John Green: Hi, I'm John Green, and welcome to Crash Course: Religions. 

So this is the Theotokos of Tikhvin. According to legend, it was painted by Saint Luke and was eventually housed in a temple in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Until 1383, when it moved itself.

As the story goes, one day, some fisherman on Lake Ladoga in what's now Russia saw the painting above the lake, surrounded by light. It had disappeared from the temple reappeared before their eyes.

And it would show up in several different towns before finding its new home in Tikhvin. 

Today, Russian Orthodox Christians honour this miracle every June 26th. 

But, I have to admit: I'm a Christian, and this is the first I'm hearing about this flying painting. Christianity, for me, looks a little different. 

[Theme music]

So, personally, as a religious person, I'm not particularly interested in miracles.

Where others argue that interpretating the Bible literally is the proper way to understand scriptures, I find it impossible to interpret any text literally, since words are themselves symbols.

Many people might say that I'm not a Christian at all, even though I understand myself to be one.

And this is one of the great challenges of religion — how do we define these terms when people living within religious traditions disagree about who is really a Christian or a Muslim or whatever else?

For me, the only way is to believe people when they tell me their identities, and to allow for an abundant and diverse expression of those identities, even though they'll inevitably conflict with each other, so today let's take a quick look at the many, sometimes contradictory ways of being Christian. 

When it comes to expressions of Christianity, as with other faiths, where a person lives can play a huge role. Europe and the United States were once the epicentres of Christianity. 

We've already explored how colonisation spread the Christian faith across the world in episode 2.

But these days, Christianity is actually declining in Europe. It's on the downside in the US as well actually — although roughly six out of every ten Americans still identified as Christian in 2022. 

But in other parts of the world, Christianity is on the rise.

Like at the Faith Tabernacle in Lagos, Nigeria — a fifty-thousand-seat megachurch that looks more like an arena than a chapel. 

Or any of the 24,000 temples affiliated with the Christian Congregation of Brazil, a branch that included over 2.8 million members in 2021. 

These ways of being Christian might not look like what someone in London or Indianapolis are used to seeing, but they represent some of the fastest-growing centres of Christianity today. 

On top of location, a person's denomination, or religious subgroup, can also play a huge role in how they define Christianity. 

Both the Faith Tabernacle in Nigeria, and the Christian Congregation of Brazil are Pentecostal, a denomination that's growing rapidly outside of Christianity's traditional European centres. 

But to go back to where Pentecostalism first started, let's hit up the Thought Bubble...

On April 9th, 1906, a Black minister named William J. Seymour was preaching to a small, multiracial group inside a living room in Los Angeles when some members were overcome by unintelligible vocalisations known as "speaking in tongues." 

Several entered trances that lasted for hours. Another sat down and began to play a song at the piano, even though she reportedly had no musical talent before that moment. 

Seymour preached that speaking in tongues helps break down the barriers between the earthly and the divine. 

Many took the experience as proof positive that God was speaking directly to and through them. 

But not everyone was so keen on the gathering. Local Church elders rejected Seymour's teachings, as did Charles Fox Parham, a white Pentecostal preacher and Seymour's former teacher. 

At a time when the US was deeply segregated along racial lines, Seymour's gatherings welcomed people of every class and race, from white professors to Black laundry workers. 

This event, which eventually became known as the Azusa Street Revival, was a significant launch point for the modern Pentecostal movement. 

Thank, Thought Bubble!

So listen, all this talk about denominations reminds me of my favourite joke:

Once I saw a guy waiting for a bus and he looked sad so I said, "Are you sad?" And he said, "Yeah, nobody loves me," and he said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?" And the man said yes. And I said, "Are you Christian?" And the man said, "yes," and I said, "Me too—Catholic or Protestant?" And he said "Protestant." I said, "Me too; which denomination?" And he said "Baptist," and I said, "Me too. Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" And he said "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me too. Northern Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Baptist Eastern Region?" And he said, "Northern Baptist Eastern Region," and I said, "Die, heretic!" And pushed him in front of the bus. 

It's funny because this is the world Jesus envisioned for us — one where we have arguments over administrative matters. 

Anyway, unlike the carefully planned rituals that are part of the services at my Episcopal Church — we kneel at certain times, stand at others, and know literally years in advance what scriptures will be discussed on a given Sunday — Pentecostal services to be very spontaneous. 

The idea is that God himself might take the worship experience in surprising directions, and participants are along for the ride. 

In any case, there are things that Christians across denominations have in common. Like the Christian Bible, the holy text that Christians believe to be the word of God. It includes both the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament. 

Christianity is often described as a creedal religion, which means many of its members emphasise having the right set of beliefs.

This is different from a votive religion, like certain schools of Buddhism, where the way you act in the world is more important than what you believe.

But even that is complicated. In fact, there was a whole Protestant Reformation about it. 

But tens of millions of Christians recite the creeds of their faith every Sunday. Like the Nicene Creed, which, among other things, states "We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible."

And because beliefs are so important to Christianity, small differences in creed often determine which denomination you identify with. 

Now that came to a head in a big way in 2023, when around a quarter of United Methodist Churches in the US left the United Methodist denomination over its warming attitudes toward LGBTQ people. 

