxford University Press. p.60. ISBN978-0-19-974113-7. Retrieved 2 May 2014. In the meantime, Peter in Joppa has a middday vision in which he sees a sheet containing animals of every description lowered from the sky. He hears a voice from heaven telling him to "kill and eat." Peter is naturally taken aback, because eating some of these animals would mean breaking the Jewish rules about kosher foods. But then he hears a voice that tells him, "What God has cleansed, you must not call common [unclean]" (that is, you do not need to refrain from eating nonkosher foods; 10: 15). The same sequence of events happens three times.
↑ "The Weaker Brother". Third Way. 25 (10): 25. December 2002. Christ came for the Gentiles as well as the Jews (the real meaning of that vision in Acts 10:9;16) but he also calls us to look out for each other and not do things that will cause our brothers and sisters to stumble. In Corinthians Paul urges the believers to consider not eating meat when with people who assume that meat must be offered to idols before consumption: 'Food will not bring us close to God,' he writes. 'We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block for the weak.' (1 Corinthians 8:8–9)
↑ Binder, Stephanie E. (14 November 2012). Tertullian, On Idolatry and Mishnah Avodah Zarah. Brill Academic Publishers. p.87. ISBN978-90-04-23478-9. Clement of Alexandria and Origen also forbid eating meat dedicated to idolatry and partaking in meals with demons, which, by association, are the meals of fornicators and idolatrous adulterers. Marcianus Aristides merely testifies that Christians do not eat what has been sacrificed to idols; and Hippolytus only notes the interdiction against eating such food.
↑ Deem, Rich (21 June 2008). "Should Christians Eat Meat or Should We Be Vegetarians?". Evidence for God from Science. Archived from the original on 28 July 2020. Retrieved 2 May 2014. Later, laws were instituted that declared certain meats to be "clean" and others to be "unclean". The system provided a means of proving one's obedience to God and had some health benefits. After Jesus Christ came, God declared all meats to be clean. Current slaughterhouse practices comply with the dictate to remove the blood, so virtually all meat today is acceptable to eat according to God.
↑ Salamon, Hagar (7 November 1999). Ethiopian Jews in Christian Ethiopia. University of California Press. p.101. ISBN978-0-520-92301-0. The Christians do "Basema ab wawald wamanfas qeeus ahadu amlak" [in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit one God] and then slaughter. The Jews say "Baruch yitharek amlak yisrael" [Blessed is the King (God) of Israel].
↑ Efron, John M. (1 October 2008). Medicine and the German Jews: A History. Yale University Press. p.206. ISBN978-0-300-13359-2. By contrast, the most common mode of slaughtering four-legged animals among Christians in the nineteenth century was through the deliverance of a stunning blow to the head, usually with a mallet or poleax.
↑ Grumett, David; Muers, Rachel (26 February 2010). Theology on the Menu: Asceticism, Meat and Christian Diet. Routledge. p.121. ISBN978-1-135-18832-0. The Armenian and other Orthodox rituals of slaughter display obvious links with shechitah, Jewish kosher slaughter.
↑ Phelps, Norm (2002). The Dominion of Love: Animal Rights According to the Bible. Lantern Books. p.171. ISBN978-1-59056-009-9. Nevertheless, toward the end of the chapter, Paul suggests that even Christians with strong faith may want to abstain from eating meat offered to pagan deities if any chance that their example will tempt fellow Christians of weaker faith into inadvertent idolatry. He concludes by saying, "Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble." (1 Corinthians 8:13)
↑ Walters, Peter; Byl, John (2013). Christian Paths to Health and Wellness. Human Kinetics. p.184. ISBN978-1-4504-2454-7. Traditional Hindus and Trappist monks adopt vegetarian diets as a practice of their faith.
↑ Daugherty, Helen Ginn (1995). An Introduction to Population. Guilford Press. pp.150. ISBN978-0-89862-616-2. Seventh-Day Adventists are also urged, but not required, to avoid eating meat and highly spiced food (Snowdon, 1988).
↑ Barrows, Susanna; Room, Robin (1991). Drinking: Behavior and Belief in Modern History. University of California Press. p.340. ISBN978-0-520-07085-1. Retrieved 2 May 2014. The main legally enforced prohibition in both Catholic and Anglican countries was that against meat. During Lent, the most prominent annual season of fasting in Catholic and Anglican churches, authorities enjoined abstinence from meat and sometimes 'white meats' (cheese, milk, and eggs); in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England butchers and victuallers were bound by heavy recognizances not to slaughter or sell meat on the weekly 'fish days,' Friday and Saturday.
↑ Lund, Eric (January 2002). Documents from the History of Lutheranism, 1517-1750. Fortress Press. p.166. ISBN978-1-4514-0774-7. Of the Eating of Meat: One should abstain from the eating of meat on Fridays and Saturdays, also in fasts, and this should be observed as an external ordinance at the command of his Imperial Majesty.
↑ Vitz, Evelyn Birge (1991). A Continual Feast. Ignatius Press. p.80. ISBN978-0-89870-384-9. Retrieved 2 May 2014. In the Orthodox groups, on ordinary Wednesdays and Fridays no meat, olive oil, wine, or fish can be consumed.
↑ Scratchley, David (1996). Alcoholism and Other Drug Problems. Simon and Schuster. p.298. ISBN978-0-684-82314-0. Although the Jewish, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Episcopal, and Lutheran traditions generally allow moderate drinking for those who can do so, it is simply incorrect to accuse them of condoning drunkenness.
↑ Conlin, Joseph (11 January 2008). The American Past: A Survey of American History, Enhanced Edition. Cengage Learning. p.748. ISBN978-0-495-56609-0. Protestants who called themselves "fundamentalists" (they believed in the literal truth of the Bible--Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals) were dry.
