[unclad5968]

Reading the early Christian church leaders was enlightening, as a member of an evangelical church. My church didn't really have any answers when I asked why our practices/beliefs diverged so intensely, which was somewhat disappointing. The writings of the early Christian leaders are filled with Greek philosophy, genuine debates about theology, and a ton of wisdom for both believers and unbelievers.

[_DeadFred_]

Try reading the bible with a Greek Orthodox Priest. Their insights from reading it as written and not from a vibe based translation, their knowledge of the background, have been some of the best theological discussions of my life. I used to go to a bible group with a Greek Orthodox Priest and he would just demolish the evangelicals and their strict interpretation of the english translation.

[nephihaha]

I'm sure he would pick up on some things, but he would also be heavily influenced by much later forms of Greek, where means would have changed. I have spoken to Greeks about ancient texts and their reactions vary — some indicated they could understand a lot and some very little. A bit like a modern English speaker approaching Chaucer — I can understand a fair bit and am helped by my knowledge of Broad Scots but other people complain it is barely intelligible to them. (There are people who complain the same about Shakespeare and even Dickens.)

[final_aeon]

What's the answer? Why have they diverged so much?

[spacebanana7]

The Catholic answer is relatively straightforward in terms of decisions at various councils (or similar structures) about the trinity, iconoclasm, clerical celibacy etc.

With some mix of apostolic succession providing authority and the Holy Spirit guiding the big picture.

[aristofun]

Can you recommend specific books?

[cafard]

Jaroslav Pelikan's history of Christian doctrine runs to five volumes. I haven't read the last, but the first four are very readable. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) runs to something under 400 pages. Given the word "Catholic", I will add that Pelikan started off Lutheran and ended in one of the Orthodox churches.

[SilverElfin]

Given the borrowing of ideas, why then do modern Christians, including evangelicals, dismiss other cultures so aggressively? For example Greek and Roman beliefs in god are described as “pagan”, which is a negative term. And obviously evangelicals are very hostile to other faiths even today, whether it’s Buddhism or Islam or Hinduism or whatever.

[HiPhish]

> Given the borrowing of ideas, why then do modern Christians, including evangelicals, dismiss other cultures so aggressively?

That's really just an American thing. Americans have this concept of "manifest destiny" in their culture is the final one and it is their duty to spread it to the rest of the world. The American settlers have colonized the entire continent, but the spirit of Manifest Destiny still persists, just embodied in different forms.

For example, among evangelicals there is this paranoia of anything that might be considered pagan. Some will go even so far as to consider Christmas pagan. Meanwhile in the rest of the world it's perfectly accepted that Christianity has taken some local practices and re-dedicated them to Christ. This is not a concession to pagans to make Christianity more palatable for them (pagans are not stupid, they know it's a different religion). I can recommend the YouTube Channel "Jonathan Pageau", he used to talk a lot about this sort of stuff in his older videos.

[saalweachter]

It's not the only answer, but I would direct you to the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy.

Around a hundred, hundred and fifty years ago when our understanding of the universe had finally reached the point where it became obvious that (a) all of our creation stories were just stories and (b) we actually kind of knew the actual story now, everyone had a big crisis over how to deal with that.

The two options on the table where fundamentalism -- doubling down on Biblical literalism and faith -- and modernism, taking the Bible as more a spiritual message, adapting our understanding of it for the modern world.

Some churches went one way, others the other, but over the following century the fundamentalist churches have proven to be better at attracting, retaining and motivating their members.

There are still modernist churches, but the loudest Christians in America are almost all of the fundamentalist bent.

[api]

I’ve always seen American evangelism as a political movement first and a religious one second.

This impression has strengthened quite a bit in recent years as it’s become clear that political movements and politicians that are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus are perfectly okay if they align on other more immediate secular political issues.

There’s always been a claim that the US is an outlier compared to other developed nations in terms of religiosity. I don’t really believe this anymore. I think we have a lot of politics with heavy religious veneer, but if you look only at sincere belief in the tenets of a faith I don’t think the US is much more religious than the UK for example.

[Barrin92]

>why then do modern Christians, including evangelicals, dismiss other cultures so aggressively?

The vast majority of modern Christians doesn't, the influences of Greek culture are readily apparent in the conceptual language of the New Testament, John most obviously when he turns Christ into the Logos. Culturally many pre-Christian practices have been incorporated into for example, Latin American Catholicism. You can literally see it in the architecture of churches.

American Evangelical Christianity is a bit of a different beast and best viewed as a nationalist program that brings particular American tendencies to bear on the religion rather than the other way around.

[Guestmodinfo]

Because all ideas and all thought and all knowledge stem from Jesus and eventually will be used to worship HIM only but other gods are just made up distractions. This is the profound underlying theology

[zozbot234]

It's even weirder than that, there's many ideas that might very easily be described as "pagan" except that they're entirely accepted as orthodox. For instance the entire notion of the Trinity is at its root a straightforward application of Neoplatonic philosophy, where the "One" Godhead exists as three lower "hypostases" (Greek) or "persons" (Latin). And much Stoic ethics was adopted directly within early Christianity.

To be entirely fair about it, the linkage may easily go back to the very time of Jesus in some important ways, seeing as many of Jesus's teachings were shared with the Essenes', and the Essenes in turn were quite knowledgeable about Greek/Hellenistic philosophy.

[unclad5968]

I have the same questions as you. I find many Hindu and Buddhist practices are compatible with Christianity. Eastern religion has different words than western religion for certain things, and concepts naturally get misunderstood, so I think Christians (in America at least) are somewhat afraid that by learning about eastern religion they will be worshiping a false God. The condemnation that comes with Christian groups unfortunately dissuades people from seeking the truth outside the church for fear of social exclusion.