How Christianity Changed the World
September 20, 2011
This story is kind of contradictory because when someone asks you, "How did Christianity change the world?" You might think a lot of things such as the spreading of Christ's gospel and peace among men, or charity toward others, but when I think of how Christianity changed the world I think of all the major political and religious changes that happened all over the planet after Christ's death. And of course as with any major political or religious change comes blood shed and death. And not just a little bloodshed or just a few deaths, but a ton. Over the course of the last two thousand years, millions of people would die in the name of christianity. In fact, as I was doing my research for this I started counting up how many 'recorded' deaths there were, all in the name of Christ I was sickened by what I was able to find. Between the year 33 AD and 1994 AD 220,187,325 people have died. That's just what I have been able to add up, and of course those are only the 'recorded' deaths.
As you can see, just from the numbers, christianity has been able to mold and shape the world in ways we're probably unaware of. So to start this out I want to take a look at the major events that happened between Christ's death and modern times. Then we'll break those events down and look at why christianity had such an important role. For instance, would the infamous Salem Witch trials have even happened had the people to colonize the Americas not been Christian? Or, would the Ottomans have ever invaded the city of Constantinople if the Emperor Constantine never built the elegant Hagia Sophia? And if the Ottomans had never invaded, would the villainous Vlad Tepes III have ever preformed all of the atrocious things he had done, such as impaling over 100,000 people of his own country? It's a lot to think about. What, for me, is even more mind boggling, is that all of these events, all of these things that we're about to discuss happened, ultimately, because of one man, ONE! That is just something so impressive to me I can't even fathom living a life that for the next two thousand years after my death completely changes everything everyone will ever know.
Between the year 30 and 33 AD, it's hard to say, Jesus Christ was crucified. But before we go too much into his death and more specifically how he was killed we should probably understand a few of the reasons why he was killed.
By the time Jesus was born the Jewish Church, which was the Church and Religion Jesus belonged to, was so completely corrupt that most people couldn't discern what rules and religious laws were set in place originally by Moses and what had been set in place by the current Jewish Priests. You see, this kind of goes back to my previous blog about Human Nature. The Jewish priests, or the men who were in charge of running the Jewish Church were extremely powerful men. They more or less ruled the cities of the middle east where they were like dictators. And they were rich because of it. Now of course, the Roman Empire at this time really ruled over the land, but the Romans left the people like the famous Harod in charge and he let the Jewish priests rule under him to a certain extent. The reason for this was simple, the more people you have under you running things, the less you have to do when it comes to ruling your land.
So the Jewish priests are rich and powerful and more or less run things the way they want. Now Jesus, from what I can gather, from the only real 'documentation' of his life, the Bible, seems to be a traditionalist. A fan of the old school way of running the religion. And he was more or less a Jewish reformer. He began teaching the people from his parables the things that he felt were more important than making money or becoming powerful. And it's Jesus' hope, I'm assuming, that if he can get enough people to see that the Jewish religion is built on more than what the current Jewish priests were doing, then he could actually reform the religion and fix things. And I don't think that Jesus really wanted power or control over the Jewish people, or their religion, but because of his overwhelming influence, it was becoming obvious to the Jewish priests that that was exactly what Jesus was doing. He was turning the people, the money makers, away from the pockets of the Priests. And with that many people backing Jesus, it worried the Priests that he might over throw them and take away their power.
So the Priests, afraid of the impending change of hands that Jesus, intentionally or unintentionally was bringing about, scurried off to the roman officials to have him arrested for Heresy. And of course we all know the story of what happens. The Priests bribe one of Jesus' close friends, Judas, and have him point Jesus out to the Roman guard. Now this to me sounds more James Bond than the Bible reads. We always see these movies where Judas, backed by two Roman legionnaires, walking up to Jesus and kissing, which is the sign to the Roman soldiers that the man Judas kissed is the man to be arrested. Why would Judas kiss him as a sign if the Romans were standing right behind him? Wouldn't make more sense that Judas just points and says, "There, that man with the long hair and the beard."? I don't actually think that's how it played out. I think the Jewish Priests and the Romans were afraid that if Jesus knew that they were planning on arresting him, he would flee the city.
