I think a lot about what people believe and why … was trained intensely how to do this as an undergraduate, during my year and a half in law school and as a graduate student studying the philosophy of knowledge. I’ve continued that trend through teaching and as one who leads in the process of teaching and learning.

As the world’s most popular belief system, Christianity comes under more than a little scrutiny, not just from without but from within … and deservedly so. Not surprisingly, I often feel called to write about what Christians believe and why. I’m going to try to tackle that in a swift kind of drive-by. For believing Christians, I hope to affirm some things as well as maybe provide a couple of new insights. For people who read these posts but are skeptical about the claims of Christianity for all sorts of reasons, I hope to provide some more context that might help. I guess we’ll see.

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Those who don’t buy into the Christian story have a lot of reasons not to. We so-called Christians should not be smug about this.

One of those reasons is that it’s hard to nail down, exactly, what defines a Christian. Despite being the most popular belief system in the world, this thing we can loosely call Christianity is actually a hodgepodge of all sorts of different ideas and interpretations. Atheists and non-Christians have a field day with this. I don’t blame them.

Setting aside the long historical record, an authentic accounting of which fills entire libraries, there are some key differences. If one wants to understand at a deeper level what those are, it’s worth spending a few minutes considering them. Maybe this is of interest to you, the reader, or not. But here goes.

On the most simplistic of levels, I’ll identify four major eras of Christianity.

(1) The first is the early church. In essence, the word “church” is meant to express how and why believers are organized into a community. There’s a ton of theology on this but let’s not go there, here. The early church, begun following Jesus’ purported resurrection from the dead, literally exploded throughout the broader Roman Empire, largely through the ministry of the famous convert, Paul (referred to as St. Paul by many), formerly the Pharisee and Jewish leader and persecutor of Christians, known as Saul of Tarsus. These early Jesus-followers belonged to something they called the “Way.” Eventually, the term “Christian” was accepted as they formed communities in lands governed by Rome. While many of them were Jews by tradition, many were not. This latter group were called “gentiles” by the early Jewish Jesus-followers. After centuries of persecution, the first Roman emperor to fully accept Christianity was Constantine in 313 AD.

(2) This launched the second major era, that of the official Roman Church. Jesus reportedly informed his most notable disciple, Peter, that upon him, the church would be founded. In a loose sense, then, Peter was the first “pope.” (That is why popes are referred to as filling the shoes of the “fisherman.” Peter, of course, was a fisherman in Galilee.) This Roman church was the only authority over this emerging religion. While there were local church leaders (bishops in the hierarchy, usually centered in regional cities), the Bishop of Rome was the “pope.”

(3) The third major era spanned a couple of centuries after a pope crowned a French fellow named Charles Magnus (we know him as Charlemagne), the Holy Roman Emperor in 800 AD. This was a new deal that upset eastern regions of Christianity that eventually fully broke away in the Great Schism of 1054 AD. Hence, we had the Eastern Orthodox Church (ultimately, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Chaldean, Coptics and so on) and the Roman Catholic Church. This broad split was not only geographic and political, it was also theological to a degree. I won’t go into the particulars because most people reading this are unfamiliar with Eastern Orthodoxy.

In the West, or Europe as we know it, the Roman Catholic Church held sway, with its various peculiarities. Popes, cardinals, monastic orders, crusades and so on. Any objective view of the Medieval church will chronicle all sorts of abuses of the original teaching of Jesus of Nazareth and the subsequent teaching of Paul, via his “epistles” (letters to far flung churches he’d launched) … collectively known as the New Testament. From the standpoint of some, especially the German monk, Martin Luther, these were abominable and needed to stop.

(4) This viewpoint exploded when Luther published his objections and called from reforming the Church in 1517 AD. His “protest” and call for “reform,” gained tremendous steam which is why that movement was called the Protestant Reformation and its descendants called Protestants. Over in merry England a couple of decades later, famous King Henry VIII was unhappy that the Roman Catholic pope would not grant him a divorce, so the English Parliament voted to disassociate from the Roman Church, declaring Henry to be the leader of the alternative Church of England. Interestingly, of all Protestant Churches, the English Church (Anglican in England and some parts of the world and Episcopalian in America) fundamentally held onto many of the tenets and practices of the Roman Catholic Church.

And, so the Reformation swept the West and spawned many new Christian denominations. Among them, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Anabaptists and Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers, Pentecostalists, and so on. This is one reason why, when you ask some people to simply define their faith, you’ll get the response, “I’m a Catholic.” Or, “I’m a Christian.” Typically, although not universally, followers of the Roman Catholic tradition don’t naturally call themselves “Christian” when first prompted, while followers of Protestant traditions don’t usually call themselves “Protestant” when first prompted. Go figure.

This fourth phase is still going on as more breakoffs and schisms continue. Some denominations like Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the LDS Church (Church of Latter Day Saints … or Mormons) are viewed with deep suspicion or outright scorn by the “mainstream” Christian denominations. They are even characterized as “cults” in some quarters. Other splits are occurring within those Mainstream Protestant churches (Diane and I attend a church that belongs to the Presbyterian Church of America … PCA … as opposed to our former church which was affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, USA … PCUSA. They hold some differing theological and political viewpoints). Furthermore, there are often large “mega-churches” which are often independent and not specifically affiliated with a major organizational denomination. In San Diego, three of these are The Rock Church, Emmanuel Faith Church and Maranatha Church.

All of this is more than enough to make our heads spin and rightfully wonder how it’s possible to authentically follow Jesus in the 21^st century. As I said at the beginning, this is proof to the skeptic and critic that Christianity as a religion is a mess … and therefore unreliable.

Yes. And, yes.

Yes, it’s a mess. And, yes, it’s unreliable. Unless …

When faced with all of this and the resulting questions from skeptics or those searching, one pastor friend of ours said, “let’s major on the majors.” This is good advice.

Setting aside all of the organizational differences, there is this concept called “Orthodoxy.” The word means “generally accepted.” In other words, “orthodox” beliefs are those fundamental beliefs that are held to be truthful by a large swath of the population. “Unorthodox” means something that is contrary to commonly held beliefs or practices.

Within that large swath of Christianity as a whole, there are some unifying beliefs and practices. These beliefs and practices remain relatively consistent, fully acknowledging that there are many “smaller” differences.

To Be Continued …

Next: Core Beliefs