Christianity focuses on the belief of life after death as a central and indispensable tenet of their faith, however a wide range of ideas exist. ... The Bible is seen as authoritative; it is believed to give a consistent vision throughout of life after death. ... Borrowing some ideas from the Zoroastrian religion, some later Jewish writers saw the faithful being resurrected and leading long lives in a purified earth before dying a second time. ... In the special case of newborns that die before being baptized, the church is ambivalent. ... Why all Christians believe in God, they all have dif...

• Word Count: 1279
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The Eucharist is a mystery, one of the aspects of the salvation of humankind; it is through this God revealed himself to all humanity.1 From the origins of the Church until present time, the manner of the celebration of the Eucharist has varied, but it has always had the same essence: to celebrate the memorial of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the salvation of all people, but with a variety of traditions which continue to live in the Church now.2 Before the sixteenth century Reformation of the Catholic Church, the theology of the Eucharist was based on two elements: transubstantiation and t...

• Word Count: 846
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

After receiving his doctorate in theology from Boston University in 1955, King became a pastor at a church in Montgomery, Alabama. ... He kind of goes through each point, which is most likely, a fact, like he's reading a sermon and says things like "I"m sorry to say" before each point, which means he is sorry to bring up this truth but this truth has to be known to all. ...

• Word Count: 342
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Before researching the topic extensively, I would have argued yes. However, I have come to change my mind about leadership positions for women in ministry after closely considering the Bible passages those against the ordination of women commonly point to, by looking at examples of Biblical and historical women in ministry, and by coming to an understanding that the gifts of the spirit are imparted to both men and women. ... Ultimately, after strongly considering Scripture that supports the ordination of women, and examples of leaders in ministry during Biblical times, we must acknowledge th...

• Word Count: 1399
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Before the French Revolution in 1789, Catholicism was the official religion of the people from France. ... Calls to modify as well as obliterate the tax and for the limitation associated with Church property were joined by issues and protests coming from district priests who, prohibited from the wealth donated after the upper levels of the church pecking order, often not been as successful to obtain. ... But after the authority was snatched away from them; democracy rose. ...

• Word Count: 842
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

(Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 1295) In the Methodist church there is no need for an initiation in which a spiritual seal is placed upon a person, because it is the belief of the Methodist church that the Holy Spirit enters a person's body after baptism and it is the Holy Spirit that lives within us which separates us from non-Christians. ... My mother and stepfather were baptized at the church they were married at after they had married. ... The Catholic Church has this sacrament after baptism because they feel that one must be baptized first to understand the true me...

• Word Count: 1047
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

This is obvious from a note King Henry VIII wrote to Anne Boleyn stating how after a busy day at Parliament he wishes to be "in [his] sweetheart's arms, whose pretty ducky's [dugs, breasts] [he] trust shortly to cusse [kiss]"2. ... Right after the Act of Supremacy in 1534, Edward Hall explains how in the Commons Lutherans started to come together in the nether house and began to make discussions about charging the ordinaries with a wide array of offenses3. ... Furthermore, after the death of King Henry VIII, Parliament moved quickly to establish their supremacy in the regen...

• Word Count: 1169
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Yancey decides to reexamine these traditional views after he encountered some confusing experiences of the imagery that was portrayed as Jesus throughout his life. ... Before beginning his ministry, Jesus faced three temptations: Satan asked him to turn a stone into bread, bow down to Satan in exchange for power over all nations, or jump from a great height and allow God to save him. ... Yancey quotes several modern authors on Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper and first communion with his disciples, and Judas's betrayal of Jesus; Jesus' personal struggle in the garde...

• Word Count: 959
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

After he sucks upon the erogenous necks of his innocent victims, they are forever his in body and mind as an unconscious collective. ... This is a similitude of sexual repression because of his willingness not to do what is most natural to him, drink blood; just as sex before marriage is forbidden inside of Mormon culture. ... The LDS church is not wrong to perceive sex before marriage an unclean act; even in today's society women and men who engage themselves in highly promiscuous acts are given names subject to what they have done and are remembered for having participated in something ...

• Word Count: 1158
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Before reading the bible, Augustine was avid follower of the Neoplatonic views, but his accomplishments are best realized through his ability to intertwine the values of both the Neoplatonic ideologies with the Christian counterparts. ... Augustine moved on from Manicheism to Neoplatonism and after entering the school of Plotinus, he began to believe that everything in one's life involves God, and things are unable to exist without Him. ...

• Word Count: 700
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Religion was a way to make sense of the array of questions that arose as to what would happen after everything that was known ceased, in other words, death. ... Indians and other Chinese thought of death as either a period of time before one was born into his or her next life or a definitive resting place/peace, referred to as Moksha or Nirvana. ...

