What are the factors that contributed to the spread of Christianity?
Bart D. Ehrman attributes the rapid spread of Christianity to five factors: (1) the promise of salvation and eternal life for everyone was an attractive alternative to Roman religions; (2) stories of miracles and healings purportedly showed that the one Christian God was more powerful than the many Roman gods; (3) …
What influences did Christianity have on the Roman Empire?
Emperors Theodosius, Gratian, and Valentinian continued to institutionalize Christianity by making it the official religion of the Roman Empire. In 380 CE they issued the Edict of Thessalonica, naming Catholic Christianity as the official faith of the Roman Empire.
How did early Christianity spread across the Roman Empire quizlet?
How did Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, and what were the consequences? It was spread by apostles and missionaries. It was seen as a threat, and they were persecuted, until the emperor Constantine became a Christian.
What are the factors that contributed to the spread of Christianity in Africa?
The reason why so many Africans are turning to Christianity is attributed to a number of factors include disillusionment with political systems and a natural attraction to religious worship.
What influenced the spread of Christianity in West Africa?
In the 15th century Christianity came to Sub-Saharan Africa with the arrival of the Portuguese. In the South of the continent the Dutch founded the beginnings of the Dutch Reform Church in 1652. In the interior of the continent most people continued to practice their own religions undisturbed until the 19th century.
What religion did Africa have before Christianity?
GAZETTE: How would you define indigenous African religions? OLUPONA: Indigenous African religions refer to the indigenous or native religious beliefs of the African people before the Christian and Islamic colonization of Africa.
Which is oldest religion in world?
The word Hindu is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, many practitioners refer to their religion as Sanātana Dharma (Sanskrit: सनातन धर्म: “the Eternal Way”), which refers to the idea that its origins lie beyond human history, as revealed in the Hindu texts.
Who was the first African to be converted to Christianity?
It is 200 years since the birth of David Livingstone, perhaps the most famous of the missionaries to visit Africa in the 19th Century. But as author and Church historian Stephen Tomkins explains, the story of an African chief he converted is every bit as incredible as Livingstone’s.
What was Africa’s original religion?
Christianity came first to the continent of Africa in the 1st or early 2nd century AD. Oral tradition says the first Muslims appeared while the prophet Mohammed was still alive (he died in 632). Thus both religions have been on the continent of Africa for over 1,300 years.
Who is God in African traditional religion?
Generally speaking, African religions hold that there is one creator God, the maker of a dynamic universe. Myths of various African peoples relate that, after setting the world in motion, the Supreme Being withdrew, and he remains remote from the concerns of human life.
What does pagan mean in the Bible?
Pagan is derived from the Late Latin paganus, which was used at the end of the Roman Empire to name those who practiced a religion other than Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. Early Christians often used the term to refer to non-Christians who worshiped multiple deities.
How do pagans worship?
As Pagans have no public buildings specifically set aside for worship, and most believe that religious ceremonies are best conducted out of doors, rituals often take place in woods or caves, on hilltops, or along the seashore.
