The Essential Guide to Christianity

Who was Jesus Christ? How did Christianity become the world’s largest religion?What do Christians believe? By understanding the answers to these three basic questions, readers will gain a broad overview of what exactly Christianity is, and why it has attracted more people than any other religion in human history. The book explores topics including women in christianity, politics, the Bible, the Jewishness of Jesus, global Christianity, and the sacraments.It also considers the future of the Christian faith in its major traditions: Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and the vast number of Protestantisms. The book is illustrated with over 60 images. Each chapter contains suggested further reading and a glossary of key terms and concepts. The chapters in this book were first published in the digital collection Bloomsbury Religion in North America.Covering North America’s diverse religious traditions, this digital collection provides reliable and peer-reviewed articles and ebooks for students and inst