So instead I think the Roman guard were no where near judas when he approached Jesus. he greeted him as if it were any other day and kissed him on the cheek. And from across the street the Roman Legionnaires would see that sign and know, okay, now we can move in and arrest that man. That, at least to me, sound more like something the Romans would do, and more likely how the story went down.
Jesus was arrested, tortured and then condemned to death by crucifixion. Now crucifixion was a common form of execution for the Romans. They did it all the time. But, they only reserved that punishment for people who had done really horrible things. Most of the time, when the Romans wanted to kill someone they just stabbed them...a lot. So when the Romans, under pressure from the Jewish Priests and the Priests money, kill Jesus. Had anyone known what that would mean for the people that followed Jesus, they probably would have never done it.
This is a really interesting thing. Because until this time, being crucified was just a bad way to be executed for your crimes. Now it was the symbol of a martyr. And the idea that crucifixions were so common has almost been lost on people today because of how strong this symbol of Jesus dying on the cross has become.
It's also interesting that the Jewish Priests, or even the Romans didn't see Christ's martyrdom coming. For hundreds of years the Romans had been dealing with martyrs. From the year 133 BC with Tiberius Gracchus, the famous Tribune, who appealed to the people of Rome in an attempt to reform laws set by corrupt politicians, to even Julius Caesar in 44 BC whose death eventually led to a third civil war in Rome.
Still, Jesus' death would be the beginning of a new world. His followers would grow in size, and it would threaten the power that the Jewish Priests had over the people in the area. The Jewish Priests, by the way, were very smart people, which is how they got their power to begin with. For example: It was Jewish law that you could not leave your property on the sabbath, so instead of staying home all day, because of course being at home means you can't make money, the Priests would take bits of dirt from around their home and put it in their pockets so that when someone asked, "Why have you left your property on the sabbath?", the Priest could reply, "I haven't left it, I have brought it with me." and show that person the dirt in their pocket. So these smart Priests come up with a plan and appeal to the fears and senses of the Romans. They ask the Romans, who made all the 'real laws' to outlaw Christianity or as it was call at that time Christo-Judeism. Because the Christians still felt that they were practicing the Jewish faith that Christ had reformed. They called themselves Christian Jews.
When the Jewish Priests asked the Romans to outlaw Christianity the Romans probably laughed, they probably asked, "Why should we outlaw that religion? Even though we do not share the same faith as you, we do not out law the Jewish faith?" See, the Romans never forced their pagan beliefs on the people they conquered because they realized that letting people have their own religions made them easier to control. Easier to govern. Outlaw something and the people will rebel, which is exactly what the christians would eventually do! But the Jewish Priests probably played on the Roman's fear of being conquered. Its funny that the Romans were ready and able to conquer anyone, had practically all ready done so, but they feared anyone who had the power to do the same to them. They feared the barbarians from France and Germany for this reason. Among all the nations the Romans had ever fought, the people of Europe were the most formidable and capable of conquering the Empire. I could see the Jewish Priests saying something like, "These Christians are on bent taking over. They tried to reform the Jewish church and the Pagan church will be next if you don't stop them now!" So of course, the Romans outlawed Christianity, to preserve the Empire.
What happens after that would be a long a bloody battle over control of Rome and religious freedom. By the year 100 AD somewhere between 4,500 and 144,000 people had converted to Christianity. And this was about the time the Romans had outlawed the religion in an attempt to slow or stop the growth of followers. (probably should have listened to the Jewish Priests earlier right?) But don't get me wrong. The decision to outlaw Christianity didn't come from some power hungry, disgruntled Jewish Priests. The Romans themselves were smart enough to see that the Christian faith was growing in size, and if left unchecked would be too difficult to control or govern. Unfortunately for the Romans, it would not be enough to simply outlaw the religion.
