Part of a series on
Christianity
Christians hold Jesus to be Christ
Jesus · Christ Virgin birth Crucifixion Resurrection Easter Jesus in Christianity
Bible / Foundations Old Testament New Testament Gospel Books Canon (Christian canons) Apocrypha Apostles Church Creeds Kingdom New Covenant
Theology Apologetics Baptism Christology Father Son Holy Spirit History of theology Salvation Trinity Ten Commandments
History and traditions Timeline Mary Peter Paul Fathers Early Constantine the Great Ecumenical councils Missions East–West Schism Crusades Protestant Reformation
General topics Art Criticism Ecumenism Liturgical year Liturgy Music Other religions Prayer Sermon Symbolism
Denominations Western Christianity Adventist Anabaptist Anglican Baptist Calvinism Evangelicalism Holiness Independent Catholic Lutheran Methodist Old Catholic Protestant Pentecostal Roman Catholic Eastern Christianity Eastern Orthodox Eastern Catholic Oriental Orthodox (Miaphysite) Assyrian Nontrinitarianism Jehovah's Witness Latter Day Saint Unitarian Christadelphian Oneness Pentecostal
Christianity portal
v t e

Western Christianity is a term used to include the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church and groups historically derivative thereof, including the churches of the Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and other Protestant traditions that share common attributes that can be traced back to their medieval heritage. The term is used in contrast to Eastern Christianity. Western Christianity makes up about 90% of Christians worldwide.

Western Christianity developed and came to be predominant in most of Western, Northern, Central, Southern and parts of Eastern Europe, ancient Northern Africa, Southern Africa, and throughout Australia and the Western Hemisphere. When used of historical periods since the 16th century, 'Western Christianity' refers collectively to Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, especially in referral to aspects shared (for example ritually, doctrinally, historically and politically) rather than aspects differing between them.

Today, the geographical distinction between Western and Eastern Christianity is not nearly as absolute, especially after the spread of missionaries.

Features of Western Christianity[link]

Original sin[link]

Original sin may be taken to mean: (1) a consequence of the first sin, the hereditary stain with which we are born on account of our origin or descent from Adam, or (2) the sin that Adam committed. The more common understanding is the hereditary sin meaning. Western Christianity is thought to hold this doctrine because of the influence of Saint Augustine who wrote: "the deliberate sin of the first man is the cause of original sin" (De nupt. et concup., II, xxvi, 43).^[1]

Filioque clause[link]

Most Western Christians use an amended version of the Nicene Creed that states that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son". This is considered heretical by most Eastern Christians, who use the Creed as originally promulgated by the Ecumenical Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, saying that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father"^[2] (See Filioque clause).

Date of Easter[link]

The date of Easter usually differs between Eastern and Western Christianity, because the calculations are based on the Julian calendar and Gregorian calendar respectively.

Western denominations[link]

Western Christianity makes up about 90% of Christians worldwide with the Roman Catholic Church accounting for over half, and various Protestant and related denominations make up another 40%. Baptists, Lutherans, and Anglicans are some of the larger and older Western denominations outside the Roman Catholic Church.

The historical development of major church branches from their roots. The width of lines have no significance in this diagram.

History of Western Christianity[link]

For most of its history the church in Europe has been divided between the Latin-speaking west, whose centre was Rome, and the Greek-speaking east, whose centre was Constantinople. Cultural differences and political rivalry created tensions between the two churches, leading to disagreement over doctrine and ecclesiology and ultimately to schism.^[3]

Like Eastern Christianity, Western Christianity traces its roots, directly or indirectly, to the apostles and other early preachers of the religion. In Western Christianity's original area Latin was the principal language. Christian writers in Latin had more influence there than those who wrote in Greek, Syriac, or other Eastern languages. Though the first Christians in the West used Greek (such as Clement of Rome), by the fourth century Latin had superseded it even in the cosmopolitan city of Rome, while there is evidence of a Latin translation of the Bible in the 2nd century (see also Vetus Latina) in southern Gaul and the Roman province of Africa.^[4]

