Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is the general name of all the sects that regard Jesus Christ as the Savior, also known as Christian religion. Christianity, Buddhism and Islam are called three major religions.

Basic concepts

The term "Christianity" is used in Chinese mainland academia, which is rather confusing, with broad sense and narrow sense. In a broad sense, Christianity refers to all the sects that believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior, including the three major sects of Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and some other small sects, which means Christianity in English; in a narrow sense, Christianity refers to Protestantism.

For historical reasons, Chinese have long been accustomed to calling Protestantism only Christianity. Protestant churches in mainland China never call themselves Protestants, but only call themselves Christianity or Jesuit. They call Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church Eastern Orthodox Church.

In order to solve this chaotic situation, the Chinese in Hong Kong and Taiwan call Christianity in the broad sense "Christian religion" to distinguish it from Protestant Christianity in the narrow sense. This usage is gradually accepted by mainland scholars. The broad sense of Christianity is called "Christian religion", and the word "Christianity" specifically refers to Protestantism.

All Christian sects believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior, and take the Bible, also known as the new and Old Testament, as the classics. The New Testament has the same chapters, but the Old Testament is different. The content of orthodox and Catholic is more than Protestant (Christianity). The doctrines shared by different schools include "Trinity", "original sin", "justification by faith" and "forgiveness of sin", but the emphasis is different. In addition, there are some unique doctrines. In terms of sacrament, there are only two Protestant churches, while both Catholicism and orthodox have seven. There are also great differences in the church system. Catholicism is the papal system, and the Eastern Orthodox is the patriarchal system. The Christian system is more complex and diverse, including Presbyterian system, axiomatic system, bishop system, etc. in some denominations that implement the bishop system, the authority of the bishop is far less than that of Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox. In addition, there are many other differences among the three groups, which will not be listed here.