Christianity, for multiple reasons became a very popular religion. It's beliefs in a peaceful afterlife, it's simple choices between right and wrong, which allow for simpler lives to be led more happily and of course, it's founder: The peaceful, charitable, compassionate and loving Jesus who was martyred. And as I mentioned before, the more people were told not to worship the religion of their martyred leader the more they rebelled. They begin meeting in secret and marking their houses with secret symbols so other Christians would know who they were. You've probably seen the symbol. I see it most often on the bumper of cars, the fish.
By the year 303 the Emperor Diocletian had tightened the reigns on Christian persecution under the grounds that they were unwilling to worship him as their ruler. The Christians of course claiming there was only one true god and that it was against their faith to worship anything or anyone else. Between 303 and 311 AD Diocletian would have nearly 20,000 Christians would be killed. By 311 AD Emperor Galerius, realizing how bad things were backfiring, recognized Christianity as an official religion.
From that time forward, with Christianity as an official religion, with an official hierarchy, the world would begin to see some major changes.
After Rome fell, which to be honest it didn't really do. It never 'fell'. It simply relocated, and the Emperor Constantine founded Constantinople. It was a huge, I mean HUGE city, and beautiful, but it wasn't enough for Constantine. He needed the Capitol of the Byzantine Empire to be the best city in the world. A place that all the planet would look to. From the year 360 AD to 1453 when the city was taken by the Ottomans, millions of people would flock to the city and for centuries every major cathedral and church would model the look of Hagia Sophia.
This is where I have been headed. Culturally, Hagia Sophia changed the way people built churches. Can it be said that perhaps the grandeur of Hagia Sophia caused others to strive for the same elegance? Was it some sort of contest to see who could build a bigger and better cathedral? Was this on the minds of the people who built Notre Dame? Possibly. But nevertheless, It's fact that Constantine's desire to build Hagia Sophia changed the world. Moving forward slightly on the same city and the same cathedral. Would the Ottomans have ever invaded Constantinople had Constantine never built Hagia Sophia?
The Sultan, Mehmed II, who led the Ottoman invasion claimed to have wept at the sight of the damage done to the city and the cathedral after the battle. Was his invasion of Constantinople specifically influenced by Christianity? It is a fact that the Ottomans and the Byzantines were at war over religion, but civilizations have fought over religion in general since the beginning of time and it's not my opinion that Christianity as a whole was any different than any other religion the Ottomans might have gone to war with. With the exception of Hagia Sophia, as stated.
On another related note, as I had also mentioned earlier, Vlad Tepes III, also known as Vlad the Impaler fought through out his entire life with Sultan Mehmed II. One of the main reasons they fought against one another for so long was the geography of the land. As Constantinople, which by this time was now called Istanbul, was the seat of Mehmed's throne. It was his base of operations. Mehmed, like many rules, wanted to conquer Europe and the most direct route from Istanbul, from Turkey to Western Europe was through Eastern Europe, through the mountains. This land, in the mountains belonged to the ruler of Walachia, who was Vlad.
So, had Mehmed not chosen Istanbul as his place of power would he have found a different route when attacking Europe? Had Mehmed not been at war with Walachia would Vlad have ever been traded to the Ottomans as a hostage? Would he have ever been tortured, or learn to torture? Would he have ever come to hate the Ottomans as much as he did? Would he have been driven to kill as many innocent people as he had?
It's extraordinary how something as simple as Christianity can change the world as much as it did.
Here are other examples. Nov. 27th 1095 AD, the Christians decide the only way to protect the Holy Land and the sacred sights and relics in the middle east was to take it back from the people who currently controlled that area. The Muslims. Had Christianity and Islam not both started in the middle east, would the events that would span the next 177 years, nine crusades and cause the deaths of over 200,000 people ever happened? Had both religions not started in the same place in the world, would they have still fought so hard for control of that specific area?
Now, I've dragged this on too long, and anyone still reading this has their doubts of reading anything else I have to say, but the point that I'm trying to get across is this. Obviously if you take something out of the world, everything that it comes in contact with changes drastically. We've all seen this in films and book. Remember The Butterfly Effect? But Christianity has had probably one the biggest influences on the planet. Sure other religions have had their influences as well, I'm not discounting them. It just boggles my mind to think of everything that has happened over the last 2,000 years and how Christianity had a role in it.
