Portal:Christianity

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The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, a holy place of Christianity

Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, professing that Jesus was raised from the dead and is the Son of God, whose coming as the Messiah (Christ) was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament in Christianity) and chronicled in the New Testament. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with over 2.38 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.

Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, and doctrinally diverse concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination, and Christology. The creeds of various Christian denominations generally hold in common Jesus as the Son of God—the Logos incarnated—who ministered, suffered, and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of humankind; and referred to as the gospel, meaning the "good news". The four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe Jesus's life and teachings as preserved in the early Christian tradition, with the Old Testament as the gospels' respected background.

The three main branches of Christianity are Roman Catholicism (1.3 billion people), Protestantism (625 million-900 million), and Eastern Orthodoxy (230 million) while other prominent branches include Oriental Orthodoxy (60 million), Restorationism (35 million), and the Church of the East (600,000). Smaller church communities number in the thousands despite efforts toward unity (ecumenism). In the West, Christianity remains the dominant religion even with a decline in adherence, with about 70% of that population identifying as Christian. Christianity is growing in Africa and Asia, the world's most populous continents. Christians are persecuted in some regions of the world, particularly where they are in the minority in the Middle East, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia. (Full article...)

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Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Proponents claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." ID is a form of creationism that lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses, and is therefore not science. The leading proponents of ID are associated with the Discovery Institute, a Christian, politically conservative think tank based in the United States.

Although the phrase intelligent design had featured previously in theological discussions of the argument from design, its first publication in its present use as an alternative term for creationism was in Of Pandas and People, a 1989 creationist textbook intended for high school biology classes. The term was substituted into drafts of the book, directly replacing references to creation science and creationism, after the 1987 Supreme Court's Edwards v. Aguillard decision barred the teaching of creation science in public schools on constitutional grounds. From the mid-1990s, the intelligent design movement (IDM), supported by the Discovery Institute, advocated inclusion of intelligent design in public school biology curricula. This led to the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, which found that intelligent design was not science, that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and that the public school district's promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Christianity-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The Adoration of the Trinity by Albrecht Dürer (1511)
From top to bottom: Holy Spirit (dove), God the Father and Christ on the cross (from Trinity)
Image 2Nativity at Night, by Geertgen tot Sint Jans, c. 1490 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 3The Holy Trinity on the stained glass windows of the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Brockdish (from Trinity)
Image 4Detail of the earliest known artwork of the Trinity, the Dogmatic or Trinity Sarcophagus, c. 350 (Vatican Museums)
Three similar figures, representing the Trinity, are involved in the creation of Eve, whose much smaller figure is cut off at lower right; to her right, Adam lies on the ground (from Trinity)
Image 5First page of Mark, by Sargis Pitsak (14th century): "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God". (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 6Depiction of Trinity from Saint Denis Basilica in Paris (12th century) (from Trinity)
Image 713th-century depiction of the Trinity from a Roman de la Rose manuscript (from Trinity)
Image 8The Holy Trinity in an angelic glory over a landscape, by Lucas Cranach the Elder (d. 1553) (from Trinity)
Image 9The Glory of Saint Nicholas, by António Manuel da Fonseca; Nicholas of Myra, a participant in the First Council of Nicaea, achieves the beatific vision in the shape of the Holy Trinity. (from Trinity)
Image 10The Trinity by Russian icon painter Andrei Rublev, early 15th century: this portrayal of the three angels who visited Abraham at the Oak of Mamre (Genesis 18:1-8) (from Trinity)
Image 11A compact diagram of the Trinity, known as the "Shield of the Trinity" consisting of God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit (the Shield is generally not intended to be a schematic diagram of the structure of God, but it presents a series of statements about the correlation between the persons of the Trinity) (from Trinity)
Image 12Pope Clement I prays to the Trinity, in a typical post-Renaissance depiction by Gianbattista Tiepolo (d. 1770) (from Trinity)
Image 13God in the person of the Son confronts Adam and Eve, by Master Bertram (d. c. 1415) (from Trinity)
Image 14The Communion of the Apostles, by Luca Signorelli, 1512 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 15Renaissance painting by Jerónimo Cosida depicting Jesus as a triple deity Inner text: The Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Spirit is God (from Trinity)
Image 16A Greek fresco of Athanasius of Alexandria, the chief architect of the Nicene Creed, formulated at Nicaea (from Trinity)
Image 17The "Heavenly Trinity" joined to the "Earthly Trinity" through the Incarnation of the Son–The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities by Murillo (c. 1677) (from Trinity)
Image 18A Gospel of John, 1056 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 19An anonymous 18th century Catholic painting from the Peruvian Cuzco School. This work depicts the Holy Triune God; one in essence, with three persons (from Trinity)
Image 20The Father, The Holy Spirit, and Christ crucified, depicted in a Welsh manuscript c. 1390–1400 (from Trinity)
Image 21The Good Samaritan by James Tissot. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the parables of Jesus. (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 22God the Father (top), the Holy Spirit (a dove), and the child Jesus, painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (d. 1682) (from Trinity)
Image 23Atypical depiction of the Trinity where the Son is identified by a lamb, the Father an Eye of Providence, and the Spirit a dove (from Trinity)
Image 24God the Father (top), and the Holy Spirit (represented by a dove) depicted above Jesus Painting by Francesco Albani (d. 1660) (from Trinity)
Image 25Jesus healing the paralytic in The Pool by Palma il Giovane, 1592 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 26Depictions of the Resurrection of Jesus are central to Christian art (Resurrection of Christ by Raphael, 1499–1502). (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 27Jesus' Farewell Discourse to his eleven remaining disciples after the Last Supper, from the Maestà by Duccio (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 28Representation of the Trinity in the form of the mercy seat (epitaph from 1549) (from Trinity)
Image 29Three doors representing the trinity at a cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio. (from Trinity)
Image 30A 'Jesus Saves' neon cross sign outside of a Protestant church in New York City (from Salvation in Christianity)
Image 31A depiction of the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, at which the Deity of Christ was declared orthodox and Arianism condemned (from Trinity)
Image 32The Baptism of Christ, by Piero della Francesca, 15th century (from Trinity)
Image 33The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a holy site in Jerusalem believed by most Christians to encompass the tomb of Jesus and the site of his crucifixion and resurrection. (from Jesus in Christianity)

