KnightRider
Member
I'm quite new to the forum so forgive me if this topic has been addressed recently. I introduced myself in the thread entitled "Just looking for some answers" in the new-member forum, and stated that my leanings are towards Christianity. I do however have some concerns about the rise of what we today understand as Christianity. For the most part I believe in the Bible and I hope/believe that Jesus Christ is who he professed to be -- the son of God. From what I understand of the New Testament it appears that an actual organized church was set up with the 12 apostles. Curious about the history of this church I read a book on Christian history (I don't remember off hand the title or name of the author but if you're interested I can find it).
According to the history that I read several of the original apostles were killed and Christians in general were heavily persecuted early on. Eventually Christians were forced to survive in different isolated groups apparently living off of the remembered teachings of the apostles. That all changed when Constantine was converted to Christianity and made it the official religion of the empire. Many of these Christians came forward but with differing ideas about what they claimed the apostles had taught and on topics as fundamental as the divinity of Jesus. Constantine wanted to unify the Christian theology and several councils resulted, in which they debated and ultimately voted on the "true" doctrines of Christianity. So this is the first thing that troubles me, the doctrines were voted on? OK so maybe if there was some divine spirit of understanding that was present and the voted results were inspired from heaven, then I could accept that, but with what followed in the history makes me find that hard to believe. After Christianity was "defined" and made the universal religion it was then the Christians that became the persecutors who forced their beliefs on everyone. To me that completely contradicts the Christianity found in the New Testament.
Now, maybe this history is not accurate and there's some important information missing, but if it is at least mostly accurate than in order for pure Chrisitanity to exist today there must have been some divine intervention to straighten things out and in effect overturn some of the principles established in those councils, but it seems that most Christian denominations rely heavily on those voted creeds. Again I may be wrong on this and I'd be interested to here your thoughts.
According to the history that I read several of the original apostles were killed and Christians in general were heavily persecuted early on. Eventually Christians were forced to survive in different isolated groups apparently living off of the remembered teachings of the apostles. That all changed when Constantine was converted to Christianity and made it the official religion of the empire. Many of these Christians came forward but with differing ideas about what they claimed the apostles had taught and on topics as fundamental as the divinity of Jesus. Constantine wanted to unify the Christian theology and several councils resulted, in which they debated and ultimately voted on the "true" doctrines of Christianity. So this is the first thing that troubles me, the doctrines were voted on? OK so maybe if there was some divine spirit of understanding that was present and the voted results were inspired from heaven, then I could accept that, but with what followed in the history makes me find that hard to believe. After Christianity was "defined" and made the universal religion it was then the Christians that became the persecutors who forced their beliefs on everyone. To me that completely contradicts the Christianity found in the New Testament.
Now, maybe this history is not accurate and there's some important information missing, but if it is at least mostly accurate than in order for pure Chrisitanity to exist today there must have been some divine intervention to straighten things out and in effect overturn some of the principles established in those councils, but it seems that most Christian denominations rely heavily on those voted creeds. Again I may be wrong on this and I'd be interested to here your thoughts.