Day 22: Jesus Christ, Part 2

Yesterday, we started talking about what kind of person Jesus was (and we had to cut the discussion short because I felt like I was developing a touch of carpal tunnel syndrome—I’m typing WAY too much these days!). So let’s pick up where we left off.

Jesus Christ is often considered the most influential person in the history of Western civilization. It’s not at all surprising, considering how big a role the religion he founded has played in Western history.

Although the things Jesus did have had a huge impact on the world, who he was—what he was like in everyday life—has always been something of a mystery. Even the people who knew him in first-century Palestine often went around asking, “What kind of man is this?” Jesus was then—and still remains—very much a puzzle.

So you know I’ve been reading the Bible. I’m finally pretty well into the New Testament, so I’ve had some exposure to the way Jesus is depicted in the Bible. And, at least in my humble opinion, it ain’t all that flattering.

I apologize in advance to anyone I’ll be offending with the following summary, but try to remember that I’m just trying to be honest and tell you the way I’m seeing things. I’m not trying to make fun of the Christian Lord and Savior. Really.

For starters, it seems like every time Jesus has a conversation with someone, he gets all pissed off and either yells or belittles the people around him. Maybe it’s just bad writing on the part of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (the authors of the four Gospels), but you’d think they would have tried to make Jesus look even nicer than he really was, to paint the Messiah in the most positive way possible. Apparently not.

The next problem I have with the way Jesus is portrayed in the Bible is how he kind of comes off as a bit of a liar. For example, in Matthew (5:17), Jesus says, “Do not think that I come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.”

One page later, he turns around and changes the Law (i.e., “abolishes” the original interpretation of it), saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.” (Matthew 5:38–39)

Sure, the new sentiment Jesus has added here is much more pleasant than the old “Law,” but he’s “abolishing” it nonetheless—which he said he wasn’t going to do. I don’t know. That just kind of irritates me.

Jesus also seems to have a bit of a problem with his short-term memory. In John (13:36), it says, “Simon Peter said to Him [Jesus], ‘Lord, where are You going?’” Then, less than two pages later, Jesus says (in what seems like kind of a nasty tone to me), “But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’” (John 16:5)

Hello? Was Jesus just not paying attention to Simon Peter? It couldn’t have been more than 10 minutes after Peter asked where Jesus was going that Jesus accused everybody, including Peter, of not asking. It’s bizarre—and it makes Jesus sound not just forgetful but kind of mean.

Next, we have to look at the way Jesus treats his family. In Luke, there’s a part where somebody tells Jesus that his mother and brothers are waiting outside to see him, and he refuses to go out to them, saying, “My mother and My brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” (Luke 8:21)

Okay, sure—it’s a nice enough thought, that anyone can be Jesus’s relative, but why can’t he show his own mother a little courtesy, especially when he’s always going around saying “Honor thy father and thy mother”?

This brings me to my biggest problem with Jesus’s personality, at least as it comes across in the Bible: what happened at the wedding in Cana. Of course, most people know the story of how Jesus turned water into wine—yet another excellent miracle, especially if you’re a wine drinker like me—but nobody ever mentions what happened before that.

At the wedding, Mary (Jesus’s mother, whom we assume is no longer a virgin since Jesus apparently has brothers) comes up to Jesus and tells him that the hosts of the wedding have run out of wine. Jesus replies, “Woman, what does that have to do with us?” (John 2:4)

That dismissive response is, right there in a nutshell, the main reason I initially left the Catholic Church in my late teens. I just couldn’t accept the idea of being devoted to a guy who would be so rude to his own mother.

I mean, seriously—if I ever talked to my mother like that, I would have gotten a swift smack on the ass with a wooden spoon—and I would have deserved it. I don’t care if you are the Son of God. You should still treat your mother with a little bit of respect. 

No matter what you have to say, in any situation, there's a nice way and a nasty way to say it. At least according to the Bible, Jesus always seems to pick the nasty way. And, if that sort of behavior bothers me in ordinary people, it REALLY annoys me in the guy who's supposed to be my Savior. 

Based on all this information in the Bible, whenever I see one of those “What Would Jesus Do?” bumper stickers, I can’t help thinking, “He’d probably mouth off to his mother or give a tongue-lashing to one of the Apostles—that’s what Jesus would do.”

But please, don't get me wrong. Despite how I must sound in this rant, I really do desperately want to like (and even love) Jesus, especially this month while I'm a Christian. But if you read enough of the Bible, it’s very hard to find him all that likable as a person (but I admit that, even if he does have terrible manners, he still kicks ass when it comes to doing miracles and all that stuff).