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Bust, Musée Saint-Raymond, Toulouse

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (/taɪˈbɪəriəs/ ty-BEER-ee-əs; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was Roman emperor from AD 14 until 37. He succeeded his stepfather Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC to Roman politician Tiberius Claudius Nero and his wife, Livia Drusilla. In 38 BC, Tiberius's mother divorced his father and married Augustus. Following the untimely deaths of Augustus's two grandsons and adopted heirs, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, Tiberius was designated Augustus's successor. Prior to this, Tiberius had proved himself an able diplomat and one of the most successful Roman generals: his conquests of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and (temporarily) parts of Germania laid the foundations for the empire's northern frontier.

Early in his career, Tiberius was happily married to Vipsania, daughter of Augustus's friend, distinguished general and intended heir, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. They had a son, Drusus Julius Caesar. After Agrippa died, Augustus insisted that Tiberius divorce Vipsania and marry Agrippa's widow, Augustus' own daughter (Tiberius's step-sister) Julia. Tiberius reluctantly gave in. This second marriage proved scandalous, deeply unhappy, and childless; ultimately, Julia was sent into exile by her father. Tiberius adopted his nephew, the able and popular Germanicus, as heir. On Augustus's death in 14, Tiberius became princeps at the age of 55. He seems to have taken on the responsibilities of head of state with great reluctance and perhaps a genuine sense of inadequacy in the role, compared to the capable, self-confident and charismatic Augustus. (Full article...)

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Conversion to Christianity is the religious conversion of a previously non-Christian person to some form of Christianity. It has been called the foundational experience of Christian life. Conversion to Christianity primarily involves belief (faith) in the Christian God, thinking that they are far short of the Christian God's apparent "glory and holiness" (sin), repentance of "sin", and confession of their belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the all-sufficient and only means by whom one's sin can be atoned for and therefore the only route to salvation.

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... that interfaith greetings in Indonesia include phrases from Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism?
... that the Kitab al-wadih bi-l-haqq is a critique of Islam written by a convert to Coptic Christianity during a period of persecution?
... that the growth of Christianity in 20th-century Africa has been termed the "fourth great age of Christian expansion"?
... that although the Jesuit missionary He Tianzhang despised his "sad Chinese appearance", it allowed him to circumvent the Qing's ban on Christianity and enter China?
... that in the Book of Mormon, the city of Ammonihah kills Christians by fire as a deliberately twisted reference to a warning that spiritual death is like a "lake of fire and brimstone"?
... that in Liber ad amicum, Bonizo of Sutri endorses violence against heretics?

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For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

— Epistle to the Romans, Romans 1:18-23, King James Version

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