Currents in Christianity

While scholars trace antecedents to Christianity from many different sources, the universally-agreed one is Judaism. As can be seen from a careful reading of the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament), two streams sprang from Abraham and Moses. The older was the priestly stream, established by Moses and his brother Aaron, which emphasized adherence to the Mosaic Law, along with its racial exclusivity and its detailed sacrificial procedures. In the priestly view, God was distant and unapproachable (transcendence was emphasized over immanence), and an intermediary was required if any person wanted to communicate with the Creator. Today we would call the priestly view an exoteric, left-brain one. Later there emerged the prophetic view of God, who is seen as intensely personal (a Lover, even), passionate about social justice, indifferent to ritual, and desiring mercy (hesed), not sacrifice. This god wants to be known by His people and is therefore directly accessible. Prophetic religion was esoteric, experiential religion.

By the time of Jesus of Nazaareth, there were four major sects within Judaism: Pharisees, Saducees, Essenes, and Zealots. Pharisees strove for purity through scrupulous observance of the outer demands of the Law and placed little value on mercy -- especially to non-Pharisees. They believed in a superior reality that was non-physical and included angels and other spirits, and they thought that the righteous would be reborn after physical death. Whether this rebirth was physical reincarnation or a spiritual afterlife was not universally agreed upon. Saducees were 'from Missouri": if they couldn't see it, they didn't believe it. They were thoroughgoing materialists. They believed that observance of the Law was the way to earthly wealth; since they did not believe in an afterlife, they could see no other way that God could reward obedience. Most of the priests and political leaders (often one and the same) were Saducees, as were most of the leading merchants. Essenes were known to us mainly through the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus until the discovery of a cache of Essene library materials now known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. They were at least as intent upon observing the Law as were the Pharisees, but they also emphasized the inner spiritual life. They represented the esoteric, prophetic tradition, and in fact traced their corporate lineage from the School of the Prophets established by Elijah. Essenes were mystics who placed great emphasis on the communal spiritual life, which was much like that of the early Christian church. Essenes were not liked by Pharisees or Saducees. Zealots were a political party as well as a religious sect. They were passionate about Scripture passages in which God promised to re-establish the political pre-eminence of the Jews, and were not shy about trying to help Him do so, by killing Romans and others perceived as enemies of the Jews whenever possible. The idea of a "holy war" would not be foreign to them.

In the early Christian church, (and subsequently as well), there were sects from almost the very beginning. The earliest Christians were Jews: primarily Pharisees and Essenes. They had a problem with accepting Gentile (non-Jewish) believers into the church unless the new believers submitted to all the legal rituals, including circumcision. The struggle between this element and the others can be seen in the letters of Paul. Little remains of this Jewish-Christian sect, except for traces in the modern organization Jews for Jesus, which, however, does not maintain the rigid exclusivity. The Gentile Church soon outnumbered the Jewish Christians, and later split into the Eastern (Greek and Rusian Orthodox) and the Roman Catholic organizations. The latter is vastly more numerous in Europe and the former European colonies. The Eastern Church:
(1) Majors on dogma: “deeper meaning [of the faith] which could be
apprehended only through religious experience and expressed in symbolic form.” Attempts to describe dogma in words are “as grotesque as a verbal account of one of Beethoven’s late quartets”
[See Armstrong, The History of God, Knopf, 1994, pp. 114-115]
(2) Considers the Mass to be the path to inner experience
(3) Pays much attention to extra-scriptural traditions
(4) Very early, strong monastic tradition

Thre Roman Catholic Church
(1) Majors on kerygma: the public teaching of the church
(2) Pays much attention to extra-scriptural traditions
(3) Believes that all salvation is mediated by the Church in general and the professional clergy in particular, through sacraments
(6) Began a monastic tradition later than did the Eastern Church.

The Roman Catholic church itself diverged into two traditions: the Italian tradition falls into the priestly stream of the pre-Christian Jews. The churches of this tradition were administered by archbishops and bishops. The Italian branch taught that mankind is inherently evil because of the Original Sin of Adam, and that forgiveness is dispensed only through intermediary-priests empowered by the Church heirarchy. Atempting to know God directly was not only a fruitless effort; it might be spiritually dangerous -- hence, the persecution of those who firat translated Scripture into vernacular languages. The Celtic Church was organized around abbeys, who operated monasteries and nunneries. The monks, nuns, and friars were looked upon by the common people in Britain, Ireland, and Scotland as friends, confidants, and spiritual advisors rather than as ecclesiastical governors. Celtic Catholicism was driven underground during the era 400-600 C.E.

