My own path

As I was confirmed into the Lutheran Church, I trusted that at some point what we learned in catechism would all make sense. In high school when we read Siddhartha, I didn't realize that Buddha would help me in my quest with his emphasis on the practical nature of his ideas, favoring philosophical enquiry over religious dogma. I became interested in Christian spiritual disciplines but was never able to establish a practice in my life. I found a bridge in a Catholic priest that taught Buddhist philosophy and meditation at a retreat by Matthew Fox who taught Original Blessing instead Original Sin. I was always active in the church and never had a crisis of faith as some people describe it. I got married, had a child, and lived a life of a householder. At age 50, I started yoga. That seemed to somehow ground me so I was ready when I found a Saturday morning Buddhist meditation group led by a professor of religion, Kevin Bortolin. The feeling that it all made sense, that I had been searching for since catechism, slowly grew. 

- - - - - - - - 

I always enjoy the way Karen Armstrong puts it; If Christians find the Muslims regard for politics strange, they should reflect that their passion for abstruse theological debate seems equally bizarre to Jews and Muslims.

Unity: The God of Islam page 159, from The History of God by Karen Armstrong

The problem of predestination and free will, which has also exercised Christians, indicates a central difficulty in the idea of a personal God. An impersonal God, such as Brahman, can more easily be said to exist beyond "good" and "evil," which are regarded as masks of the inscrutable divinity. But a God who is in some mysterious way a person and who takes an active part in human history lays himself open to criticism. It is all too easy to make this "God" a larger-than-life tyrant or judge and make "him" fulfill our expectations. We can turn "God" into a Republican or socialist, a racist or revolutionary according to our own personal views. The danger of this has led some to see a personal God as an unreligious idea, because it simply embeds us in our own prejudice and makes our human ideas absolute.

Page 174

- - - - - - - - 

Throughout the history of Christianity, the existing practices and beliefs of people who adopted it, were integrated into the local practice. One key reasons Christianity was able to spread throughout this vast empire was that many people viewed the new religion as something they could easily adopt without having to change their existing cultural and religious practices. I still feel Christian, having found my own path though. I no longer accept that is necessary to have an exclusive religion as was introduced in early Christianity. Among the things that made the Christians different was a couple of rituals which they developed, early on before the very earliest sources that we have about them. One of these is an initiation ceremony, which they call baptism, which is simply a Greek word that means dunking. The Baptistery is the place where people were initiated into this new cult. Why is that the center? Why is that the focal point? Clearly something happens here which is fundamental to the establishing of identity of a group, which at the same time binds them together so that they speak of themselves with family terms but also separates them, in some sense, from the society around them. A second major ritual which they developed is a common meal, which they have together, which is designed as a memorial of The Last Supper which Jesus had with his disciples. This is recorded in one of the letters of the Apostle Paul, and he presents this as a tradition which he has received and handed on to the people in Corinth. So, it's a very, very early thing and has various interpretations, but as a ritual, clearly this is an ongoing way in which the community has gathered and reasserts their unity with one another and their difference from others.

We tend to think of Christianity over against paganism in the Roman empire but we have to be a little bit cautious about what we mean by paganism. First of all paganism itself is really not a religion. There is no such thing as the doctrine of paganism. In fact we have to remember that it's the Christians who use the term pagan to define those people who are not Christians. It's a Christian term for another group or the other people and so really it's a Christian's way of thinking.

From The Collision With Paganism | From Jesus To Christ - The First Christians | FRONTLINE

- - - - - - - - 

When Peter rose to address the crowd, he presented this phenomena as the apogee of Judaism. The prophets had foretold the day when God would pour out his spirit upon mankind so that even women and slaves would have visions and dream dreams. This day would inaugurate the Messianic kingdom, when God would live on earth with his people. Peter did not claim that Jesus of Nazareth was God. He "was a man commended to you by God by the miracles and portents and signs that God worked through him when he was among you." After his cruel death God had raised him to life and it exalted him to especially high status "by God's right hand." The prophets and the psalmist had all foretold these events, thus the "whole House of Israel" could be certain that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah. This speech appears to have been the message (kerygma) of the earliest Christians.

A Light to the Gentiles, page 90, from The History of God by Karen Armstrong

- - - - - - - - 

Christianity developed in Judea in the mid-first century CE, based first on the teachings of Jesus and later on the writings and missionary work of Paul of Tarsus.

Originally, Christianity was a small, unorganized sect that promised personal salvation after death. Salvation was possible through belief in Jesus as the son of God—the same God the Jews believed in. Early Christians debated whether they should only preach to Jews, or if non-Jews could become Christians, too. Eventually, Christianity gained followers not only from Jewish communities, but from throughout the Roman world.

In the decades after Jesus's death, the Apostle Paul wrote many letters that are now part of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Paul was a Roman citizen and sent these letters to small communities of Christians living throughout the Roman Empire. The letters show us that Paul and his fellow Christians were still figuring out exactly what being a Christian meant. Issues related to the exact relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and between Christianity and the Roman government, were prominent topics of discussion.

In 313 CE, the emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which granted Christianity—as well as most other religions—legal status. While this was an important development in the history of Christianity, it was not a total replacement of traditional Roman beliefs with Christianity.

In 325, Constantine called the Council of Nicaea, which was a gathering of Christian leaders to determine the formal—or orthodox—beliefs of Christianity. The result of this council was the Nicene Creed, which laid out the agreed upon beliefs of the council.

In 380 CE, the emperor Theodosius issued the Edict of Thessalonica, which made Christianity, specifically Nicene Christianity, the official religion of the Roman Empire. Most other Christian sects were deemed heretical, lost their legal status, and had their properties confiscated by the Roman state.

Christianity was deeply influenced by both Judaism and Roman cultural institutions. We can't fully understand the development of the Christian religion without putting it into these contexts.

Christianity in the Roman Empire, Khan Academy