Christianity has distinct relationships with various religions around the world. Before its founding, the worldly population had different ways of worship including cultural ways. These traditional methods of worship were widely acknowledged and accepted by different communities. At its inception, Christianity had to accept the preexisting methods of worship and incorporate them in its structure so that it could appeal to the larger church outside those who accepted Christianity as a way of worship. The preexisting cultures and traditional religious ways of worship, therefore, had different influences in the Christian worship. These influences were either incorporated before and after the inception of Christianity. The way Christians worship today, is largely credited to the different religious groupings that existed before the inception of Christianity and those that emerged with its inception. Christianity, therefore, had to be flexible and dynamic in order to find some footing in the world where it was considered to be the minority religion.
The Jewish tradition, otherwise also known as Judaism was a key influence to the Christian orientation. Judaism for instance, believed in the monotheist worship and adoration of one God. Their traditions accepted that there was only one God, who was the creator of the universe and all that was in it. The Jewish cultures, therefore, encouraged the worship of one God and no one else. When Christianity emerged, the worship of one God was key component of its pillars. Christians worldwide believed that the creator of the universe was only one and it is Him who should be worshipped. Just as Judaism preached the gospel of one God, so did Christianity. The Jewish tradition that practiced the worship of one God, therefore, had a direct influence on the shaping up of Christianity as a monotheist religion. This practice portrayed Christianity, therefore, as a worldwide movement since it recognized even the Jewish traditional beliefs in one God.
Islam was another religious culture that had both direct and indirect influences on Christianity both before its inception and after. Even during the emergence of Christianity, Islamic practices were already in existence that would in future form basis for inter religious engagements between Christianity and Islamic practices. Islam as a religion recognized the existence of only one God, called Allah. Though the two religions differed on the person of Jesus Christ whom Christians adore, they both believed in the worship of the one and only true God. In this aspect, both Christians and Muslims world over believed in the worship of God the creator of the universe. The recognition of God as one by both religious bodies sent a common sense of ownership to the worshippers across the divide. The approach of one God, therefore, had direct influences on the way Christianity would shape up in the future.
The Greek philosophy was another pre Christianity belief that helped shape up Christianity to what it is in the modern day. The pre- Constantine church in the ancient Greece, in collaboration with the Roman emperors participated in the burning of Christian classical in order to discredit Christianity at its emergence. The burnings, however, did not deter the people from continuous curiosity on this religion. In fact a number of the pre Constantine church followers kept most of the classical for their private study in order to know more about Christianity. The post Constantine church on the other hand, were more liberal and open minded about the emergence of Christianity as world religion. They refused to collaborate with the Roman emperors in trying to discredit Christianity. The pockets of resistance that the Christian church received in the ancient Greek would then act in its favor. Most Christian leaning people would then be tasked to preach about Christianity as the religion that understood the people’s culture. Most of the classical works that the world enjoys today would then be preserved by the latter day Greeks who sympathized with Christianity. The Byzantine Greeks on the other hand rejected the states within the Greek empire as pre Christian religious cities. They considered the ancient worship of sculptures and monuments as part of the Greek tradition. This rejection awakened the proponents of Christianity to adopt ways of influencing the Greeks to abandon their culture and embrace Christianity. Christianity, therefore, had to be portrayed as a religion with a Fatherly figure to be worshipped just like the Greeks worshipped monuments and sculptures. The influence of worshipping things that were seen would then bring out Christianity as a religious body with a fatherly figure who lived in a secret place far away from His creations. The fatherly figure would also need to be worshipped in order to extend favor to his creations that dwelt on earth.
The roman political class was at its inception, opposed to the emergence of Christianity. They viewed the person of Jesus Christ as coming to overthrow the established political structure of the Roman Empire. They would the burn Christian literature and persecuted Christians and undermined Christian activity. The empire would then convert to Christianity after God appeared to one of their own and appealed to him to stop persecuting his people. This would then form the basis for Christian expansion in the Roman Empire.
Work cited.
Duiker, William J, and Jackson J. Spielvogel. The Essential World History. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008. Print.
Schäfer, Peter. The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. Internet resource