A new denomination, called the Global Methodist Church, had emerged the year before in response to United Methodists' increasing acceptance of gay and transgender members, including proposals to allow gay marriage under church law and ordain gay clergy.

The Global Methodist Church contended that the debate over the role of LGBTQ folks represented deeper creedal disagreements — deep enough to split the church in two in what's known as a schism. 

And that's just one example of how Christianity — like all religions — evolves over time, as culture does — and as we do.

Which denomination you're a part of also affects what type of rituals and practices you participate in. Or which version at least. 

Take Baptism.

For a Catholic, Baptism is just a few drops of water sprinkled on an infant intended to purify and welcome them into the church community.

For a Baptist, it can be a dip into a river or a church baptismal pool, which usually occurs only when you're old enough to decide to accept Christ into your life. Which is to say, six. 

Whereas in my church you don't get confirmed until you're much older and more ready to make long term life decisions. When you're twelve. 

In truth, we find differences even among pretty universal Christian practices, like communal worship.

Some branches of Christianity, like Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism, hold liturgical services, which follow specific, predictable patterns. Like the recitation of the Lord's Prayer, or the taking of bread and wine, which may or may not be the literal body and blood of Christ depending on your perspective. 

But many evangelical churches have services that might include motivational speakers, dramatic re-enactments, or extended concerts by contemporary praises bands. 

And figures from the Bible might look different and have different mythologies across the world. 

Most Catholics revere the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, but many Mexican Catholics honour Our Lady of Guadalupe, an indigenous version of Mary whose image is believed to have miraculously appeared on a cloak in the 1500s.

Another version, Our Lady of Velankanni, is crucial to Christian traditions in India and Pakistan, based on another story of a miraculous Mary sighting. 

But wherever you go, one common figure sits head and shoulders above the others — and he goes by the name of Jesus. 

To most Christians, Jesus is wrapped up in this thing called the Trinity. Christianity is monotheistic, meaning there's only one God, but Jesus is seen as one of "three persons" within one God, with the other two being God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit. 

And the really special thing about Jesus compared to the other two persons is that... well, he was, like, a person who walked the Earth. Historians can vouch that Jesus of Nazareth was an apocalyptic prophet living in the Middle East who was executed by the Romans around 40 CE.

Apocalyptic, in this sense, means "an unveiling of the truth."

And a prophet is a person who's in touch with the divine directly and shares a message with humanity. So essentially, the followers of Jesus believed he was sharing a divine truth with the world. 

So what was this truth? 

Well, during his years of travelling, Jesus professed that humans must repent of their sins, that is, acknowledge and turn away from them. He taught practical morality—commanding that the last should be treated at first, that the poor are especially blessed. 

And he performed miracles, healing the sick—including those stigmatised by disease, like lepers—and feeding the hungry. 

He also taught that God would triumph over evil permanently sometime in the future, leading to a Kingdom of God. 

But of course, the "rise of a new kingdom" did not sit particularly well with the Romans, who were pretty keen on the current kingdom. After a famous betrayal by one of his followers, Judas Iscariot, Jesus was executed by crucifixion. 

But according to the New Testament in the Bible, he didn't stay dead for long.

Three days later, he was resurrected, before eventually ascending to heaven. 

Jesus's early followers shared his stories, and over time, gatherings known as churches formed, which grew in size and complexity. Those early teachings shaped Jesus's life, death, and resurrection into a broader narrative about the salvation of all humanity. 

His death came to be taught as "the ultimate sacrifice," in which Jesus gave his life to repent for the sins of everyone on Earth. In this way, he was positioned as a bridge between God and humans, allowing us to be part of God's kingdom in heaven. 

And even from those earliest days, Jesus's followers believed he would come back someday to put an end to evil forever. 

Many communities today preach about the eventual "second coming of Jesus," and what it will mean for the world. 

Now, those core story is combined with a variety of other stories in the Christian Bible. Many Christians study the Bible extensively to try to understand more about God, Jesus, and how they should live. 

Billions of people across the world practice Christianity, whether in a megachurch in Nigeria, in a Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo, in a circle of a dozen silent Quakers in Pennsylvania, or in a cathedral in downtown Indianapolis. 

It's history has shaped not only its own course, but the course of dozens of many other faiths by extension — sometimes in collaboration, and sometimes through colonisation and conflict.

But what it means to be a part of this massive, influential faith is different for everyone. 

For me, it's about using scripture and the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ to orient my life and faith. It's about trying to reconcile the finite nature of life and everything we see with our ability to conceive of infinity. 

And it's about a historical and theological framework through which to consider the great questions of human life—

why suffering is unjustly distributed among humans, what we owe to ourselves and to others, and how we can try to bring about a better world for the most vulnerable among us. 

But to others, in fact for most Christians, that framework of Christianity doesn't resonate at all. 

Religions are vast, aligned and misaligned, contradictory and complementary. 

But what they share is a desire to understand what it means to live in this world, and how best to do it. 

In our next episode,  we'll explore the rituals, beliefs, and history of Islam. I'll see you then. 

Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course: Religions,  which was filmed at our studio in Indianapolis, Indiana and was made with the help of all these nice people. If you want to help keep Crash Course free for everyone forever, you can join our community on Patreon.