The Progress of Christianity

If you look back into the history of Christianity, all you would notice is a lot of misunderstanding.

For one, Jesus isn’t ,wasn’t, and never will be the founder of Christianity.

The Religion of Christianity, in fact has nothing to do with neither the crucification, resurrection of Christ nor the fire that fell on those in the Upper room.

It all began with a dream of an emperor who had turned a blind eye to persecutions within his empire and needled unnecessarily launches war against his unfaithful aide.

The night before Emperor Constantine I dreamt of winning battles upon the strength of the insignia of the Cross. Promptly, he added the new insignia to his coat o farms and gave his subjects a choice-Either follow me and I follow Christianity or die.
He was a very persuasive man, ably aided by his sword and thus a majority of today’s populations were born to parents of Christian origin.

So there you have it- contrary to our textbooks, Emperor Constantine I, not Jesus, is the founder of Christianity.

Jesus never professed a religion. He talked about a way of life. He came here willingly on His Father’s orders to tell us of His Father’s likes and dislikes.

Constantine laid the foundation rules for his newfound religion and those that he subjugated added some more of their earlier traditions and beliefs and eventually we landed up with a set of beliefs that had nothing to do with what occurred in the Upper Room.

In the 16th century began the Protestant Reformation began when a Catholic monk rediscovered a Catholic doctrine in a Catholic book. The monk, of course, was Luther; the doctrine was justification by faith; and the book was the Bible. Some felt that the Reformation was progressing too slowly. And it was among these reformers that the Anabaptist movement formed its roots.
What characterized their faith more than anything else, clearly distinguishing Anabaptists from other religions, was the conviction that baptism was for adults and not for children.

Mid 17th century, the Anabaptists lost some of their rigidity (today’s Amish or Mennonites are common examples of what Anabaptists are) and thus became the Baptists. The one thing both movements had in common was baptism by immersion.

The Pentecostal movement had its origins in believers who intensely desired more of God in the late 19th century. People were getting interested in world evangelization and realized that they needed the original power of the Holy Spirit to do this. They sought God and prayed. Many Methodists and Salvation Army people were among those who were most hungry for God, and embraced the move of the Holy Spirit.

People had been thinking that God no longer spoke except through the Bible, and that speaking in tongues had ceased, but the early Pentecostal pioneers challenged that. Contrary to the then Baptist beliefs on the cessation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Pentecostals believed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, evidenced by speaking in tongues.

On April 9, 1906, at a prayer meeting in a modest home, a few men and women spoke in tongues. They had been meeting to pray for "an outpouring" of the Holy Spirit. The tongues speech convinced them that they had "broken through."

Thus was the Azusa Street Revival. It shook the foundations of the church and changed the lives of six hundred million people forever! The faithful announced that this was a reenactment of the New Testament Day of Pentecost: "All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability" (Acts 2:4). God was restoring New Testament experiences of the Holy Spirit -- or, as devotees of the movement put it, restoring the apostolic faith.

At the heart of this movement was William J. Seymour, a one-eyed black pastor from Louisiana, son of a slave, who preached the message of “Apolostic Faith.”
At Azusa Street, one could see and hear the "utterance gifts" listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. People interpreted tongues and prophesied -- phenomena with which few Christians had any direct experience. The sick came for healing. Global Pentecostalism has multiple origins, and the Azusa Street revival was one of several impulses that birthed a distinctly Pentecostal form of Christianity.

As the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements plateaud, up arose evangelists such as Billy Graham and Oral Roberts with Praise and worship and Healing revival, tele evangelism.

In the 1960s, came the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and in the 1990s, as church members in growth churches attribute their success to the movement of the Holy Spirit, strong church leadership, evangelical outreach came the New Generation Churches.

In the midst of all this change, the one thing that has withstood the test of time has been the persecution and ridicules each new revival faced at the hands of the earlier.

As each wave goes by, James 5:7,8 are quoted for the Latter Day rains. Christianity today is experiencing the Fourth Wave. If you are ready to UN-learn and be governed by the Holy Spirit, you can make progress.