You may have your opinions, and you may disagree with me. You're entitled to that. But try this, maybe just for a week: The next time you hear about a major historical event, or hear something drastic or important in current affairs, ask your self this, "What role did Christianity have in this, if any, and how would this have played out differently if Christianity had never existed?
As you can see, just from the numbers, christianity has been able to mold and shape the world in ways we're probably unaware of. So to start this out I want to take a look at the major events that happened between Christ's death and modern times. Then we'll break those events down and look at why christianity had such an important role. For instance, would the infamous Salem Witch trials have even happened had the people to colonize the Americas not been Christian? Or, would the Ottomans have ever invaded the city of Constantinople if the Emperor Constantine never built the elegant Hagia Sophia? And if the Ottomans had never invaded, would the villainous Vlad Tepes III have ever preformed all of the atrocious things he had done, such as impaling over 100,000 people of his own country? It's a lot to think about. What, for me, is even more mind boggling, is that all of these events, all of these things that we're about to discuss happened, ultimately, because of one man, ONE! That is just something so impressive to me I can't even fathom living a life that for the next two thousand years after my death completely changes everything everyone will ever know.
Between the year 30 and 33 AD, it's hard to say, Jesus Christ was crucified. But before we go too much into his death and more specifically how he was killed we should probably understand a few of the reasons why he was killed.
By the time Jesus was born the Jewish Church, which was the Church and Religion Jesus belonged to, was so completely corrupt that most people couldn't discern what rules and religious laws were set in place originally by Moses and what had been set in place by the current Jewish Priests. You see, this kind of goes back to my previous blog about Human Nature. The Jewish priests, or the men who were in charge of running the Jewish Church were extremely powerful men. They more or less ruled the cities of the middle east where they were like dictators. And they were rich because of it. Now of course, the Roman Empire at this time really ruled over the land, but the Romans left the people like the famous Harod in charge and he let the Jewish priests rule under him to a certain extent. The reason for this was simple, the more people you have under you running things, the less you have to do when it comes to ruling your land.
So the Jewish priests are rich and powerful and more or less run things the way they want. Now Jesus, from what I can gather, from the only real 'documentation' of his life, the Bible, seems to be a traditionalist. A fan of the old school way of running the religion. And he was more or less a Jewish reformer. He began teaching the people from his parables the things that he felt were more important than making money or becoming powerful. And it's Jesus' hope, I'm assuming, that if he can get enough people to see that the Jewish religion is built on more than what the current Jewish priests were doing, then he could actually reform the religion and fix things. And I don't think that Jesus really wanted power or control over the Jewish people, or their religion, but because of his overwhelming influence, it was becoming obvious to the Jewish priests that that was exactly what Jesus was doing. He was turning the people, the money makers, away from the pockets of the Priests. And with that many people backing Jesus, it worried the Priests that he might over throw them and take away their power.
So the Priests, afraid of the impending change of hands that Jesus, intentionally or unintentionally was bringing about, scurried off to the roman officials to have him arrested for Heresy. And of course we all know the story of what happens. The Priests bribe one of Jesus' close friends, Judas, and have him point Jesus out to the Roman guard. Now this to me sounds more James Bond than the Bible reads. We always see these movies where Judas, backed by two Roman legionnaires, walking up to Jesus and kissing, which is the sign to the Roman soldiers that the man Judas kissed is the man to be arrested. Why would Judas kiss him as a sign if the Romans were standing right behind him? Wouldn't make more sense that Judas just points and says, "There, that man with the long hair and the beard."? I don't actually think that's how it played out. I think the Jewish Priests and the Romans were afraid that if Jesus knew that they were planning on arresting him, he would flee the city.
So instead I think the Roman guard were no where near judas when he approached Jesus. he greeted him as if it were any other day and kissed him on the cheek. And from across the street the Roman Legionnaires would see that sign and know, okay, now we can move in and arrest that man. That, at least to me, sound more like something the Romans would do, and more likely how the story went down.