Of course, I do realize that the Bible is just other people’s interpretations of Jesus—not necessarily direct quotes or entirely accurate (especially since a lot of the people who wrote the New Testament never even knew Jesus personally).

I also realize that biblical writing isn’t all that upbeat to begin with—I’ve got to say that God the Father comes off as a bit of a hypocritical jerk throughout much of the Old Testament.

So, I know that my feeling about Jesus isn’t actually based on anything that resembles fact. And I guess the whole point of being Christian is, really, to discover for yourself who Jesus was and to find a way to bring him into your heart.

It’s not easy at all, but really—I’m trying.

Day 21: Jesus Christ

I had a lot of trouble even writing the title of this post without hearing the name Jesus Christ in my head as something other than a swear. Despite the fact that I’m trying really hard to be on my best Christian behavior, I still catch myself yelling “Jesus Christ!” multiple times a day (although I often use the slightly more colorful “Jesus H. Christ!”).

So, in the interest of furthering my understanding and appreciation of Christianity (and maybe making myself stop taking the name of the Lord in vain), I thought today would be a good time to look a little at the man behind the myth, so to speak. We frequently hear people ask, “What would Jesus do?” What I want to ask is “Who was Jesus, really?” Let’s try to find out.

According to The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World Religions (which is becoming like a Bible to me on this project—no pun intended): “‘Jesus’ is a Latinized form of the Greek ‘Iesous,’ a transliteration of a Hebrew name . . . : Y’shua. And ‘Christ’ is not, properly speaking, a name at all, but a description. It is a variation of the Greek word ‘Christos,’ which means ‘the anointed one.’” That is, the one described as the Messiah in the Hebrew tradition.

Christians believe that Jesus was both a real human being and the Son of God, completely divine. Historians generally believe that Jesus was, in fact, a real human being who preached a religious philosophy that emphasized love, faith, and being tolerant of all people. Because he claimed to be the Messiah mentioned in Hebrew scripture (what is now the Old Testament of the Bible), he had not only a lot of devoted followers but also a lot of enemies—and some of them were powerful.

But that’s the end of the story. The beginning is shrouded in myth, and all we really know is what’s described in the New Testament of the Bible, which isn’t exactly as reliable as a history textbook (although history textbooks can be pretty inaccurate, too—I would know, since I used to edit them).

The Bible says that Jesus Christ’s mother, known popularly as the Virgin Mary, was engaged to a guy named Joseph. An angel visited Mary and told her that she was going to become pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit, and would give birth to the Son of God.

Mary explained this unusual turn of events to Joseph, and the guy agreed to marry her anyway.

Personally, if I were a guy and my fiancée came to me saying she was pregnant with God’s baby, I’d say, “Immaculate conception? Yeah, right. Get your trampy little ass back to your parents’ tent—and give me back my engagement ring (or donkey or ox or whatever a man might have given to a woman to signify betrothal in biblical times).” But Joseph went along with it—which is probably why he has since become a saint and I have not.

Anyway, we probably all know the Christmas story: Mary gives birth to Jesus in a stable because there’s no room at the inn (and yada yada yada). My boyfriend sent me this link that kind of sums it all up, from a slightly more modern (and pretty hilarious) perspective: http://www.flixxy.com/digital-christmas-story.htm.

Beyond the tale of how Jesus was born, the Bible only gives a few brief glimpses of his early years. The story of his life pretty much picks up again when he’s well into adulthood.

He goes and gets baptized by John the Baptist. He starts collecting followers, including the Twelve Apostles. He performs lots of miracles—curing lepers, making the blind see, raising the dead—good stuff.

And he tells people all about what they should be doing and believing—basically updating the rules from the Old Testament and adding a few choice new ideas like “Love thy neighbor as thyself” and so on.

The common people responded favorably to Jesus and his ministry, but the leaders of the old-style Judaism and the local Roman authorities weren’t exactly thrilled about how popular Jesus was becoming. And the stuff he was saying—like how he was the Messiah—could easily be viewed as blasphemy by Jewish leaders (and as sedition by the Romans). So they brought him up on charges and executed him.

The Bible goes into a lot of detail about the period leading up to the crucifixion: how Jesus was betrayed by one of his Apostles, Judas Iscariot; and how another Apostle, Peter, denied knowing Jesus at all for fear of being arrested, too.

