How it became an institution

The order, and why it is this one

Join anywhere. Each stop carries the route with it, so the foot of every question here offers the next one and the way back to this page.

1. 01What did the earliest Christians actually do?A church manual, a defence addressed to an emperor, and a Roman governor’s report to his superior describe, between them, a small set of practices: a meal, a washing, a fixed day, and money for the poor.Shallowsdepth, meaning: Interesting questions with substantial evidence and real uncertainty remaining.Known. Strongly supported by evidence and broadly established.Read
2. 02Did Paul invent Christianity?The charge is more than a century old and it has a real case behind it. So does the answer, which is that some of the oldest material in his own letters is material he says he was handed.Deepdepth, meaning: Major unanswered questions.Uncertain. Meaningful scientific, historical or philosophical disagreement remains.Read
3. 03When did Christianity stop being Jewish?There is no date. There is a first-century argument about whether Gentiles had to keep the law, and a second-century dialogue in which the two are already separate things and one is writing against the other.Deepdepth, meaning: Major unanswered questions.Uncertain. Meaningful scientific, historical or philosophical disagreement remains.Read
4. 04How did a persecuted sect become the empire’s religion?The legal turn is documented and fast. Why there were enough Christians by then for it to matter is the part nobody can settle, because the numbers do not exist.Deepdepth, meaning: Major unanswered questions.Uncertain. Meaningful scientific, historical or philosophical disagreement remains.Read
5. 05What did Christians think about war?Before Constantine, Tertullian and Origen both argue that Christians should not take up arms, though Tertullian shows that some did. A century after his conversion, Augustine is telling a Christian officer when and how he may. Both sides quote scripture, and both are on the record.Shallowsdepth, meaning: Interesting questions with substantial evidence and real uncertainty remaining.Known. Strongly supported by evidence and broadly established.Read
6. 06Did Christianity invent charity?In a letter preserved under his name, a hostile emperor, trying to revive the old religion, ordered a high priest to set up hostels because the Christians were supporting the pagan poor as well as their own, and it was winning them converts. In the same sentence he says that no Jew ever has to beg, so the Christians were not the only ones looking after their poor.Shallowsdepth, meaning: Interesting questions with substantial evidence and real uncertainty remaining.Known. Strongly supported by evidence and broadly established.Read
7. 07What were the Crusades actually about?One of the most consequential speeches of the Middle Ages exists only in accounts composed years later by men who wanted different things from it. What the crusaders then did is far better attested, including what they did to people who were not Muslims, and including what the pope who called the fourth crusade said about it afterwards.Deepdepth, meaning: Major unanswered questions.Uncertain. Meaningful scientific, historical or philosophical disagreement remains.Read
8. 08What was decided at Nicaea?The council of 325 produced a creed and twenty canons, and its documents survive. Most of what it is popularly said to have decided, including the contents of the Bible, is not in them.Deepdepth, meaning: Major unanswered questions.Known. Strongly supported by evidence and broadly established.Read
9. 09Where did the papacy come from?The documents show the church at Rome acting with unusual weight from very early, and they show other churches disputing what that weight was. Both of those are on the record, in the same centuries, and the disagreement has never closed.Deepdepth, meaning: Major unanswered questions.Uncertain. Meaningful scientific, historical or philosophical disagreement remains.Read
10. 10Where did the Trinity come from?Christianity inherited a strict monotheism, then worshipped a man and baptised in the name of Father, Son and Spirit. The doctrine is the answer worked out over three centuries to the question that left.Deepdepth, meaning: Major unanswered questions.Known. Strongly supported by evidence and broadly established.Read
11. 11What happens at communion?The practice is on record before any Gospel was written, and the earliest descriptions of what is done are plain. What the bread is, after the prayer, is one of the questions that split Western Christianity, Protestant from Catholic and Protestant from Protestant, and the answers are written down in documents that say plainly what they mean.Deepdepth, meaning: Major unanswered questions.Uncertain. Meaningful scientific, historical or philosophical disagreement remains.Read
12. 12Why did Christians fight about pictures?The commandment in Exodus forbids images. The tradition that kept that commandment also came to hold that God had taken a face. A council in 787 answered the collision with a distinction, in Greek, though the argument had another half century to run.Deepdepth, meaning: Major unanswered questions.Known. Strongly supported by evidence and broadly established.Read
13. 13Why are there so many kinds of Christianity?The major divisions in Christianity are conventionally dated to 451, 1054 and the sixteenth century, and each time the doctrinal question came bundled with a question about who had the authority to answer it.Surfacedepth, meaning: Things we understand reasonably well.Known. Strongly supported by evidence and broadly established.Read
14. 14Is Christianity growing or shrinking?The number of Christians is rising and the share of the world that is Christian is falling. Where they live is changing fast, and much of what else is claimed about it depends on which country the claimant is looking from.Shallowsdepth, meaning: Interesting questions with substantial evidence and real uncertainty remaining.Known. Strongly supported by evidence and broadly established.Read