Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion centered on Jesus of Nazareth and his life, death, resurrection, and teachings as presented in the New Testament. more...

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Christians believe Jesus is the Son of God and the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. With an estimated 2.1 billion adherents in 2001, Christianity is the world's largest religion. It is the predominant religion in the Americas, Europe, Philippine Islands, Oceania, and large parts of Africa (see Christianity by country). It is also growing rapidly in Asia, particularly in China and South Korea, and in Northern Africa.

Christianity began in the 1st century as a Jewish sect, and shares many religious texts with Judaism, specifically the Hebrew Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament (see Judeo-Christian). Like Judaism and Islam, Christianity is classified as an Abrahamic religion because of the centrality and pre-cedence of Abraham in their shared traditions; though Jesus himself stated that he had pre-existed Abraham (John 8:58), and Christianity places Jesus as God incarnate (not Abraham) as central to the faith. The name "Christian" (Greek Χριστιανός Strong's G5546) was first applied to the disciples in Antioch, as recorded in Acts 11:26. The earliest recorded use of the term Christianity (Greek Χριστιανισμός) is by Ignatius of Antioch.

Groups within Christianity

Today, there is diversity of doctrines and practices among various groups calling themselves Christians. These groups are sometimes classified under denominations, though for various theological reasons many groups reject this classification system. At other times these groups are described in terms of varying traditions, representing core historical similarities and differences. Christianity may be broadly represented as being divided into three main groupings:

Roman Catholicism: The Roman Catholic Church, the largest single body, which includes Latin Rite and several Eastern Catholic communities and totals more than 1 billion baptized members.; Eastern Christianity: Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches (Copts, Jacobites, and Armenians), the Assyrian Church of the East (Nestorian) with 100,000 members, and others with a combined membership of more than 300 million baptized members.; Protestantism: Numerous groups such as Anglicans, Lutherans, Reformed/Presbyterians, Congregational/United Church of Christ, Evangelical, Charismatic, Baptists, Methodists, Nazarenes, Anabaptists, Seventh-day Adventists and Pentecostals. The oldest of these separated from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century Protestant Reformation, followed in many cases by further divisions. Estimates of the total number of Protestants are very uncertain, partly because of the difficulty in determining which denominations should be placed in this category, but it seems to be unquestionable that Protestantism is the second major branch of Christianity (after Roman Catholicism) in number of followers.;

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