• Word Count: 888
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

These families' circle of acquaintances consists mainly of persons from the church and it is not unheard of that the families send their children to Sunday school before the actual worship session, then send them to youth group on Wednesdays and the adults themselves go to bible studies on Monday evenings, often hosted by one of the church members. ... Anglicans had an established church in this colony, until 1776, when the general assembly repealed the punishable offense of speaking out publicly against religion, and suspended the laws that gave salaries to the clergy.7 Though not w...

• Word Count: 3342
• Approx Pages: 13
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

He died on the 3rd of June, 1963 and was succeeded by Pope Paul VI, who convened the remaining three sessions of Vatican II after playing an important part in the first session. ... As those who did mix-marry were expected to raise their children as Catholics, the Church was well looked after in terms of numbers as, in time, the children of these people whom th...

• Word Count: 2753
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Luther spent the next few years engaged in violent controversies with political and religious opponents and after 1530 gradually retired from protetant leadership. ... Education, science and religion would never be the same after the reformation - It was not long before the theory of the sun being at the centre of the universe was introduced by Copernicus, a theory which also defied the Roman Catholic Church. ...

• Word Count: 1101
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Many argued that before the Council had taken place the mass was very mechanical and impersonal. ... " In a democracy, a Minister has the responsibility of looking after the people of their constituency just how the bishops have "the mission of teaching all peoples, and of preaching the Gospel to every creature, so that all may attain salvation through faith, Baptism and the observance of the commandments.... " In many ways, the bishops act like ministers, looking after their people. ...

• Word Count: 1260
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In the Christian creation story, Adam was made before Eve, but she was made from his rib, "because she was not serve under him or above him, but beside him. " Which leads to the next example of separation between Abrahamic and Asian religious systems. The social hierarchy of Abrahamic and Asian faiths is one of the more notable differences between the two, even thousands of years after their beginnings. ... Another extreme example of the absolution of monotheism is the Sunni-Shia conflict, which is based off the decision of who would become the rightful ruler after the passing of the prophet ...

• Word Count: 1524
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Gnosticism has been around since before the birth of Christ. ... After saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ... What makes these Christian accounts so extraordinary is not the claim that his friends had seen Jesus after his death because ghost stories, hallucinations, and visions were even more commonplace then, than today, but that they saw an actual human being. ...

• Word Count: 1846
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

(Dorling & Kindersley, 1997) Beginning when King Solomon built the First Temple (between 965 and 928 BC), the origin of Jewish pilgrimage stems from the directive given in the Jewish sacred text, the Torah, (Deuteronomy 16.16: "Three times a year all men appear before the God in the place that God will choose, on the festivals of Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks), and Sukkot (the Festival of Booths). ... (My Jewish Learning, 2011) By 586 BCE, after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylon's and until the building of the Third Temple the centrali...

• Word Count: 2466
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Minjung Theology, literally translating into theology of the people and masses, is a Korean Christian theology inspired by Western theologies but with its own indigenous fervor. The above passage describes one aspect of Minjung Theology: interpreting the bible through its historical narrative and relating that narrative to the present age. It is from a work called Queen of Suffering written by a Korean Quaker by the name of Ham Seokheom, whom people have called the Gandhi of Korea. In the work, Ham gives a historical narrative of the Korean people, who have lived through numerous invasions a...

• Word Count: 3418
• Approx Pages: 14
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

People have been known to explore many before they settle and it has been proven that a majority settle to be Christian but it also depends on culture. ... Large parts of his teachings have their counterparts in the sayings of the rabbis, that is, after all, what he was, or in the wisdom of Socrates and Confucius. ...

• Word Count: 1270
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

I previously viewed all Renaissance paintings with an uneducated eye, solely viewing them as religious works, which I had no interest in, based upon my lack of understanding of the narratives involved, the stories of patronage or even the difficulties of the techniques used to paint them. I was that...

• Word Count: 1305
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

This decision of no one main church mainly derived from the result of Henry VIII's tyrannical government after gaining more power from taking charge of religion by creating his own central church once he was denied marriage to Catherine of Aragon. ... After the establishment of the first amendment "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", conflict between the different religious groups in America ceased because they now knew that no one group would gain power over the other. ... Before the declaration, there was something called "New Awakening...

• Word Count: 2044
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

They think that this world is a test and the real life is life after death. ... An individual does not converse him or herself into history but he or she is destined to unite with God after death in a state of happiness which tends to be eternal. ... Through Holy Spirit the believer can rejoice the blessings of God before the eternal happiness that the believer will get at the end of this world (Lanham, 2014). ...

• Word Count: 2426
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

This research paper critically analyses the controversies surrounding the politics of power in gender relations within the Roman Catholic Church. Historically, the unequal power structure between the different genders (male and female) in the Hebrew Bible relegated women and placed them in positions...

• Word Count: 2952
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate