How Has Christianity Impacted Society Essay

You might possibly find it hard to believe that a religion has dramatically shaped and built up the world we live in today. Well, without Christianity, we might be living in a very different world than the one that exists right now. In this paper I will show, and prove, the significant impact Christianity has had on the individual, the culture, and the government.

Christianity has impacted the individual in many ways, I will discuss a few. One of the ways Christianity has impacted the individual is human rights. The concept of humans right and equality comes from the bible, the state just enforces it. The Bible says that we are all created in God’s image, therefore it constructs the idea of equality among all people. Branching from that thought, we move to the second point; Christianity affects human behavior and thoughts, for morals are introduced through the Bible. An example of this point is Vinicius from Quo Vadis. In the beginning of the story, he was not a moral person, he treated people awfully. However, at the end of the tale he is completely renewed and transformed into a compassionate, selfless, loving, God-fearing man.

Branching again from that point we move on to the final of the three points; Christianity affects the individual for

it teaches compassion. Jesus showed and taught compassion during his days, and historians record that the ancient world was not known for having compassion. In fact, before Jesus’s time, compassion was scare, and was not taught. Christians often stand out from other for their charities and compassion they have for people.
Christianity affects the individual, and individuals make up, and create culture, so therefor we move on to how Christianity affects the culture. Christianity effets education and the requirement of it. In fact the first law that was passed to require education among all, was passed by the puritans. This law was called “The Old Deluder Satan Act”. The name of this law was because they believed that Satan would get a foothold into Christians lives if they were ignorant of scripture. So for the first two hundred years of education, children’s reading was a lot of reading scripture, and becoming literate in the Bible. Also, of the first one hundred and twenty three colleges that were built, only one of them was not for a Christian institution.
The second point is Christianity effects art in a very tremendous way. In fact, the influence Jesus has on art, music, and literature is incredibly enormous. The Christian faith has influenced renowned people such as Dante, Shakespeare, and Dickens. Without Christianity, many of these talented artists would not be who they had been, and done the works they had done. Bach, for example, signed all of his works with Soli Deo Gloria ("Solely to the glory of God"). There also might have never been the creation of the cantata, the concerto, or the symphony.
The final point is Christianity effects marriage and family ethics. The way lots of families are ‘constructed’ now is because of the influence from Christianity. For example, before Jesus’s time, homosexuality and pederasty were not considered wrong or immoral at all. As D'Souza says; “"Christianity exalted heterosexual monogamous love, which would provide the basis for a lasting and exclusive relationship between husband and wife, oriented toward the rearing of children. We take the family so much for granted—it remains such a powerful ideal in our society, even when actual family life falls short— that we forget the central premises on which it is based. Those premises were introduced by Christianity into a society to which they were completely foreign." Those are only three of the many ways Christianity has affected the culture.
After the culture we have the government, which Christianity has also impacted affected.

The first point is our own government. Christianity affects America’s government, for many of it’s roots are, in fact, Biblical. Our constitution has aspects of it which are derived from, and grounded in, scripture. Also, fifty out of the fifty five signers of the constitution were orthodox Christians. The second point is Christianity affects slavery, for Christians were the first in history to oppose of slavery systematically. Slavery was abolished in America partly from many Christian activists. And before that era, some early Christians would even purchase slaves from the market just to simply set them free after they were

bought.
So now, branching from slavery, we go to our final point. Christianity affects Women's rights, for they were one of the groups that helped give them their rights. Christians helped to achieve women's suffrage. When Jesus came he treated woman in a very different way than most men during the time of Rome did. He treated them with love, he treated them like they were valuable. Because of this the Christian Church was forbade many of the common ways that women are mistreated.
Christianity first affects the individual, since God cares a lot about the heart. Then, the individuals all work together to effects the culture, which then in turn affects the government they live in. Many of the ways Christianity has affected our government (i.e the abolishment of slavery, achieving women's suffrage) might not have happened had Christianity not first impacted the individual itself. So, to close this paper, there are many more ways Christianity has influenced and impacted the world. However, this paper only went through a few. So now that you have seen a few of the ways this religion has changed the world, think about it, how has Christianity changed your world?