The youth of Christianity.

Christianity is relatively young. Compared with the course of mankind on the earth, it

began only a few moments ago. No one knows how old man is. That is because we cannot

tell precisely when a creature which can safely be described as human first appeared. One

estimate places the earliest presence of what may be called man about 1,200,000 years in the

past. A being with a brain about the size of modern man may have lived approximately

500,000 years ago. In contrast with these vast reaches of time the less than two thousand

years which Christianity has thus far had are very brief. If one accepts the perspective set

forth in the New Testament that in Christ is the secret of God's plan for the entire creation,

and that God purposes to “gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in

heaven and which are on earth,” Christianity becomes relatively even more recent, for the few

centuries since the coming of Christ are only an infinitesimal fraction of the time which has

elapsed since the earth, not to speak of the vast universe, came into being.

When placed in the setting of human civilization Christianity is still youthful. Civilization

is now regarded as having begun from ten to twelve thousand years ago, during the last

retreat of the continental ice sheets. This means that Christianity has been present during only

a fifth or a sixth of the brief span of civilized mankind.

Moreover, Christianity appeared late in the religious development of mankind. It may

be something of this kind which was meant by Paul when he declared that “in the fullness of

time God sent forth His son.” We need not here take the space to sketch the main outlines of

the history of religion. We must note, however, that of those faiths which have had an extensive

and enduring geographic spread, Christianity is next to the latest to come to birth.

Animism in one or another of its many forms seems to have antedated civilization. Polytheisms

have been numerous, and some of them, mostly now merely a memory, are very ancient.

Hinduism in its earlier aspects antedates Christianity by more than a thousand years. Judaism,

out of which Christianity sprang, is many hundreds of years older than the latter. Confucius,

the dominant figure in the system which the Occident calls by his name, lived in the sixth and

fifth centuries before Christ. The years of the founder of Buddhism, although debated, are

commonly placed in the same centuries. Zarathustra, or, to give him the name by which

English readers generally know him, Zoroaster, the major creator of the faith which was long

official in Persia and which is still represented by the Parsees, is of much less certain date,

but he seems to have been at least as old as Confucius and the Buddha and he may have been

older by several centuries. Only Manichæism and Islam were of later origin than Christianity.

Of these two, Manichæism has perished, Christianity is, therefore, the next to the youngest of

the great religious systems extant in our day which have expanded widely among mankind.

That Christianity emerged in the midst of a period in which the major high religions

of mankind were appearing gives food for thought. Most of these faiths came into being in

the thirteen centuries between 650 B.C. and A.D. 650. Of those which survive only Judaism

and Hinduism began before 650 B.C. Here was a religious ferment among civilized peoples

which within a comparatively brief span issued in most of the main advanced religions which

have since shaped the human race. This occurred with but little interaction of one upon

another. Only Christianity and Islam are exceptions. Both of these were deeply indebted to

Judaism, and Islam was influenced by both Judaism and Christianity.

The youth of Christianity may be highly important. It might conceivably mean that, as

a relatively late phenomenon, Christianity will be transient. The other major religions have

risen, flourished, reached their apex, and then have either entered upon a slow decline or have

become stationary. Hinduism is not as widely extended as it was fifteen hundred years ago.

Not for five centuries have important gains been registered by Buddhism and during that time

serious losses have occurred. Confucianism has achieved no great geographic advance since

it moved into Annam, Korea, and Japan many centuries ago, and at present it is disintegrating.

Islam has suffered no significant surrender of territory since the reconversion of the

Iberian Peninsula to Christianity, a process completed about four centuries ago, and in the

present century has pushed its frontiers forward in some areas, notably in Africa south of the

Sahara. Yet its advances have been much less marked than in the initial stages of its spread. It

might be argued that Christianity is to have a similar fate and the fact of its youth may mean

that for it the cycle of growth, maturity, and decay has not reached as advanced a stage as has

that of other faiths. To this appraisal the fact of the emergence of the high religions, including

Christianity, in the comparatively brief span of thirteen centuries may lend support. The

grouping of their origins in one segment of time and the progressive weakening of so many of

them might be interpreted as an indication that all religions, in the traditionally accepted use

of that term, and including even Christianity, are a waning force in the life of mankind.

Some, indeed, so interpret history and declare that the race is outgrowing religion. The losses

in Europe in the present century might well appear to foreshadow the demise of Christianity.

On the other hand, the brief course of Christianity to date may be but a precursor to an

indefinitely expanding future. The faith may be not far from the beginning of its history and

only in the early stages of a growing influence upon mankind. As we are to see more extensively

in subsequent chapters, the record of Christianity yields evidence which can be adduced

in support of this view. As we hinted in the preface and will elaborate more at length

later, the faith has displayed its greatest geographic extension in the past century and a half.

As the twentieth century advances, and in spite of many adversaries and severe losses, it has

become more deeply rooted among more peoples than it or any other faith has ever before

been. It is also more widely influential in the affairs of men than any other religious system

which mankind has known, The weight of evidence appears to be on the side of those who

maintain that Christianity is still only in the first flush of its history and that it is to have a

growing place in the life of mankind. In this Christianity is in striking contrast with other

religions. Here are much of its uniqueness and a possible due to its significance.