Transition + Christianity

Charisma

• a certain quality of an individual’s personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities

Strategies for Institutionalizing Charisma
- Role/Office Scripture, law, materiality

• Role/office

• Scipture

• Religious Law

• Materiality (sacred buildings, relics)

Routinization (of charisma)

• process in which original charisma fades (w/absence of its source is incorporate into system of tradition

Meister Eckhart

• 14th century Christian mystic in Germany

  • instead of focusing on the incarnation of God in the historical birth of Jesus, he wrote the birth of the Word in the soul i.e. the divinization of human nature in the innermost core of the human being

  • He told people to “take leave of God for God” i.e. abandon simplistic and naieve notions of god as an objective person out there to experience true divinity in and as one’s own soul

The Church v. The Mystic (types of religiosity)

The church - authorative institution that instills iin its subjects a particular worldview through public ritual and doctrine (personal experience, subjective states of piety are secondary)

The mystic - individual who puts premium on direct and personal encounter with God/the Sacred; the doctrines and triuals of the church are symbolic, metaphorical not necessarily ltieral or historical

Miracles

• a story of the transcendent breaking into history, that gives witness to the truth of religious tradition.

• meaningful anomalous event that is set within a tradition’s broader system of beliefs and understood as signifying something about transcedent reality

St. Joseph of Copertino

• Italian conventual Franciscan friar and mystic and venerated as a saint. According to traditional Franciscan accounts, he was “remarkably unclever,” but experienced miraculaous levitation and ecstatic visions throughout his life which made him teh object of scorn.

Daniel Dunglas (D.D.) Home

• first psychic, was able to foresee the future, produce ghostly hands, elongate his body, psychically move furniture, play musical instruments froma distnace →

Son of God

Jesus

Apollonius of Tyana

Greek philosopher and religious leader from the town of Tyana, Cappadocia in Roman Anatolia, who spent his life traveling and teaching in hte Middle East, North Africa, and India. He is central figure in Neoputhagoereanism and was one of the most famous miracle workers of his day

The Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John

Mark, Matthew, Luke, John

Means good news

• Matthew, Mark, and Luke are the snoptic gospels (= seen together)

• They preserve much of the same material (often verbatim and in teh same order):

  • 80% of Mark is repoduced in MAtthew

  • 65% of Mark is reproduced in Luke

• The gospel according to John, the latest written of the Gosepls, contains unique material

• The gospels are theologically stylized "biographies"; written to explain the ethical and
  theological significance of the teachings and death (and resurrection) of Jesus of Nazareth
  • written decades after Jesus' time, by people who were not eyewitnesses to Jesus, and who
  wrote in a language (Greek) that Jesus did not speak as a native

Synoptic Gospels

Matthew, Mark, Luke = seen together

• They preserve much of the same material (often verbatim and in teh same order):

  • 80% of Mark is repoduced in MAtthew

  • 65% of Mark is reproduced in Luke

Acts of the Apostles

5th book of the Chrsitian New Testament — written with Gospel of Luke — founding of the Chrsitian church and the spread of the Chuirstian message from Jerusalem across the Roman empire

Baptism

• christian rite of intiation that uses water to symbolize spiritual cleansing, the washing away of sins, and a new birth into faith — represents dying to an old way of life and rising to a new life in union with Jesus christ

The Lord’s Prayer

Central Christian prayer taught by Jesus to his disciples, found in the New Testament in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4

The Eucharist/Holy Communion

• Central Christian rite. Bread and wine becomes dthe body and blood of JEsus Christ throught eh power of the holy spirt and the instrumentality - celebrated in memory of Jesus Crhsit, who instituted the practice at the last supper on the night before his crucifixion

Paul (Saul) - his impact and key teachings

• Apostle — most influential figure in the spread and development of Early CHirstianity after Jesus Christ. His letters (epistles) form a signfiicant portion of the new TEstament, and his missionary jounryes transofrmed a small Jewish sect into a worldwide religion

• - gentile mission

• global church expansion

• authoring the new testament

• theological standardization

Supersession

• Christian theological doctrine that the Christian church has succeeded and replaced the Jewish people as God’s covenanted people.

Christology

• branch of Christian theology that studie shte nature, person, adn work of Jesus Christ

Judas

• One of the 12 apostles of Jesus Chrsit who betrayed Jesus to Sanhedrin inthe Garden of Gesthsemane for thirty piece of silver

Pontius Pilate

Ordered crucifiction of Jesus because of his perceived sedition against the Roman Empire — Jesus was accused of claiming to be the King of the Jews

Peter (Simon Peter)

• Another apostle, one of the first leaders of the early Chrisitan Chruch . Appears prominently in all 4 new testament gospels

Icthys

• an ancidet Chirstian symbol with two intersecitng arcs that form a fish → acronym for a core statement of Christian faith: Iota, Chi, Theta, Ypsilon, SIgma (Jesus Chrsit, GOd’s Son, Savior)

Constantine

First roman emperor to convert to Chrsitianity, legalized it basically

1st Council fo Nicea (325) / Nicene Creed

Council of Christian bishops convened (in modern-
day Turkey) by Emperor Constantine in 325 CE to
attain consensus in the church through an assembly
representing all of Christendom
• settled ongoing Christological debates about
nature of Jesus with the Nicene Creed
(modified form adopted in 381)
**The Nicene Creed is the only authoritative
ecumenical statement of Christian faith accepted by the
Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, & most
Protestant denominations

Jewish context of early Christianity

Christianity began in the 1st century AD as an apocalyptic and messianic movement within late Second Temple Judaism in Judaea. [1, 2]

Messianism

Views Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Christ (Messiah)—the Son of God who came to save humanity from sin through his death and resurrection, and who will return at the end of time to complete the Messianic Age

Apocalypticism

a religious worldview centered on the belief that the current evil-dominated world will end through a dramatic divine intervention, leading to cosmic judgment and renewal

Apochrypha / Aprochryphal Gospels

a collection of religious writings that are not included in the standard biblical canon. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "hidden" or "obscure". [1, 2, 3, 4]

Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith

The distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith separates the verifiable, first-century Jewish man from the divine, resurrected figure worshipped in Christian tradition. [1, 2, 3]

The Jesus of History

• Definition: The actual, human figure who lived in first-century Roman-occupied Palestine.

• Methodology: Reconstructed by historians and biblical scholars using critical-historical tools, archaeology, and context.

• Key Consensus: Scholars generally agree he was a Jewish teacher and healer, proclaimed an apocalyptic message about the Kingdom of God, and was crucified by Roman authorities for sedition. [1, 2, 3]

The Christ of Faith

• Definition: The theological, divine, and living Lord proclaimed, experienced, and worshipped by the Christian church across history and liturgies.

• Foundation: Rooted in the apostolic testimony of the Resurrection, scriptural accounts, and personal or communal spiritual experience.

• Role: Transcends the physical constraints of first-century Judea to hold universal religious, moral, and salvific meaning for believers.