Byrnesys Blabberings

This post will not, as the title may imply, an attempt to coax a sermon from pirates of the carribean, but asking how full, or rounded is our view of Christianity?

I know certainly studying theology in an academic institution, as opposed to an overtly evangelical one has  opened my eyes to whole new realms of what historically has been called Christianity. Somehow I had grown up as a Christian hearing about the amazing things that the Church did in the book of Acts, then, if you come from a reformed tradition, Christianity briefly pops its head out of the historical sand for the reformation, then before you know it is suddenly is revived in the 80’s with the Praise/Worship movement. Though nobody ever overtly presented Church history in this way to me, it was the incomplete picture of Christian history I held before studying at Aberdeen, and the position most laypeople (congregation members) innocently hold.

Since studying theology and encountering new and old traditions I have been amazed how each one has it’s own story, and holds certain things as more important, and essentially holding what is an incomplete and subjective view of Christianity and its history. Of course I am not suggesting that our understanding of Christianity can never be influenced, or even enriched by the place from which we view it but that moving towards a central position is beneficial for Christian Unity.

This was all spurred by a trip to Wikipedia believe it or not, I was refreshing my understanding of penal substitution (the theology that Christ was punished for our sins) on wikipedia (a real authoritative source I know, but I just wanted to get a feel for the basics) and noticed there was a Wikipedia Series on Christianity, with all the sub-catergories listed below it. Now as Christians you would think that out of the exhaustive series that Wikipedia hold most Christians should be fairly comfortable with the titles within that, but I was amazed how many of the subjects within the series were on concepts, traditions and theologies which were so foreign to the tradition of evangelical/charasmatic churches that I have been a part of.

Sometimes we really need to ask ourselves is our view of what Christianity "is" connected to the rest of the world?

Christian History Diagram @ Wikipedia (tried to inlclude it in the post but it was too wide!

For example is this your picture of Christianity? this is wikipedia’s diagram of Christian History. What sections of it are you not familiar with? Do you think it is important to know about this? Which of these do you understand as truly Christian and which are heretical splinters, if any?