Christianity: the One, the Many: What Christianity Might Have Been and Could Still Become Volume 2

What is Christianity? Who was Jesus Christ? What relevance does Christianity have in a “post-Christian” age? Why are there so many Christian sects, and what are the prospects for bringing them together? Does Christianity have a future? Am I a Christian? Are you? Christianity: the One, the Many, offers encouraging answers and options for modern spiritual seekers. This second volume focuses on western Christianity from 1000 CE onward. Decline of the medieval church led to the Reformation and emergence of the Lutheran, Calvinist and Anglican Churches. Baptists and Methodists soon followed, and in due course the charismatic movement. The scientific revolution and the Enlightenment challenged Christianity’s very foundations and produced innovative religious forms, like Deism and Transcendentalism. Meanwhile, esoteric Christianity has established itself as a further option. A bold new vision is offered that honors the diversity within Christianity as well as a transcendent, unifying reality, the “Body of Christ.” Seven spiritual paths are identified which offer all sincere Christians opportunities to express personal and collective aspirations. Archetypal in nature, and cutting across denominational boundaries, they are: Devotion, Ceremony, Knowledge, Service, Healing, Activism and Renunciation. The unifying reality is a larger archetype, the Ekklesia, visualized as a great “Cathedral” into which all are invited to open themselves to the Divine, love their neighbor, humbly seek truth, and work to make the world a better place. “A masterpiece of research, insight and faith…” “A must-read for believers and nonbelievers alike.” “Now I know there’s a place in Christianity for me…” Front cover shows the Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg, Russia. Photograph courtesy of Helen C. Nash