Happy Friday! I hope you've gotten a chance to read some awesome posts this week. Courtney shared about how to find and use your spiritual gifts- how great is it to be able to figure out what you are good at and share it with others?! And Abby shared about the different literary styles in the bible- how cool is it that there are many different types of genres in the bible?! This week I have an interesting topic in store for you. We are going to answer what is the difference between Christianity and other religions!
And Y’all there is A LOT to unpack about the question of “What’s the difference between Christianity and other religions?” I could honestly do an entire series alone on this topic but I’m going to sum it up as best as I can in one post. And let me tell you, this was not an easy topic, religion is complicated, but it has always fascinated me. I think it's important to know and learn about other religions to be able to strengthen your own. Today's post is going to be a little different than some of my posts in the past. I'm going to be giving you more of an educational look into what makes Christianity different than other religions.
We will be looking at 5 major world religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. First let’s start with what is religion? I went straight to the dictionary to give you a definition
Re·li·gion (n)- the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods, a particular system of faith and worship.
Let’s also talk about purpose. What is the purpose for religion? Well there isn’t just one easy answer to answer this question. The purpose for religion has changed throughout history. Early civilization used religion as a way to understand the world around them and many early civilizations were polytheistic (which means they believed in more than one god or goddess). Religion was used to explain why flooding, monsoons, tornadoes, etc happened.To us that may sound a bit crazy because we know what causes weather changes but to people at the start of civilization, thousands of years ago, god and goddesses were there best bet. Most early gods and goddesses were based on nature (wind, water, crops) and early people did their best to “appease” their gods. Although Religion in general has changed, it still has its roots in modern-day life, it brings people together with common beliefs and a sense of community.
Each of the major religions of the world have a different history, belief system, purpose, and texts they read. You may wonder where I got the 5 major world religions we're talking about, so I'm going to share two graphs with you. The first graph looks at religion in the United States and the second, religion world wide. In the first graph, "Christian" is comprised of Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox Christian, and other Christian. "Non-Christian" is made up of Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and Other. "Unaffiliated" includes Atheist, Agnostic, nothing. So we can see from the graph that Christian faith is more widely practiced in the United States and from the second that is most widely practiced in the world as well.
Instead of writing several paragraphs about each of the major world religions I’ve got a handy dandy table below that compares them. I'm also going to include a video at the end of the post if you would like to learn more about each of the religions!
Now that we have a brief synopsis of the 5 major world religions let’s get into what makes Christianity different from the others. The answer is extremely simple- the biggest reason Christianity is so much different from the other religions is because of Jesus. Other religions strive to find a “god” like figure, whereas Jesus was sent to the people. Christians don’t have to search for God, he searches for them. Christians know that they have sinned and alone they can’t erase it, and that’s where Jesus comes in. He was sent down to erase sin and be the pathway to God and that is unlike any other religion. Christianity doesn’t have multiple texts or pillars you have to complete or even a cycle, Christianity has Jesus and that is more than enough of a difference to stand apart from the rest.
Here's the video if you would like to learn more about the 5 major world religions!
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