CH 10 Worlds of Christendom

CHAPTER 10:

The Worlds of Christendom: Contraction, Expansion, and Division

Christian Contraction in Asia and Africa

• Spread of Islam dividing force in the contraction of Christianity
• within century of Muhammad's passing, Christianity almost unheard of in Arabia
• Nestorian Christians (Church of the E) survived
• shrank in size in Syria, Iraq, and Persia
• coastal N African Christians largely converted to Islam
• Egypt Coptic Church survived
• Christianity took shape in 5th & 6th century in Nubian kingdoms
• Ethiopian christians 
• geography protected from Muslim world

Byzantine Christendom: Building on the Roman Past

• Byzantine Empire had no clear starting point
• continuation of Roman Empire
• had advantages over western empires
• Byzantine State
• size reduced by Islamic expansion
• politic centered around emperor in Constantinople
• Church 
• caesaropapism
• emperor head of state and church
• lit was influenced by orthodox Christianity 
• Eastern Orthodoxy increasingly defined itself
• With world
• Byzantium had a foot in both Europe and Asia
• Rome's fight with Persia
• continued
• Russia
• Moscow declared the “third Rome” 
• role of protector of Christianity after fall of Constantinople

Western Christendom: Rebuilding in the Wake of Roman Collapse

• W Europe on margins of world
• Fall of Roman Empire 
• Roman heritage lived on!
• Greece tried to recreate 
• Church and ruling class usually reinforce each other 
• growth of territorial states with better- organized governments

Western in Comparative Perspective

• Hybrid civilization
• Europeans happy to trade
• by 1500 Europe caught up with China and Islamic World
• even surpassing them in some areas
• distinctive intellectual tension between faith and reason developed

(MY THOUGHTS...) I found it interesting to see how religion shaped civilizations of the past. Religion practically fuels them. Give them a following and with a following they have power. People are willing to fight for something they believe in. Quite brilliant when you think of it. Now combining church and state is taboo, as it should be. Religion has no place in law. America likes to say we separate church and state but that is a lie. Religion still impacts laws till this day (marriage equality, abortion, ect) We are not so different from the civilizations of the past.