But the point is, the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, condemned Jesus to death, and he was crucified. (Then, according to Christian belief, at least, he rose from the dead and returned to hang out with his followers for a while before ascending to heaven, where he’ll stay until some unknown time in the future, when he’ll return in the Second Coming to judge the living and the dead.)

The problem with all this information about Jesus Christ—even to Christians who know it all very well—is that we get very little sense of who Jesus was a person.

Obviously, the assumption is that he was a nice guy—forgiving, loving, treating everyone with respect and tolerance. But the stories give almost no sense of Jesus Christ’s personality—or, at least, that’s what I thought before I started reading the Bible so thoroughly this month.

But we’ll have to talk about that tomorrow. . . .

Day 20: Easter

I know we’re deep in the heart of the Christmas season, but today I’m going to talk about Easter instead. It is, after all, the most important Christian holiday—although I have to admit that, even as a child, I didn’t care for it much.

I know it’s my own fault—and my own selfishness, probably—but to me, Christmas is a lot more fun than Easter. But we’ll talk about that a little later. For now, let’s just stick to the facts.

Easter is pretty much the center point of Christianity. It’s the celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead after being crucified—which is, of course, the whole driving force behind Christian faith.

Like Christmas, Easter has its own “lead-up” season—Lent. Like Advent before Christmas, Lent is a period of fasting and repentance and a time to prepare for the joyous celebration of Easter.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday (right after everybody gets all the sin out of their systems at Mardi Gras). On Ash Wednesday—the seventh Wednesday before Easter Sunday—Catholics and the members of some other Christian denominations go to church and get a dab of ashes on their foreheads. When the priest or minister rubs the ashes on your forehead, he says something along the lines of “Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return.” (The exact words vary a bit, depending on where you go to church.)

I always hated Ash Wednesday. As if it isn’t depressing enough to have the priest remind you of your mortality, you’re forced to spend the whole day with people telling you, “Hey, you’ve got some dirt on your face.” Yeah, I know they’re just trying to help, but seriously. How stupid and/or filthy do people think I am that I wouldn’t notice a big smudge of ash on my head? Plus, Ash Wednesday sucks because you know the real suffering—Lent—is coming.

As a Catholic child, I always had to give something up for Lent. Although I tried unsuccessfully to give up things I hated to begin with—like lima beans—that never really flew with my dad. The whole point is that it’s supposed to be a sacrifice, so you have to give up something you really love.

Usually, during my childhood, I picked things like candy or ice cream. That was a good way to get past the Dad barrier, since most kids love candy and ice cream. What Dad never realized was that I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth, so giving up candy isn’t much harder for me than giving up lima beans. Or Brussels sprouts. Blech!

Many Christians also give up eating meat, especially on Fridays, during Lent. It’s just more of the same thing—sacrifice, fasting, and repentance—but it’s another reason I’ve always been annoyed during Lent. I mean, have you ever tried to get a pizza on a Friday during Lent? It takes forever, because most Christians (particularly here in America) see pizza as an easy alternative to a meat-based meal.

Anyway, the last Sunday before Easter is Palm Sunday. It’s the beginning of Holy Week, leading up to Easter Sunday. It celebrates Jesus’s entrance into Jerusalem, when the local people hailed him as the Savior, throwing palm leaves in his path—that is, before they turned on him and told the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, to crucify him. (Incidentally, the ashes you get on your head on Ash Wednesday come from burning the palms used on the previous year’s Palm Sunday.)

On the Friday before Easter, Good Friday, Christians recall the day Jesus suffered and died on the cross. It’s a day of mourning. Many Christians—especially Catholics—mark Good Friday by meditating on the Stations of the Cross, a set of 14 pictures that detail the suffering Jesus went through before and during the crucifixion.

Finally, on Easter Sunday, the fasting ends and Christians celebrate how Jesus rose form the dead. It’s supposed to be the most joyful of the Christian holidays, because it’s a reminder of how God’s grace can renew life—both the life of the crucified Christ and the lives of all Christian believers.

I don’t know. Easter just seems kind of dull to me. Like I said, I’ve never liked it much. Maybe it’s because it takes place in the spring, when it’s still a little bit chilly but not cold enough to get all cozy in front of a roaring fire like people often do at Christmas. In my mind, Easter is an unpleasant day, when you have to sit around eating a boring meal with your family while wearing a flowery dress and an ugly hat, and shivering a little because it’s that awful in-between weather where it’s not cold enough to justify putting on the heat but too cold to actually be comfortable. Yuck.

