Portal:Christianity

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The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, a holy place of Christianity

Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead after his crucifixion, whose coming as the messiah (Christ) was prophesied in the Old Testament and chronicled in the New Testament. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with over 2.3 billion followers, comprising around 28.8% of the world population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 120 countries and territories.

Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, and doctrinally diverse concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination, and Christology. Most Christian denominations, however, generally hold in common the belief that Jesus is God the Son—the Logos incarnated—who ministered, suffered, and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of humankind; this message is called the gospel, meaning the "good news". The four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe Jesus' life and teachings as preserved in the early Christian tradition, with the Old Testament as the gospels' respected background.

The three main branches of Christianity are Catholicism (1.3 billion people), Protestantism (800 million), and Eastern Orthodoxy (230 million), while other prominent branches include Oriental Orthodoxy (60 million), Restorationism (35 million), and the Church of the East (600,000). Smaller church communities number in the thousands. In Christianity, efforts toward unity (ecumenism) are underway. In the West, Christianity remains the dominant religion even with a decline in adherence, with about 70% of that population identifying as Christian. Christianity is growing in Africa and Asia, the world's most populous continents. Many Christians are still persecuted in some regions of the world, particularly where they are a minority, such as in the Middle East, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia. (Full article...)

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Butler in 1851, portrait by George Richmond

Josephine Elizabeth Butler (née Grey; 13 April 1828 – 30 December 1906) was an English feminist and social reformer in the Victorian era. She campaigned for women's suffrage, the right of women to better education, the end of coverture in British law, the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, the abolition of child prostitution and an end to human trafficking of young women and children into European prostitution.

Grey grew up in a well-to-do and politically connected progressive family which helped develop in her a strong social conscience and firmly held religious ideals. She married George Butler, an Anglican divine and schoolmaster, and the couple had four children, the last of whom, Eva, died falling from a banister. The death was a turning point for Butler, and she focused her feelings on helping others, starting with the inhabitants of a local workhouse. She began to campaign for women's rights in British law. In 1869 she became involved in the campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts, legislation that attempted to control the spread of venereal diseases—particularly in the British Army and Royal Navy—through the forced medical examination of alleged prostitutes, a process she described as surgical or steel rape. The campaign achieved its final success in 1886 with the repeal of the Acts. Butler also formed the International Abolitionist Federation, a Europe-wide organisation to combat similar systems on the continent. (Full article...)