With the decline of the Roman Empire, distinctions appeared also in organization, since the bishops in the West were not dependent on the Emperor in Constantinople and did not come under the influence of the Caesaropapism in the Eastern Church. While the see of Constantinople became dominant throughout the Emperor's lands, the West looked exclusively to the see of Rome, which in the East was seen as that of one of the five patriarchs of the Pentarchy, "the proposed government of universal Christendom by five patriarchal sees under the auspices of a single universal empire. Formulated in the legislation of the emperor Justinian I (527–565), especially in his Novella 131, the theory received formal ecclesiastical sanction at the Council in Trullo (692), which ranked the five sees as Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem."^[5]

Over the centuries, disagreements separated Western Christianity from the various forms of Eastern Christianity: first from East Syrian Christianity after the Council of Ephesus (431), then from that of Oriental Orthodoxy after the Council of Chalcedon (451), and then from Eastern Orthodoxy with the East-West Schism of 1054. With the last-named form of Eastern Christianity, reunion agreements were signed at the Second Council of Lyon and the Council of Florence, but these proved ineffective.

The rise of Protestantism led to major divisions within Western Christianity, which still persist, and wars—for example, the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585–1604 had religious as well as economic causes.

In and after the Age of Discovery, Europeans spread Western Christianity to the New World and elsewhere. Roman Catholicism came to the Americas (especially South America), Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific. Protestantism, including Anglicanism, came to North America, Australia-Pacific and some African locales.

Today, the geographical distinction between Western and Eastern Christianity is now much less absolute than formerly, due to the great migrations of Europeans across the globe, as well as the work of missionaries worldwide over the past five centuries.

See also[link]

• Holy Roman Empire
• Latin Rite
• Western Orthodoxy
• List of Christian denominations
• Lutheranism
• Protestant Reformation
• Western churches
• Western religion

References[link]

This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (December 2010)

Os Guinness (born September 30, 1941) is an author and social critic.^[1]

Biography[link]

Born in China, he is the great-great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer. He was a witness to the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949, and returned to England in 1951, where he went to school and college. He received a B.D. (honours) from University of London in 1966 and a D.Phil from Oriel College, Oxford in 1981.^[1]

In the 1960s, he was a leader at L'Abri.^[2] In 1984 Guinness came to the United States, where he was first a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and then a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He was the lead drafter of the Williamsburg Charter, celebrating the genius of the First Amendment and setting out the signers' vision of a civil public square.^{[3][better source needed]}He founded the Trinity Forum in 1991, and served as Senior Fellow until 2004. Guinness has written or edited more than 25 books. He currently lives in McLean, Virginia with his wife Jenny.^[4]

Bibliography[link]

• The Dust of Death: A Critique of the Establishment and the Counter Culture and the Proposal for a Third Way (IVP, 1973)
• In Two Minds: The Dilemma of Doubt & How to Resolve It (IVP, 1976)
• Doubt (Lion-Hudson, 1987)
• The American Hour: A Time of Reckoning and the Once and Future Role of Faith (Free, 1992)
• Dining With the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts With Modernity (Baker, 1993)
• The Dust of Death: The Sixties Counterculture and How It Changed America Forever (Crossway, 1994)
• Fit Bodies Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don't Think and What to Do About It (Baker, 1994)
• God in the Dark: The Assurance of Faith Beyond a Shadow of Doubt (Crossway, 1996)
• The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life (Thomas Nelson, 1998)
• Character Counts: Leadership Qualities in Washington, Wilberforce, Lincoln, and Solzhenitsyn (Baker, 1999)
• Steering Through Chaos: Vice and Virtue in an Age of Moral Confusion (Navpress, 2000)
• The Great Experiment: Faith and Freedom in America (Navpress, 2001)
• Time for Truth: Living Free in a World of Lies, Hype, and Spin (Baker, 2002)
• Long Journey Home: A Guide to Your Search for the Meaning of Life (WaterBrook, 2003)
• Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance (Baker, 2005)
• Unspeakable: Facing Up to the Challenge of Evil (HarperCollins, 2006)
• The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It, (Harper One, 2008)
• The Last Christian on Earth: Uncover the Enemy's Plot to Undermine the Church (Regal, 2010)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Interview with Os Guinness - Issues, Etc.
• Interview with Os Guinness from the Centre for Public Christianity
• Interview with Os Guinness on his Case for Civility