Plus, there’s the “stuff” factor, always an issue for me. Easter is more or less about ideas—resurrection, renewal, rebirth—and not enough about stuff, like Christmas, with the presents and stockings and trees and wreaths.

Sure, there’s some stuff on Easter—like Easter baskets and eggs—but (at least in my humble opinion) it's pretty crappy stuff. Unless you’re a big fan of slightly stale jelly beans, plastic grass, and hard-boiled eggs that have their whites stained with dye, Easter doesn’t have much in the stuff department for you.

And that’s why I chose to be a Christian at Christmas instead. Even though just about everybody I know is too poor this year to afford lots of gifts and fancy decorations, Christmas still just seems like a lot more fun.

Day 18: Advent, Part 2

This is going to be a short and largely uninformative entry, but that’s because, after complaining so much about the lack of visible Christmas spirit here in Texas, I decided to go for one of my infamous makeshift decoration attempts (if you’ll recall my really pathetic Diwali celebration last month). Putting together even the sad display you’ll see below took so long that I didn’t have the time or energy to do any real research for today’s post.

So, below you’ll see my fabulous Nativity scene (also known as a crèche, if you want to get fancy). Yes, folks—that’s Play-Doh (and that is a registered trademark spelling). And it still smells exactly like it did when I was a kid and my sister would try to eat it while we were playing (not that I can talk—I used to try to eat the paper crayon wrappers).

So, okay, I know it’s not very artistic. The figures don’t have faces. Nothing is on the same size scale. And the members of the Holy Family don’t even have arms. But I’ve told you before—I am not an artist. And frankly, the few things that look even reasonably realistic in my Nativity scene—including the manger where my creepy lump of a Jesus is sleeping—were made by my friend Jen, who is apparently much better at working with Play-Doh than I am (thanks, Jen!).

Just to make sure you get the full, dramatic effect, I’m giving you some additional close-up views. Here’s the Holy Family (so what if the Virgin Mary is way too small to ever pick up her child out of the giant manger?).

And below are the three Wise Men. Okay, I know the one on the right came out looking a little too much like Santa Claus, but that still fits in with the Christmas theme, so who cares? My boyfriend actually suggested that I just give him a white beard and make it look intentional, but I figured I would just ruin the already poorly made figure, so I decided to let it go. You also have to appreciate my yellow Play-Doh camel behind them. (I couldn’t get the Play-Doh to hold its shape, so you can’t see his humps very well, but I tried. That’s the saddest part—I really, really tried.)

And last but not least is my personal favorite part—my little drummer boy and the miscellaneous animals. Yes, the little drummer boy couldn’t possibly reach high enough to play his drum, and the green duck is slightly larger than the black pig, but hey, I think it’s fun.

I may be pathetic, but having this Nativity set (which reeks of Play-Doh in a pleasant, nostalgic way) is actually making me feel a little better. Now I just have to get to work on a Christmas tree . . .

Day 17: Advent

Being away from home for the holiday season sucks—not that my current home, the too-expensive house in Pennsylvania that’s been up for sale for close to a year now, is all that inviting anymore.

But still—it’s hard to get into the Christmas spirit when you’re a girl from the Northeast who’s used to cold weather and you suddenly find yourself in balmy Texas, with no real hope for snow and not even any Christmas decorations to make it seem like home.

So, to try to ward off the holiday blues, I thought I would talk today about Advent.

For Christians, Advent is the period that leads up to Christmas, the birth of Jesus, which Catholics and Protestants celebrate on December 25. (Eastern Orthodox Christians usually celebrate the birth of Jesus when they celebrate the Epiphany—the time when the Wise Men visited the infant Jesus—on January 6.)

Advent begins on November 30 (although most department stores seem to think it should begin before Halloween), and it lasts until Christmas Day—the Feast of the Nativity. Although most modern Christians, especially in the United States, seem to “celebrate” Advent by shopping frantically for gifts and getting plastered at holiday parties, Advent is actually supposed to be a period of fasting and repenting for any sins committed throughout the year.

Orthodox Christians take the vague idea of “fasting” to a higher level: They’re supposed to refrain from eating either meat or dairy products for the entire 40-day period from the start of Advent until the Epiphany. Oops. I guess I’m not being Orthodox this month, since I already had a hot dog for lunch.

I have to say that I never heard about the fasting portion of Advent, even throughout all my years in CCD. Of course, one of my CCD teachers was a crusty, cantankerous old nun who told our third-grade class (and this is a direct quote): “Fuck and shit like that ain’t cursing. Only taking the name of the Lord in vain counts.” So maybe my religious education wasn’t quite as thorough as one might have hoped.

