Christianity

World religion derived from the teaching of Jesus, as found in the New Testament, during the first third of the 1st century. It has a present-day membership of about a billion, and is divided into groups or denominations that differ in some areas of belief and practice. Its main divisions are the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant churches.

Beliefs
Christians believe in one God with three aspects: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit, who is the power of God working in the world. This is known as the Trinity. They believe that God created everything that exists and showed his love for the world by coming to earth as Jesus, and suffering and dying in order to reconcile humanity to himself. Christians believe that three days after his death by crucifixion Jesus was raised to life by God's power, appearing many times in bodily form to his followers, and that he is now alive in the world through the Holy Spirit. Christians speak of the sufferings they may have to endure because of their faith, and the reward of an everlasting afterlife in God's presence, which is promised to those who have faith in Jesus and who live according to his teaching.

Christians understand that God is to be regarded as their father, because in his teachings Jesus told his disciples to call God ‘Abba’, or ‘father’. In Aramaic the word translates better as ‘daddy’, symbolizing the closeness of the relationship between God and his children.

Central values of Christianity include Christian love, compassion, and justice. The Christian interpretation of justice involves fairness, equal distribution of resources, and positive discrimination in favour of underprivileged groups. Christians believe that God has created all people with equal worth, and so prejudice and discrimination are wrong. These views are supported by two teachings of Jesus: to love other people as one loves oneself, and to treat other people as one would want to be treated. Christians believe that the structure of modern materialistic societies, which put great value on money and possessions, encourages individuals to put themselves first, and that this is likely to lead to greed, competition, and selfishness. By contrast, Christian leaders like Martin Luther King Jr, Desmond Tutu, and Oscar Romero taught that it is wrong to keep silent when others were oppressed, even if it puts one's own life at risk.

Creation
Christians believe that the universe was created, and that it came about by the will of the creator, God, for a purpose and not by chance. This belief is not necessarily opposed to scientific theories of evolution. Some Christians interpret the creation stories in Genesis literally, others see them as symbolic expressions of the truth that, whatever the story, God is the ‘Creator’.