Cook believes that both contemporary Jews and contemporary Christians need to reexamine the history of early Christianity, and the transformation of Christianity from a Jewish sect consisting of followers of a Jewish Jesus, to a separate religion often dependent on the tolerance of Rome while proselytizing among Gentiles loyal to the Roman empire, to understand how the story of Jesus came to be recast in an anti-Jewish form as the Gospels took their final form.

Based on his study of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Taoism, and other traditions, Jung believed that this journey of transformation, which he called individuation, is at the mystical heart of all religions.

During James VI's reign the transformation of the 15th century image of the Hebrides as the cradle of Scottish Christianity and nationhood into one in which its citizens were regarded as lawless barbarians was complete.

The book's title refers to Constantine's transformation of the cross, which Carroll points out, was not a symbol used by Christians in the first three centuries of the Church's existence, into a symbolic sword infusing a spirit of violent intolerance into the development of Christianity.

Following this event Christianity was legalised under the Edict of Milan in 313, hastening the Church's transformation from a humble bottom-up sect to an authoritarian top-down organization.

Related to this idea is his emphasis on the transformation that occurs through mystical activity: " This is why the only test that Christianity has known for determining the authenticity of a mystic and her or his message has been that of personal transformation, both on the mystic's part and — especially — on the part of those whom the mystic has affected.

* Russell, James C. ( 1994 ), The Germanization of early medieval Christianity: A sociohistorical approach to religious transformation, Oxford University Press ( 1994 ), ISBN 0-19-510466-8.

The subsequent transformation of Christianity into the main Roman religion ended the position of Christians as a minority sect.

Tosen opined that accounts of the Pitcairners ' past transformation by Christianity, once popularised in missionary tracts, told only one side of the story.

Although presented as a sect of Islam, the Moorish Science Temple also draws inspiration from Buddhism, Christianity, Freemasonry, Gnosticism and Taoism to present a message of self-determination, personal transformation, indigenous identity in the Western Hemisphere, indigenous pride, uplift, civic involvement, and self-sufficiency.

The trade of thralls as prizes of plunder was a key part of the Viking economy, but this trade went through a transformation with the coming of Christianity that leaves the thrall trade looking entirely different.

He was not, however, to be moved by such means, and ( 1792 ) issued his work Die Religion der Vollkommeneren (" The Religion of the More Perfect "), an exposition of his theological position, in which he advocated at length the idea, subsequently often urged, of the perfectibility of Christianity, that is, of the ultimate transformation of Christianity into a scheme of simple morality, with a complete rejection of all specifically Christian ideas and methods.

1958: Describes the transformation of a fictional African town by capitalism, Christianity, and colonialism.

*" The intimate transformation of authentic cultural values through their integration in Christianity and the insertion of Christianity in the various human cultures.

Prominent postliberals becoming Catholic is especially notable because George Lindbeck's ecumenical work at Vatican II and beyond expressed no interest in individual conversions to the Catholic Church, but did suggest the need for a communal transformation of liberal Protestantism so that Protestant Christianity might begin to be more identifiable as a form of catholic Christianity.

From the birth of Christianity to the present, the most significant objects of transformation for Christian architecture and design were the great churches of Byzantium, the Romanesque abbey churches, Gothic cathedrals and Renaissance Basilicas with its emphasis on harmony.

* Holy water in Eastern Christianity

Immersion ( or aspersion or affusion ) of a person in water is a central sacrament of Christianity ( where it is called baptism ); it is also a part of the practice of other religions, including Islam ( Ghusl ), Judaism ( mikvah ) and Sikhism ( Amrit Sanskar ).

Rose water also figures in Christianity, particularly in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The use of holy water in the earliest days of Christianity is attested to only in somewhat later documents.

In Christianity, asperges is the name given to the rite of sprinkling a congregation with holy water.

Indeed, in Orthodox Christianity, it was common to add boiling water to the sacramental wine.

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the historic requirement for priests to first wash their hands, together with the classical rabbinical belief that non-priest were also required to wash their hands before taking part in a holy act, such as prayer, was adhered to very strongly, to the extent that Christianity adopted the practice, and provided worshippers with fountains and basins of water in Churches, in a similar manner to the " Molten Sea " in the Jerusalem Temple functioning as a laver.

He reportedly converted a pagan philosopher to Christianity by using a potsherd to illustrate how one single entity ( a piece of pottery ) could be composed of three unique entities ( fire, water and clay ); a metaphor for the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

Originally called " Maigoga " ( mai, Tigrinya " water ," and guagua, " noisy ") because of the two rocky streams that run through the community, the Jesuit missionaries who were sent to live there by Emperor Menas renamed it after Saint Frumentius, who had converted the Axumite kings to Christianity.

What we can attempt with some hope of dependable conclusions is to point out the manner in which Christianity entered into particular aspects of the life of the nation.

These thinkers blended Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity, bringing the thought of Ancient Greece into the Middle Ages.

