Christianity, stemming out of Judaism and developing primarily in the West, has become the largest religion of the world even though, except for Islam, it is the youngest major world religion. Approximately one in every three persons on earth is identified with Christianity. In general Christians share a common belief in the uniqueness of Jesus of Nazareth as a truly divine and truly human incarnate Son of God who is the savior of mankind. They believe each individual by their faith and life determines their eternal destiny - either in heaven or in hell.

The Christian Church remained undivided for a little over one thousand years. Then in 1054, the Church was divided into `The Eastern Orthodox Church` and `the Roman Catholic Church`. However, the Roman Catholic Church is yet the largest single branch, which accepts the supreme authority and primacy of the Pope. However, in 1962-1965, Second Vatican Council stressed that due recognition has to be given to the authority of the corporate body of the bishops as an Episcopal college. Roman Catholic Church was further subdivided into Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches in 1517 by the great schism led by Martin Luther`s reformation. There are a number of Protestant Churches, as a result of Luther`s reformation. In India there is the Union of Churches of North India and of South India. It functions through dioceses presided over by elected bishops. A bishop has a good deal of administrative powers, but is not necessarily a sanctified person.

Christianity is monotheistic, meaning that they believe in only one God who has created the man and the world. Some Christians hold that that God is both immanent and transcendent. verything of creation falls short of the glory of God. In order to mediate between God and man, Christianity believes in prophets and considers Jesus to be the mediator between man and God. The most distinctive teachings about God is that He has been revealing Himself through His prophets and in the fullness of time Jesus has revealed God most clearly and finally the will and Person of God. Hence, it is said that `God is Jesus`, for Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God.

Christianity also holds that God is Father and God is essentially a form of Love and as Love he searches man more than man searches God. There is the concept of trinity, according to which Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three different persons. But they are one. The Christian concept of Trinity is however different from the Hindu concept of trinity where three gods the Brahma Vishnu and Maheshwara together make the trinity and all the three deities are quite distinct and separate with their distinctive functions and qualities.

The most distinctive teaching of Christianity is the expiatory and redeeming death of Jesus. In other words, Jesus died for redeeming the sins of the world. Hence, a Christian has to have faith that Jesus died for his sins, and, that this faith alone wins forgiveness of sins of the sinners and he becomes at one with God. Hence, the adage is not by words, in obedience to the law of Moses, but by faith a sinner is saved from the hell-fire. This faith again is a free gift of God and is open to all men irrespective of race and colour. At times, this doctrine of faith as the gift of God turns into the doctrine of election and predestination.

Predestination means that God has chosen some persons from the very beginning of the world for being saved and some for being damned. According to Christianity, God created man in His own image. But through disobedience of Adam sin came to the world and man has corrupted this image of God. Hence, man has to live again in union with God. And this can be done through faith in the expiatory death of Jesus on the Cross.

Christianity accepts the doctrine of creation, which means that God has created the world out of nothing but by His mere creative power. This doctrine of creation has to be distinguished from the Hindu doctrine of cyclic creation and dissolution. Christianity also accepts the doctrine of amelioration. This means that the world is real and should be improved for the good of the whole world. Hence, Christianity accepts the service of man for the uplift and alleviation of human suffering. Hence, Christianity accepts the World- and life-affirmation. In popular Christianity, the existence of angels, evil spirits and the devil is accepted. But the modern Christians do not believe in their existence.

Origin of Christianity
Christianity derives its name from Jesus Christ. Christianity revolves round the life, death and teachings of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was born perhaps in 4 B.C. in a small town of Bethlehem in the reign of Augustus Caesar. He was born out of holy wedlock, but his foster father Joseph came out of the line of King David who was considered to be the ideal King of the Jews. Thus Jesus was a Jew and he was soaked in the spiritual aspirations of the Jews, which were centered round the vision of a forthcoming Messiah. This Messiah was variously conceived, but the predominant conception of a Messiah was that he would restore to the Jews the lost Kingdom of David. But Jesus had a quite different picture of a Messiah. The Old Testament and the Apocryphal books of Enoch and Daniel influenced Jesus. The book supplied the key notion of `son of man`, which was very much used by Jesus in reference to himself.

About 2000 years ago God sent an angel to Israel, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to Joseph, a carpenter. The angel told Mary that by God`s power, she would conceive and bear a son. When Joseph learned that she was pregnant, an angel instructed him to marry her. Joseph took her to Bethlehem to register for a census. While there, Mary gave birth to Jesus. She laid him in a manger because there was no room at the inn. Shepherds visited Jesus in Bethlehem. Later, 3 wise men brought gifts to Jesus. They told Herod the Great, a wicked king, that Jesus would rule Israel. So Herod sent soldiers to kill the child in Bethlehem. Warned by an angel, Joseph took his family to Egypt. After Herod died, they returned to Israel and raised Jesus in a town called Nazareth.

Of course, the Christians derive their inspiration from the 39 books comprising the old Testament, but much more from the 27 books comprising the New Testament. The `Bible` itself means a collection of books. This N.T (New Testament) has the gospels, which record the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. The first three gospels have more or less common contents and St. John who gives a very intimate picture of his lnster, regarded as the Messiah and the Son of God has written the fourth Gospel called Johannine. But these terms like the `son of man` or `the son of God` have to be understood in terms of the religious language of some two sand years ago.

In simple words, the language of the Gospels and of the other books of the New Testament has been written in the mythological expressions of the time. Man`s diseases were supposed to be due to the working of the evil spirits. Even the Universe was considered to be a three-storeyed house of Heavens the Earth and the Nether world called Sheol. In the same way the expressions like `the Virgin birth`, `the Son of God` and even resurrection, ascension and the Second Advent of Jesus are to be understood as mythological constructions. What one has to know is to go beneath these archaic expressions in order to understand what the gospels intended to teach.

Jesus said that all men in this earth were the sons of the Father up above so all should practice brotherhood. He preached the equality of men before God because God does not judge persons. Against hypocrisy and outward acts, Jesus taught the inferiority of religion and morality. Jesus taught a religion of one`s inner depth and heart. `And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you`. He taught about the Kingdom of God which is within man. It is that kingdom which is not of this earth, for the humble and meek alone will inherit it. Jesus protested against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who forgetting their own faults tried to find faults with others.

Jesus taught the conquest of passion, inner purity of heart and conscience, equality of all men before the eye of God and love, which fulfils all the laws of morality. Hence, Jesus taught a life of love, service to all fellowmen with the utmost sincerity of heart, which was a truly universal way of life, which is also the inmost meaning of the Hindu religious piety. Jesus could say what he did say as, for him God was love who made no distinction between the sinner and pious, between the righteous and unrighteous.

Concepts of ChristianityIt implies that God is Jesus , God is Father , God is Love and God`s love is Redemptive.
Thus, God for Christianity means Jesus as the full revelation of what God is, God as Father, God as love that forgives, searches for the sinner, redeems him when he repents and turns to him, suffers on account of the sinful men and is willing to pay the highest sacrifice for redeeming them.

Bible Bible is the sacred scripture of the christians.