Jesus was arrested, tortured and then condemned to death by crucifixion. Now crucifixion was a common form of execution for the Romans. They did it all the time. But, they only reserved that punishment for people who had done really horrible things. Most of the time, when the Romans wanted to kill someone they just stabbed them...a lot. So when the Romans, under pressure from the Jewish Priests and the Priests money, kill Jesus. Had anyone known what that would mean for the people that followed Jesus, they probably would have never done it.
This is a really interesting thing. Because until this time, being crucified was just a bad way to be executed for your crimes. Now it was the symbol of a martyr. And the idea that crucifixions were so common has almost been lost on people today because of how strong this symbol of Jesus dying on the cross has become.
It's also interesting that the Jewish Priests, or even the Romans didn't see Christ's martyrdom coming. For hundreds of years the Romans had been dealing with martyrs. From the year 133 BC with Tiberius Gracchus, the famous Tribune, who appealed to the people of Rome in an attempt to reform laws set by corrupt politicians, to even Julius Caesar in 44 BC whose death eventually led to a third civil war in Rome.
Still, Jesus' death would be the beginning of a new world. His followers would grow in size, and it would threaten the power that the Jewish Priests had over the people in the area. The Jewish Priests, by the way, were very smart people, which is how they got their power to begin with. For example: It was Jewish law that you could not leave your property on the sabbath, so instead of staying home all day, because of course being at home means you can't make money, the Priests would take bits of dirt from around their home and put it in their pockets so that when someone asked, "Why have you left your property on the sabbath?", the Priest could reply, "I haven't left it, I have brought it with me." and show that person the dirt in their pocket. So these smart Priests come up with a plan and appeal to the fears and senses of the Romans. They ask the Romans, who made all the 'real laws' to outlaw Christianity or as it was call at that time Christo-Judeism. Because the Christians still felt that they were practicing the Jewish faith that Christ had reformed. They called themselves Christian Jews.
When the Jewish Priests asked the Romans to outlaw Christianity the Romans probably laughed, they probably asked, "Why should we outlaw that religion? Even though we do not share the same faith as you, we do not out law the Jewish faith?" See, the Romans never forced their pagan beliefs on the people they conquered because they realized that letting people have their own religions made them easier to control. Easier to govern. Outlaw something and the people will rebel, which is exactly what the christians would eventually do! But the Jewish Priests probably played on the Roman's fear of being conquered. Its funny that the Romans were ready and able to conquer anyone, had practically all ready done so, but they feared anyone who had the power to do the same to them. They feared the barbarians from France and Germany for this reason. Among all the nations the Romans had ever fought, the people of Europe were the most formidable and capable of conquering the Empire. I could see the Jewish Priests saying something like, "These Christians are on bent taking over. They tried to reform the Jewish church and the Pagan church will be next if you don't stop them now!" So of course, the Romans outlawed Christianity, to preserve the Empire.
What happens after that would be a long a bloody battle over control of Rome and religious freedom. By the year 100 AD somewhere between 4,500 and 144,000 people had converted to Christianity. And this was about the time the Romans had outlawed the religion in an attempt to slow or stop the growth of followers. (probably should have listened to the Jewish Priests earlier right?) But don't get me wrong. The decision to outlaw Christianity didn't come from some power hungry, disgruntled Jewish Priests. The Romans themselves were smart enough to see that the Christian faith was growing in size, and if left unchecked would be too difficult to control or govern. Unfortunately for the Romans, it would not be enough to simply outlaw the religion.
Christianity, for multiple reasons became a very popular religion. It's beliefs in a peaceful afterlife, it's simple choices between right and wrong, which allow for simpler lives to be led more happily and of course, it's founder: The peaceful, charitable, compassionate and loving Jesus who was martyred. And as I mentioned before, the more people were told not to worship the religion of their martyred leader the more they rebelled. They begin meeting in secret and marking their houses with secret symbols so other Christians would know who they were. You've probably seen the symbol. I see it most often on the bumper of cars, the fish.
