Christianity Triumphed, but at What Cost?
When thinking about the question of whether Christianity has triumphed or not, you would assume the answer would be yes! They still exist and are a massively widespread religion. Just about every person in the world has believes in or has at least heard of Jesus Christ. However, we need to consider what it really means to triumph. If Christianity did truly triumph, what did it cost and was it worth it?
Christianity is an extremely expansive religion. It started in a small country thousands of years ago and can now be found on every continent and just about every country in the earth. It has not only lasted the span and test of time, but it has grown and flourished, like well tended garden. This power first began to gain momentum through the Emperor Constantine. When he became the Western Roman Emperor, he used his power to issue the Edict of Milan, which “legalized Christianity and allowed for freedom of worship throughout the empire” (Biography). Later, Constantine saw the power and strength of Christianity growing and made it the official religion of Rome. This was a massive change. Originally, they believed that Rome was founded by Romulus as directed by the Gods, therefore whatever they did was divinely mandated. Rome could do no wrong. So to change from a Pagan religion to a religion that worshiped a singular God was definitely a huge change. However, they way they viewed it was that it was always The God from the beginning, he just used other means to obtain his ends, just like the pagan gods did all throughout history.
Christianity went through a lot to get to where it did. The beginnings were fraught with martyrdom, arrests, executions, and of course feeding Christians to lions in the arena for sport. According to History Learnings Site, it was common for emperors to turn people against Christians when there were hard times simply because they were an easy target. “In AD 64, part of Rome was burned down. The Emperor Nero blamed the Christians and the people turned on them” (History Learning Site). Rome believed that if they made the right sacrifices and followed good Roman morals, they would always win. So when they lost, they would pinpoint what they’d done wrong and fix it. Christians, extremely faithful to their God, refused to sacrifice and worship the Roman gods. Therefore, they could be blamed when losses or traumatic events happened. Christians would have to meet in secret and be very incognito when recruiting and converting individuals, who usually were poor slaves who “had a great deal to gain from the Christians being successful (History Learning Site). Within 300 years, Christianity went from a persecuted sect of Judaism to the official religion of the roman empire. Constantine allowed Christianity to come out of the shadows and be an accepted part of Roman society, and miraculously, when Rome finally fell, leaving the Christian church, when even their government had been dissolved.
Christianity didn’t just survive the fall of the Roman Empire, but thrived. Today, Christianity is one of the most popular and widespread religions. According to the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, as of 2010 there were around around 2,168,330,000 Christians in the world, which comes out to be around 31.4% of the entire population of the world being Christian. Below is an image from the Pew-Templeton website showing the 2010 numbers for religious beliefs in Rome.
Obviously, Christianity still outweighs all other religion, clocking in at 83.3%, projected to still be close to 80% by 2020 (Pew-Templeton). Much of this is because of the rich architectural and artistic history that has its foothold in Rome and the surrounding areas. Simply put, however, Christianity has withstood the test of time. It has outlasted what was once one of the greatest empires in the entire world. 
Christianity has existed for thousands of years now, which in and of itself is an achievement. Unfortunately, the Christianity we have today is different than the put Christian religion and beliefs organized and taught by Jesus Christ. For example, when Constantine was emperor, he participated in the Council of Nicea, which basically decided what was to be believed by Christian religions as truth. This included deciding on the divinity of Jesus Christ himself. Changes were made to the bible, and although the Roman empire and government were eventually dissolved, the leaders within the Christian religion, especially in the catholic sects, maintained power over the state and over the people. This was one way Rome tried to maintain it’s footing even though it was disappearing. For example, in the famous mosaic “Christ Militant”, He is depicted as a Roman emperor, wearing what looks like battle armor. He is standing on a snake and a beast holding scriptures that say “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Stanford).
This image projects Christ in Rome’s image, which is an ironic twist of us being created in God’s image. It sends the message that Christ may be in charge of Rome, but the church itself is where the real power is. The core of what true Christianity is and was has been shaped and changed by man over time, even in the way we celebrate Jesus. For example, our Christmas celebration is based off of Saturnalia, a pagan festival where they went around singing and giving presents to each other in the month of December.
We still have to address how Rome would have viewed Christianity in terms of being triumphant. Vocabulary.com talks about the origin of the word, saying “The word comes from the Latin triumphus which is an ‘achievement, success, procession for a victorious general or admiral’” (Vocabulary). Romans would usually only build their triumphal arches for military achievements, which usually meant they had conquered and won over another city or region. With Christianity, Rome lost part of who it was, so they would not have built a triumphal arch for Christianity. However, I think overall they did triumph, even according to this definition. Against all odds, Christianity survived. Not only did it survive, but it thrived and continues to be successful today. So even though Rome may not have built them a Triumphal Arch like the Arch of Titus or Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe, Christianity triumphed in it’s own way. It may have had to evolve and change over time, but that is part of survival. Today, we have so many different sects of Christian churches, but at the heart of each is Jesus Christ, the soul of Christianity itself.
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Great job, Hannah! I loved your similes and imagery. You had some solid evidence backing up your claims, and the pictures you used add to the piece, as well. I thought it was really interesting how you addressed the costs, rather than simply supporting Christianity's triumph--I hadn't seen that yet! Nice work overall :)
ReplyDeleteI liked how you included the graph of the different religions to show just how huge the population of Christianity is compared to all of the other religions in the world. I also thought it was great how you included things like the Council of Nicea and the “Christ Militant” mosaic. I had forgotten about that, and I think you did a really great job of using it as evidence to back up your claims. Well done!
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