Preface

Today some two billion people on planet Earth claim to believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah promised by God in the Old Testament Bible. His existence has spawned the religion, which bears his name: Christianity.

In the United States alone, more than ninety million people are regular church-going Christians that practice their faith in some fashion. Seventy six percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians and Christianity is still growing throughout the world today.

But, what if the world’s predominant religion had never existed?

How would our world be different? Would it be a better world? Or worse…?

Has Christianity benefited society or has it been the cause of strife, wars and prejudices.

How would the absence of this faith change our lives?

Seemingly simple questions with obvious answers… But maybe the actual answers are not so simple after all. Maybe it’s not just that there would be no Christmas or Easter Sunday. Maybe the answers are much more far-reaching than the obvious. As humans we often do not see the value of something unless it is taken away.

To really see what it would mean if there were no Christianity we will first have to revisit history: starting some seventeen hundred years ago.

Chapter I. The Beginnings

The first three centuries after the death of Christ the new religion of Christianity was in its infancy and the civilized world was dominated by societies, such as Rome, that worshiped pagan gods. Christianity had little effect or influence on most of the world during this period of history, though its growth was becoming dramatic.

We all know of the persecutions of early Christians such as being fed to starved lions and being burned alive. (Nero used Christians as live human torches to light his gardens at night). Yet the faith continued to grow as the stories of Jesus and the gospels of the New Testament began to spread. The seeds of equality and the worth of each individual as preached by Jesus and central to Christianity were being planted and these messages continued to attract followers in spite of the persecutions. And, if nothing else, these atrocities gave the new faith unintended notoriety.

Then, in the fourth century, the Emperor Constantine would declare Christianity as the official religion of Rome and all of its dominions. And this would change everything.

The rest of European history, and eventually the history of the world, would be forever altered: leading right up to our present time. Now we’ll see if it will have been for the better or the worse.

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