By the year 303 the Emperor Diocletian had tightened the reigns on Christian persecution under the grounds that they were unwilling to worship him as their ruler. The Christians of course claiming there was only one true god and that it was against their faith to worship anything or anyone else. Between 303 and 311 AD Diocletian would have nearly 20,000 Christians would be killed. By 311 AD Emperor Galerius, realizing how bad things were backfiring, recognized Christianity as an official religion.
From that time forward, with Christianity as an official religion, with an official hierarchy, the world would begin to see some major changes.
After Rome fell, which to be honest it didn't really do. It never 'fell'. It simply relocated, and the Emperor Constantine founded Constantinople. It was a huge, I mean HUGE city, and beautiful, but it wasn't enough for Constantine. He needed the Capitol of the Byzantine Empire to be the best city in the world. A place that all the planet would look to. From the year 360 AD to 1453 when the city was taken by the Ottomans, millions of people would flock to the city and for centuries every major cathedral and church would model the look of Hagia Sophia.
This is where I have been headed. Culturally, Hagia Sophia changed the way people built churches. Can it be said that perhaps the grandeur of Hagia Sophia caused others to strive for the same elegance? Was it some sort of contest to see who could build a bigger and better cathedral? Was this on the minds of the people who built Notre Dame? Possibly. But nevertheless, It's fact that Constantine's desire to build Hagia Sophia changed the world. Moving forward slightly on the same city and the same cathedral. Would the Ottomans have ever invaded Constantinople had Constantine never built Hagia Sophia?
The Sultan, Mehmed II, who led the Ottoman invasion claimed to have wept at the sight of the damage done to the city and the cathedral after the battle. Was his invasion of Constantinople specifically influenced by Christianity? It is a fact that the Ottomans and the Byzantines were at war over religion, but civilizations have fought over religion in general since the beginning of time and it's not my opinion that Christianity as a whole was any different than any other religion the Ottomans might have gone to war with. With the exception of Hagia Sophia, as stated.
On another related note, as I had also mentioned earlier, Vlad Tepes III, also known as Vlad the Impaler fought through out his entire life with Sultan Mehmed II. One of the main reasons they fought against one another for so long was the geography of the land. As Constantinople, which by this time was now called Istanbul, was the seat of Mehmed's throne. It was his base of operations. Mehmed, like many rules, wanted to conquer Europe and the most direct route from Istanbul, from Turkey to Western Europe was through Eastern Europe, through the mountains. This land, in the mountains belonged to the ruler of Walachia, who was Vlad.
So, had Mehmed not chosen Istanbul as his place of power would he have found a different route when attacking Europe? Had Mehmed not been at war with Walachia would Vlad have ever been traded to the Ottomans as a hostage? Would he have ever been tortured, or learn to torture? Would he have ever come to hate the Ottomans as much as he did? Would he have been driven to kill as many innocent people as he had?
It's extraordinary how something as simple as Christianity can change the world as much as it did.
Here are other examples. Nov. 27th 1095 AD, the Christians decide the only way to protect the Holy Land and the sacred sights and relics in the middle east was to take it back from the people who currently controlled that area. The Muslims. Had Christianity and Islam not both started in the middle east, would the events that would span the next 177 years, nine crusades and cause the deaths of over 200,000 people ever happened? Had both religions not started in the same place in the world, would they have still fought so hard for control of that specific area?
Now, I've dragged this on too long, and anyone still reading this has their doubts of reading anything else I have to say, but the point that I'm trying to get across is this. Obviously if you take something out of the world, everything that it comes in contact with changes drastically. We've all seen this in films and book. Remember The Butterfly Effect? But Christianity has had probably one the biggest influences on the planet. Sure other religions have had their influences as well, I'm not discounting them. It just boggles my mind to think of everything that has happened over the last 2,000 years and how Christianity had a role in it.
You may have your opinions, and you may disagree with me. You're entitled to that. But try this, maybe just for a week: The next time you hear about a major historical event, or hear something drastic or important in current affairs, ask your self this, "What role did Christianity have in this, if any, and how would this have played out differently if Christianity had never existed?
Posted by Rick Bishop. Posted In : The World We Live In