Anyway, Advent isn’t just about regretting sins and fasting. It’s also a period of joyful anticipation—getting excited and happy about the arrival of Jesus, whose miraculous birth to the Virgin Mary represents the fulfillment of prophecies and the promise of salvation for believers. Advent is also, at least since medieval times, a period to prepare for Jesus’s Second Coming, as well as a time to take notice of Jesus’s presence in our everyday lives.

That’s all well and good, but like I’ve said before, I’m a visual person and I like stuff. To me, Advent is a time for putting up Christmas decorations and “decking the halls” and getting ready for the magic of Christmas—which I still find myself anticipating every year, just as much as I did when I was a child.

Not having a wreath on my door or a Nativity set or even a Christmas tree is making this year’s Advent a bit of a downer. I should probably be focusing on fasting and repentance, rather than whining about how “un-Christmas-y” it is down here in Texas. But what can you do? I may be able to try out a new religion every month, but I guess changing my old habits will be a little harder.

Day 16: Heaven and Hell

I don’t know about you, but the picture I have in my mind of heaven—the place Christians hope to go after they die—comes from watching too much bad TV and a lot of lousy movies.

To me, heaven is a vast expanse of puffy white clouds that you can walk on without sinking, guarded by a set of “pearly gates.” Somewhere among the clouds, the old man (God the Father) sits on a throne and strokes his long beard, peering down through the clouds to see what’s going on among the living people on Earth.

Despite the fact that billions of people have died over the years, there are only a handful of people wandering around heaven. And the ones I picture there look a little too happy to be doing nothing all the time—kind of like they’re stoned.

Jesus is there, too—but he spends most of his time loitering around the pearly gates, gossiping with his buddy St. Peter, like they’re a couple of teenage boys with skateboards hanging around outside the 7-Eleven.

Because this is my mental image of heaven, I find it kind of shocking that anybody actually wants to go there. It seems really boring. But hey, I’m not judging. If wandering around in clouds with a goofy grin on your face sounds like fun to you, go for it.

Of course, heaven probably means something different to everyone. Heaven is really just a reward in the afterlife for those who lived good lives on Earth and accepted redemption through Jesus Christ. Believing in Jesus as the Savior is pretty much a prerequisite for making it to heaven, according to Christian thought. However, the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church did say that it’s possible for some non-Christians to get to heaven, writing: “Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart . . . those too may achieve eternal salvation.” So, basically, you can get in if nobody ever told you about Jesus, but if you know about him and don’t believe he’s the Savior, you’re kind of screwed.

Christians don’t all agree on what or where heaven is. Some, like many Fundamentalists, believe it’s a physical location (maybe something like my cloud-heaven image) where good people go after they die. Others say it’s an abstract concept—an indescribable repository for souls where good people finally get close to God. Pope John Paul II said that heaven is “neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but a living, personal relationship” with God.

Someone once suggested to me that heaven is whatever your last thought is before you die. That sounds great if you tend to think about vacations on white sandy beaches in tropical paradises. With my luck, though, I’d probably think about shoveling snow or balancing my checkbook. And that wouldn’t be heaven at all. It would be hell.

I’ve got a picture of hell in my mind, too—once again, gleaned from cartoons and movies and maybe a little bit of Dante’s Inferno. To me, hell is a cave with lots of fire and twisty pillars and crags of rock, and there are people chained to the stone walls, moaning. I hate to say it, but as unpleasant as that image is, it’s at least a bit more interesting than my notion of “cloud-heaven.”

But Christianity doesn’t necessarily view hell as a physical place any more than heaven—it’s just an abstract form of terrible and eternal punishment for people who, as Pope John Paul II put it, “freely and definitively separate themselves from God.” I don’t know—I think it’s all a little vague, and I prefer crisp, clear images (as evidenced by my own pathetic notions of heaven and hell).

I think my biggest issue with heaven and hell in general is the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any “stuff” there—either in my own personal version or in anything I’ve read about the Christian afterlife.

The Bible talks about heaven, saying, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19­–20)

Somehow, I don’t think the “treasures in heaven” the Bible is talking about are the same kind of “treasures” I like best—things like books and clothes and funny knickknacks. I know I’m an awful materialist, but I like my stuff. I like having things around me—especially books. They make me feel secure. They keep me from getting bored. They let me be alone when other people start to get irritating, but they provide conversation starters when I want some companionship.