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General images

The following are images from various Christianity-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The Communion of the Apostles, by Luca Signorelli, 1512 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 2First page of Mark, by Sargis Pitsak (14th century): "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God". (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 3The Good Samaritan by James Tissot. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the parables of Jesus. (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 4A 'Jesus Saves' neon cross sign outside of a Protestant church in New York City (from Salvation in Christianity)
Image 5Pope Clement I prays to the Trinity, in a typical post-Renaissance depiction by Gianbattista Tiepolo (d. 1770). (from Trinity)
Image 6The "Heavenly Trinity" joined to the "Earthly Trinity" through the Incarnation of the Son–The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities by Murillo (c. 1677) (from Trinity)
Image 7The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a holy site in Jerusalem believed by most Christians to encompass the tomb of Jesus and the site of his crucifixion and resurrection. (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 8The Baptism of Christ, by Piero della Francesca, 15th century (from Trinity)
Image 9Nativity at Night, by Geertgen tot Sint Jans, c. 1490 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 10Renaissance painting by Jerónimo Cosida depicting Jesus as a triple deity Inner text: The Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Spirit is God (from Trinity)
Image 11God the Father (top), and the Holy Spirit (represented by a dove) depicted above Jesus Painting by Francesco Albani (d. 1660) (from Trinity)
Image 12The Holy Trinity in an angelic glory over a landscape, by Lucas Cranach the Elder (d. 1553) (from Trinity)
Image 13Detail of the earliest known artwork of the Trinity, the Dogmatic or Trinity Sarcophagus, c. 350 (Vatican Museums).
Three similar figures, representing the Trinity, are involved in the creation of Eve, whose much smaller figure is cut off at lower right; to her right, Adam lies on the ground. (from Trinity)
Image 1413th-century depiction of the Trinity from a Roman de la Rose manuscript (from Trinity)
Image 15The Glory of Saint Nicholas, by António Manuel da Fonseca; Nicholas of Myra, a participant in the First Council of Nicaea, achieves the beatific vision in the shape of the Holy Trinity. (from Trinity)
Image 16Atypical depiction of the Trinity where the Son is identified by a lamb, the Father an Eye of Providence, and the Spirit a dove (from Trinity)
Image 17An anonymous 18th century Catholic painting from the Peruvian Cuzco School. This work depicts the Holy Triune God; one in essence, with three persons. (from Trinity)
Image 18A depiction of the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, at which the Deity of Christ was declared orthodox and Arianism condemned (from Trinity)
Image 19Jesus' Farewell Discourse to his eleven remaining disciples after the Last Supper, from the Maestà by Duccio (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 20Representation of the Trinity in the form of the mercy seat (epitaph from 1549) (from Trinity)
Image 21God the Father (top), the Holy Spirit (a dove), and the child Jesus, painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (d. 1682) (from Trinity)
Image 22The Holy Trinity on the stained glass windows of the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Brockdish (from Trinity)
Image 23Depictions of the Resurrection of Jesus are central to Christian art (Resurrection of Christ by Raphael, 1499–1502). (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 24A Greek fresco of Athanasius of Alexandria, the chief architect of the Nicene Creed, formulated at Nicaea (from Trinity)
Image 25God in the person of the Son confronts Adam and Eve, by Master Bertram (d. c. 1415) (from Trinity)
Image 26The Father, The Holy Spirit, and Christ crucified, depicted in a Welsh manuscript c. 1390–1400 (from Trinity)
Image 27The Christ Pantocrator of Saint Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, 6th century AD (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 28Depiction of Trinity from Saint Denis Basilica in Paris (12th century) (from Trinity)
Image 29The Trinity by Russian icon painter Andrei Rublev, early 15th century: this portrayal of the three angels who visited Abraham at the Oak of Mamre (Genesis 18:1-8) (from Trinity)
Image 30Three doors representing the trinity at a cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio (from Trinity)
Image 31A Gospel of John, 1056 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 32The Adoration of the Trinity by Albrecht Dürer (1511)
From top to bottom: Holy Spirit (dove), God the Father and Christ on the cross (from Trinity)
Image 33A compact diagram of the Trinity, known as the "Shield of the Trinity", consisting of God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit (the Shield is generally not intended to be a schematic diagram of the structure of God, but it presents a series of statements about the relationship between the persons of the Trinity) (from Trinity)
Image 34Jesus healing the paralytic in The Pool by Palma il Giovane, 1592 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 35The Trinity by Russian icon painter Andrei Rublev, early 15th century. (from Trinity)

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This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.

The composer, 2012

The Magnificat by John Rutter is a musical setting of the biblical canticle Magnificat, completed in 1990. The extended composition in seven movements "for soprano or mezzo-soprano solo, mixed choir, and orchestra (or chamber ensemble)" is based on the Latin text, interspersed with "Of a Rose, a lovely Rose", an anonymous English poem on Marian themes, the beginning of the Sanctus and a prayer to Mary. The music includes elements of Latin American music.

The composer conducted the first performance in Carnegie Hall on 26 May 1990, and the first recording with the Cambridge Singers and the City of London Sinfonia. Oxford University Press published Magnificat in 1991 and Of a Rose, a lovely Rose separately in 1998. (Full article...)

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Christ the King is a title of Jesus based on several passages of Scripture. It is used by most Christians.

Did you know (auto-generated) -

... that 19th-century American evangelist Dwight L. Moody was converted to Christianity in the stock room of a shoe store by his Sunday School teacher Edward Kimball?
... that Edo literature was influenced by British colonialism in the late 19th century, which introduced the Roman script and Christianity to the Edo people?
... that a former management consultant who coined the framework of "The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism" was described by The New York Times as "a kind of Malcolm Gladwell of conservative Christianity"?
... that although the Jesuit missionary He Tianzhang despised his "sad Chinese appearance", it allowed him to circumvent the Qing's ban on Christianity and enter China?
... that the growth of Christianity in 20th-century Africa has been termed the "fourth great age of Christian expansion"?
... that the birth of Christianity in Minahasa, Indonesia, is celebrated annually on June 12, the day that Johann Friedrich Riedel set foot in Manado?