The Catholic and Eastern Churches never embraced all Christians. From the earliest times, there were those having different theological understanding than was taught in the two largest churches. Naturally, these smaller groups were persecuted over the centuries, but their influence remained. Especially important was the influence of the Armenian Church which taught that the primary spiritual service that a person can render to God is the proper exercise of free will. The Catholic and Eastern Churches and their later offshoots, the Lutherans and Calvinists, placed little emphasis on free will. In time, other denominations arose, placing emphasis on free will as well as other elements of the New Testament church model: baptism restricted to adult believers only, the centrality of Scripture, Charisma (speaking in tongues or glossalalia), healing, exorcism, prophecy, raising of the dead). Denominations accepting some or all of these latter elements include Baptists, Churches of God, Pentecostals, Quakers, etc. During the latter 20th century, many non-denominational churches arose. Most of these accept these latter elements of doctrine, use a democratic form of governance, and are non-heirarchical.

In addition to formal Christianity, there are several forms of false Christianity, including the "like me" religion mentioned earlier, the related Zeitgeist (spirit of the times) religion that considers the truth to be an amalgam of whatever beliefs the current culture supports, and Nationalism.

Among Christian denominations, there are serious points of disagreement, including:
(1) What are the nature and limitations of the Scriptures? Are they God's revelation to mankind, the record of that revelation, or the record of the foundational portion of that revelation? Is Scripture infallible; if so, which parts, and in what way? Where is the line between believing Scripture and idolizing the Book?
(2) What is the relation of Jesus to those of other religions? Is He the universal saviour? Is He a prophet only? Is it essential that all who follow His ways know Him by the same name?
(3) How about the great spiritual leaders of other religions? Shall Christians honor Mohammed? the Buddha? The Dalai Lama? Swami Lahiri Mahasaya?
(4) How do Christians view God? Wholly Other? Within? All-encompassing? Separate from creation? All of the above? Angry? Primarily just? Primarily merciful? Father-like? Lover-like? A legalist Who required substitutionary atonement?
(5) How do Christians view Jesus? Divine? Human? Both? Only accessible to Christians? Savior of all? A model or an example?
(6) What is faith: Intellectual assent? Expression of ritual? Beliefs about “facts”? Belief in a Person?
(7) What is the eternal fate of non-Christians?
(8) In what form are Christians resurrected? In a physical body? In a spiritual body? Not embodied? Reincarnation?
(9) What is the importance of priests, importance of church (as fellowship), importance of contemplation, importance of intercessory prayer, importance of healing ministries, importance of missions, importance of demonstrating faith (e.g., snake handlers), importance of “confirming signs” in group spirituality, importance of teaching (the rational element), importance of emotions?

Christians are far from being unanimous on these and other points. Similar lists of disagreements could be drawn up for any major religion. How, then, can we define the religious participant of the dialog batween science and religion, if we cannot even define Christianity in detail?

For the purposes of discussion, we have defined religion as the feelings, acts, experiences, and beliefs of individual people in relation to whatever they consider to be the true or superior reality. In this definition, materialism is a religion; Scientism is a religion, Marxism is a religion, and for many people, democracy is a religion. Rather than attempt to define religion more precisely, I will address the positions of materialism and scientism in their dialog with science, as I address the positions of other religions more commonly so-called. Marxism can be considered a subset of materialism, and democracy as a religion can justifiably be classed with nationalism; thus, these require no separate treatment. In outlining the dialog between science and religion, I shall focus upon those elements on which scientific thought significantly supports or contradicts common elements of religous thought. For, example, in those traditions that are commonly considered religions, reality is not believed to be limited to the material world. Thus, occurrences are possible that are in principle not explainable by a purely physical model. Such considerations have wide religious applicability without necessarily being specific articles of faith in all religions.

Next, we shall proceed to define science.