You might call this week’s post a guest post. I’m taking off of blogging for vacation, but I’m giving you all a treat.
Read this post by my old school friend, “The Front Porch Philosopher.”
Tag Archives: West
Is Christianity a Western Religion? (Full series)
Oh East is East, and West is West, and never the two shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.”
-Rudyard Kipling, “The Ballad of East and West”
Is Christianity a Western religion? 
That may not strike us as a significant question, may not register as something necessary to establish as true or false. But there are two reasons why it is important to dispel the illusion that Christianity is a “Western” religion.
Is Christianity a Western Religion? Concluding Thoughts
Oh East is East, and West is West, and never the two shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.”
-Rudyard Kipling, “The Ballad of East and West”
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Is Christianity a Western Religion? 15:Back to Jewish Roots
Is Christianity a Western religion? Is Judaism a Western religion?
Sometimes the phrase “Judeo-Christian” comes up, sometimes as a phrase meant to represent, in some way, Western religious values.
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Is Christianity a Western Religion? 14: Eastern Influence in the West
Is Christianity a Western Religion?
Such a view fails to take into account how the East has signifigantly influenced the West over the years and, conversely, how much the “East” and “West” overlap one another. Much in the West that has come to be known as Western actually has an Eastern origin.
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Is Christianity a Western Religion? 13: Western Orientalism
Is Christianity a Western religion? What does it mean to have a “Western” and “Eastern” world?
Ironically, The very notion of a “Western” and “Eastern” world is itself a Western invention, a relic of colonialism, and a potentially oppressive ideology. At best, it’s a shallow and arbitrary view of the world.
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Is Christianity a Western Religion? 12: Pillars of Western Values
Is Christianity a Western religion? Does it share values with the West, and/or with America in particular?
If we examine founders of Western thought, and if America in particular is to be seen as a culmination or premiere epitome of Western values, then Christianity is an affront to the very country that represents Western values.
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Is Christianity a Western Religion? 11: Where in the World is It Found?
Is Christianity a Western religion? Where in the world do you find Christianity?
Christianity is the most evenly dispersed religion worldwide, and this is becoming more true in the decline of colonialism. It is still the largest religion in the world.
As this CBS article reveals, when ranking nations according to the number of Christians per capita, Ireland is 56th, while the island of Micronesia is 12th. The population of Armenia (5th place) is 97.9% Christian. Armenia is located in (or North of) the Middle-East, and was the first country to declare Christianity its state religion. 2nd place? East Timor, in Southeast Asia, whose population is 99% Christian. If you exclude the Vatican, which is really just the headquarters of the Catholic Church, East Timor would actually be the most densely Christian country per capita.
Christianity thrives where it does, not because of Western ideas, but because of something deeper and more transcendent in humans worldwide. As noted in an early post, churches are growing in restricted countries like China, while numbers in America are declining.
Is Christianity a Western Religion? 10: Does it Claim to Be?
Is Christianity a Western religion? What kind of religion does it claim to be?
Christianity itself claims to belong to all peoples of all nations who follow the Christ, and its initial followers believed it was their calling to spread from Jerusalem (the Mid-East) throughout all the world. This is not a religion that claims it belongs to a certain geographically fixed nation or ethnicity. It never called itself Western, but calls itself global, being called out across the world.
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Is Christianity a Western Religion? 9: Was it “Born” in Greek Culture?
Is Christianity a Western religion? Wasn’t it born in Greek culture?
The New Testament may have been written in Greek, for a Greek audience, using Greek ideas to persuade a Hellenistic culture, (Greek being a foundational culture of the West), but Christianity sought to challenge this Western culture more than it sought to appeal to it, therefore confronting Western culture with a transcultural, transpolitical “counterculture”, a body of belief and practice very alien to its own.
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CALEB COY 