↑ Domenico, Roy P.; Hanley, Mark Y. (1 January 2006). Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Politics. Greenwood Publishing Group. p.18. ISBN978-0-313-32362-1. Drunkenness was biblically condemned, and all denominations disciplined drunken members.
↑ Cobb, John B. (2003). Progressive Christians Speak: A Different Voice on Faith and Politics. Westminster John Knox Press. p.136. ISBN978-0-664-22589-6. For most of Christian history, as in the Bible, moderate drinking of alcohol was taken for granted while drunkenness was condemned.
↑ Warsh, Cheryl Krasnick (2006). Children's Health Issues in Historical Perspective. Veronica Strong-Boag. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. p.315. ISBN9780889209121. From Fleming's perspective, the transition to Christianity required a good dose of personal and public hygiene
↑ Cheryl Krasnick Warsh; Veronica Strong-Boag, eds. (2006). Children's Health Issues in Historical Perspective. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. p.315. ISBN9780889209121. Thus bathing also was considered a part of good health practice. For example, Tertullian attended the baths and believed them hygienic. Clement of Alexandria, while condemning excesses, had given guidelines for Christian] who wished to attend the baths
↑ Thurlkill, Mary (2016). Sacred Scents in Early Christianity and Islam: Studies in Body and Religion. Rowman & Littlefield. pp.6–11. ISBN978-0739174531. Clement of Alexandria (d. c. 215 CE) allowed that bathing contributed to good health and hygiene... Christian skeptics could not easily dissuade the baths' practical popularity, however; popes continued to build baths situated within church basilicas and monasteries throughout the early medieval period
1 2 Squatriti, Paolo (2002). Water and Society in Early Medieval Italy, AD 400-1000, Parti 400–1000. Cambridge University Press. p.54. ISBN9780521522069. but baths were normally considered therapeutic until the days of Gregory the Great, who understood virtuous bathing to be bathing 'on account of the needs of body'
↑ Black, Winston (2019). The Middle Ages: Facts and Fictions. ABC-CLIO. p.61. ISBN9781440862328. Public baths were common in the larger towns and cities of Europe by the twelfth century.
↑ Kleinschmidt, Harald (2005). Perception and Action in Medieval Europe. Boydell & Brewer. p.61. ISBN9781843831464. The evidence of early medieval laws that enforced punishments for the destruction of bathing houses suggests that such buildings were not rare. That they... took a bath every week. At places in southern Europe, Roman baths remained in use or were even restored... The Paris city scribe Nicolas Boileau noted the existence of twenty-six public baths in Paris in 1272
↑ Hembry, Phyllis (1990). The English Spa, 1560-1815: A Social History. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. ISBN9780838633915.
1 2 Bradley, Ian (2012). Water: A Spiritual History. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN9781441167675.
↑ Anionic and Related Lime Soap Dispersants, Raymond G. Bistline Jr., in Anionic Surfactants: Organic Chemistry, Helmut Stache, ed., Volume 56 of Surfactant science series, CRC Press, 1996, chapter 11, p. 632, ISBN0-8247-9394-3.
↑ E. Clark, Mary (2006). Contemporary Biology: Concepts and Implications. University of Michigan Press. ISBN9780721625973.
↑ E. Clark, Mary (2006). Contemporary Biology: Concepts and Implications. University of Michigan Press. p.613. ISBN9780721625973. Douching is commonly practiced in Catholic countries. The bidet... is still commonly found in France and other Catholic countries.
↑ Made in Naples. Come Napoli ha civilizzato l'Europa (e come continua a farlo)[Made in Naples. How Naples civilised Europe (And still does it)] (in Italian). Addictions-Magenes Editoriale. 2013. ISBN978-8866490395.
↑ Wagner, Tom (2014). "Branding, Music, and Religion: Standardization and Adaptation in the Experience of the 'Hillsong Sound'". In Jean-Claude Usunier and Jörg Stolz (ed.). Religions as Brands: New Perspectives on the Marketization of Religion and Spirituality. Farnham, UK: Routledge. pp.59–74. ISBN978-1-4094-6755-7.
↑ Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nded.). McFarland & Co. pp.808–809. ISBN978-1476665993.
↑ Stewart, Tim (13 January 2015). "televangelism". Dictionary of Christianese. Archived from the original on 13 December 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
↑ Kaufman, Asher "Tell Us Our History': Charles Corm, Mount Lebanon and Lebanese Nationalism" pages 1-28 from Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 40, No. 3, May 2004 page 2.
↑ Huang, Chun-chieh (1994). Harrell, Stevan; Huang, Chun-chieh (eds.). Introduction. Cultural Change in Postwar Taiwan (10–14 April 1991; Seattle). Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. ISBN9780813386324.
↑ Makeham, John (2005). "Chapter 6: Indigenization Discourse in Taiwanese Confucian Revivalism". In Makeham, John; Hsiau, A-chin (eds.). Cultural, Ethnic, and Political Nationalism in Contemporary Taiwan: Bentuhua (1ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781403980618. ISBN9781403970206.
↑ V. Hellerich, Siegmar (1995). Religionizing, Romanizing Romantics. University of Georgia Press. p.70. ISBN9781317931737.
1 2 3 4 Bourdeaux, Michael (2003). "Trends in Religious Policy". Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia. Taylor and Francis. pp.46–52. ISBN9781857431377.
↑ Heraclides, Alexis (2015). Humanitarian Intervention in the Long Nineteenth Century: Setting the Precedent. Manchester, United Kingdom: Manchester University Press. pp.31, 37. ISBN9781526133823.
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