His other important works include his Letters to Serapion, which dealt with the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and his classic Life of St Anthony, which was translated into several languages and played an important role in the spreading of the ascetic ideal in Eastern and Western Christianity.

The liturgical communities in western Christianity that derive their rituals from the Roman Missal, including those particular communities which use the Roman Missal itself ( Roman Catholics ), the Book of Common Prayer ( Anglicans / Episcopalians ), the Lutheran Book of Worship ( ELCA Lutherans ), Lutheran Service Book ( Missouri-Synod Lutherans ), use the Apostles ' Creed and interrogative forms of it in their rites of Baptism, which they consider to be the first sacrament of initiation into the Church.

Ben Franklin's mother, Abiah Folger, was born into a Puritan family among those that fled to Massachusetts to establish a purified Congregationalist Christianity in New England, when King Charles I of England began persecuting Puritans.

The Greek Orthodox branch of Christianity continues to use the Greek translation ( the Septuagint ), but when a Latin translation ( called the Vulgate ) was made for the Western church, Kingdoms was first retitled the Book of Kings, parts One to Four, and eventually both Kings and Samuel were separated into two books each.

Bernard would expand upon Anselm of Canterbury's role in transmuting the sacramentally ritual Christianity of the Early Middle Ages into a new, more personally held faith, with the life of Christ as a model and a new emphasis on the Virgin Mary.

Barnabas participated in the Council of Jerusalem, which dealt with the admission of gentiles into the Christian community, a crucial problem in early Christianity.

A common belief held by Restorationists was that the other divisions of Christianity had introduced doctrinal defects into Christianity, which was known as the Great Apostasy.

Excavated sites include Saliagos and Kephala ( on Keos ) with signs of copper-working, Each of the small Cycladic islands could support no more than a few thousand people, though Late Cycladic boat models show that fifty oarsmen could be assembled from the scattered communities ( Rutter ), and when the highly organized palace-culture of Crete arose, the islands faded into insignificance, with the exception of Delos, which retained its archaic reputation as a sanctuary throughout antiquity and until the emergence of Christianity.

Antisemitism has been described as primarily hatred against Jews as a race with its modern expression rooted in 19th century racial theories, while anti-Judaism is described as hostility to Jewish religion, but in Western Christianity it effectively merged into antisemitism during the 12th century.

In contrast, most Christian denominations actively seek converts, following the Great Commission, and conversion to Christianity is generally a declaration of faith ( although some denominations view it specifically as adoption into a community of Christ, and orthodox Christian tradition views it as being a literal joining together of the members of Christ's body ).

In the 2nd century, Christianity began to spread to the rural areas, and scriptures were translated into the local language, namely Coptic.

In particular, the ideas of Confucius, translated into European languages by the Jesuits stationed in China, are thought to have had considerable influence on the deists and other philosophical groups of the Enlightenment who were interested by the integration of the system of morality of Confucius into Christianity.

Christianity was introduced into the country by Frumentius, who was consecrated first bishop of Ethiopia by Saint Athanasius of Alexandria about

Christian fundamentalists, who generally consider the term to be pejorative when used to refer to themselves, often object to the placement of themselves and Islamist groups into a single category given that the fundamentals of Christianity are different from the fundamentals of Islam.

Meanwhile, several Germanic tribes were converted to Arian Christianity by the missionary Wulfila, who devised an alphabet to translate the Bible into the Gothic language.

In the past many scholars believed that gnosticism pre-dated Christianity, but now it is generally accepted that gnosticism developed into a coherent movement only in the second century CE.

The Christian groups first called " gnostic " a branch of Christianity, however Joseph Jacobs and Ludwig Blau ( Jewish Encyclopedia, 1911 ) note that much of the terminology employed is Jewish and note that this " proves at least that the principal elements of gnosticism were derived from Jewish speculation, while it does not preclude the possibility of new wine having been poured into old bottles.

It generally resonates better with existing Muslim views than with Christianity: it foretells the coming of Muhammad by name ; rather than describing the crucifixion of Jesus, it describes him being raised up into heaven, similar to the description of Elijah in 2 Kings, Chapter 2 ; and it calls Jesus a " prophet " whose mission was restricted to the " house of Israel ".

Luke apparently draws formal set pieces from the " teachings " of Christianity and incorporates into the gospel.

While much of the attempt at gender equity in mainstream Christianity ( Judaism never recognized any gender for God ) is aimed at reinterpreting scripture and degenderizing language used to name and describe the divine ( Ruether, 1984 ; Plaskow, 1991 ), there are a growing number of people who identify as Christians or Jews who are trying to integrate goddess imagery into their religions ( Kien, 2000 ; Kidd 1996 ," Goddess Christians Yahoogroup ").

The Visigoths, for example, were converted to Arian Christianity around 360, even before they were pushed into imperial territory by the expansion of the Huns.