To me, stuff is heaven. I just hope, if I ever get there, that “cloud-heaven” has a well-stocked library.

Day 15: Christianity—An Overview

Okay, so I probably should have given you this basic intro to Christianity about two weeks ago, but between the trip to Texas and the “plague,” things just didn’t work out like I planned. This won’t be exciting—dry recountings of general religious history rarely are—but let’s suck it up, okay? A little knowledge won’t kill us.

Christianity started off as nothing more than a tiny sect of believers in Palestine during the first century A.D. (I would go with the more politically correct “C.E.”, but hey, we’re talking about Jesus here, so I think it’s appropriate to do this old school, don’t you?).

In the beginning, Christianity was a type of Judaism. After all, Jesus himself was a devout Jew. Over time, though, the notion that Jesus was the Messiah promised to the Jews in the Old Testament led the early Christians to split from other Jews and begin their own, unique faith.

The Romans—who were pretty much in charge of a big chunk of the world at the time—weren’t thrilled with the Christians, whom they viewed as disloyal to the Roman Empire and possibly immoral. So the Romans did what any reasonable person would do when confronted by somebody they don’t like: They started killing them.

That didn’t stop the Christians, though. They just hid out and kept up with their new religion.

It was pretty easy for a lot of them to stay below the radar anyway, since most early Christians weren’t exactly part of high society. Most of them were members of the poor, lower classes, the kind of people who didn’t get a whole lot of respect or attention to begin with—which is probably why Christianity, with its emphasis on love and kindness to everyone and inner spirituality, was so appealing to them.

It was only when the Roman emperor Constantine lifted the decrees that allowed Christians to be persecuted that upper-class people started taking a serious look at the new religion. And apparently, they liked what they saw, because Christianity went on to become one of the world’s biggest religions—with perhaps more adherents throughout history than any other faith.

As Rome grew weaker politically, the Christian Church—and the popes who ran it—were right there to step in and fill the power vacuum. By the time Christianity was a thousand years old, it had become the foremost social and political force in the Western world. Not bad for a fringe movement started by a wandering Jewish carpenter.

The Church wasn’t as cohesive as it was powerful, however, and in 1054, it split in two. In a great schism, the Western (Latin-speaking) church, based in Rome, broke off ties with the Eastern (Greek-speaking) church of the East, where the Byzantine Empire was in charge. From that division, Christianity got its first two branches: the Western, or Roman Catholic, Church and the Eastern, or Orthodox, Church.

But that wasn’t the end of Christianity’s development or its problems—not by a long shot. By the early 16^th century, a lot of people were getting fed up with the way the Catholic Church was handling things. The leaders of the Church seemed to be less concerned with bringing people closer to God and more concerned with making money, putting their friends and family members in cushy church jobs, and having not-so-secret love affairs, despite the fact that they were supposed to have taken vows of celibacy.

So a few scholars—notably Martin Luther and later John Calvin—demanded reform, launching what became known as (surprise, surprise!) the Reformation. Although most of the early reformers, including Luther, didn’t originally intend to break away from the Catholic Church and start a new faith, resistance from the Church and (perhaps) their own stubbornness eventually led to a formal split.

And so, the Protestant branch of Christianity was born—and it became by far the most diverse of the three forms of Christianity. From what started as a push for fewer abuses and less corruption among church officials grew a whole slew of new churches, all with their own take on the basic beliefs of Christianity.

Protestants, in general, are different from Catholics and Orthodox Christians in a few key ways: They believe that all people—not just priests—can communicate directly with God. They believe that the Bible is a book of “received truth,” given to us by God, and as a result, it is infallible. They also believe that Christians obtain salvation simply by having faith in Jesus, not necessarily by doing good deeds or by getting forgiveness for their sins from a priest. In addition, most Protestants think it’s fine for a priest (or minister or whatever they call their clergy members) to get married—celibacy is not a prerequisite.

There are so many different Protestant traditions that I won’t attempt to cover them all here—at least not today (go ahead and thank me now if you want). From Anglicans to Methodists to Baptists, Protestantism has something for just about every taste.

At the heart of things, though, all Protestants—and Catholics and members of the Orthodox Church—believe the same basic thing: that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, that he came to Earth to preach a better way for people to live, and that he died and rose from the dead to redeem human beings from their sins and to make it possible for people to join him in heaven. That’s simple enough, right?

So I’ll stop torturing you with today’s miniature history lesson and tomorrow we can find something a little more entertaining to talk about—I hope.