AHC:Christian World

Prevent any splits from Christianity if possible, and have Chritianity become the world's most dominant religion and reach much more of the world than OTL. I can see a purely Christian Europe, New World, and possible Africa, while a Christian Middle East and Anatolia does seem plausible.
 
Add a couple letters between Paul and Peter to the Scriptures. The letters discuss the need for believers to support each other, especially in times of persecution. Have them debate their differences without condemnation, then ultimately decide on a code of "Essential Beliefs" the is similar to OTL Nicean Creed. Believers are to give each other considerable freedom outside of this central code.

These letter more clearly explains the Trinity in scripture and allows things like Marcionism to still be suppressed but helps soften the early arguments like "Are The Father and Son of similar substance or the same substance?"

Maybe the Letters discuss how believing government officials should interact with each other. This could later reduce some warfare between Christian leaders and make them more likely to ally against pagan neighbors instead.
 
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I am not sure if it is possible keep Christianity united. There was already many Christian nominations during early centuries. You might get world where Christianity is wide spreaded than in OTL but probably not so unified. Or you can get unified Christianity, but it probably should be quiet small and probably united by common enemy.
 
Add a couple letters between Paul and Peter to the Scriptures. The letters discuss the need for believers to support each other, especially in times of persecution. Have them debate their differences without condemnation, then ultimately decide on a code of "Essential Beliefs" the is similar to OTL Nicean Creed. Believers are to give each other considerable freedom outside of this central code.

These letter more clearly explains the Trinity in scripture and allows things like Marcionism to still be suppressed but helps soften the early arguments like "Are The Father and Son of similar substance or the same substance?"

Maybe the Letters discuss how believing government officials should interact with each other. This could later reduce some warfare between Christian leaders and make them more likely to ally against pagan neighbors instead.

Eh, I feel like the Bible is good enough as is. The key is to absolutely and undeniably halt the centralization of church power into key leaders (looking at you, Popes.), and then go out and truly have the Bible be the only actual law, so that there are more discussions about what the Bible says as opposed to what people say.

...of course, I'm protestant, so I am probably a bit biased. Though maybe having a more unified solely Biblical church will possibly facilitate faster invention of something to distribute literature faster and then with that having faster dissemination of ideas.


EDIT: If you want to add something to the Bible, maybe have the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs or the Book of Enoch into the Bible, both of which (at least according to the Tehawedo church which uses it, at least) had complex Messianic prophesies and also added to church doctrine.

EDIT: lmao "I'm protestant" not for long BOIIIIIII
 
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Tradition has it that the Apostle Thomas made it as far east as India, but that's about as far as it goes. That rather implies his evangelism fell on deaf ears at the time. Assuming that's true, if he'd been modestly more successful, Christianity might not be the majority faith in what we now know as India and Pakistan but it might be a minority sufficiently large and assertive to have don't-mess-with-us status.
 
Tradition has it that the Apostle Thomas made it as far east as India, but that's about as far as it goes. That rather implies his evangelism fell on deaf ears at the time. Assuming that's true, if he'd been modestly more successful, Christianity might not be the majority faith in what we now know as India and Pakistan but it might be a minority sufficiently large and assertive to have don't-mess-with-us status.

Maybe have some Christians set up a kingdom in *Rajastan or other western India, and then slowly expand across India? I also know that there was a sizeable Nestorian population in China before antiforeigner reforms. Maybe have the reforms not be executed, or even have an emperor convert...?
 

trajen777

Banned
Have the Byzantines win at Yarmuck - and the Persians win at Qadisiyyah. This dual battle would have destroyed Arab expansion in the middle east

1. Borders reestablished -- Muslim discredited by defeat - with Byz victory in place the doctrinal difference in the Byz empire is minimized - They Byz empire would have controlled Rome so 1 Christianity
2.Persia already had an expanding base of Christians
3. The Mongol elite were - Pre Hugula - christian -- and with out Persian and turkish tribes exposed to Muslim then they would have become Christian
4. IN middle ages have Luther's reformation be accepted as a reform and not as politicized way for the German princes to become independent from the HRE.
5. Spanish brought Christianity to the Americas
6. Mongols brought Christianity to China
7. Japan Christianity was growing fast -- have it not become a political attack against Shogunate.
 

jahenders

Banned
There's definitely some truth to the concept that the bigger it gets the less likely it is to remain unified.

However, I think one of the biggest factors that could allow growth/spread without driving dissent/division would be to basically have a somewhat "bigger tent" of beliefs. Certain beliefs could be codified, but they could avoid some degrees of specificity that made some view heretical though they weren't all that different. For example, the Nicean Creed codifies the view of the Trinity and rejects anything different as heretical. Yet, the distinction of the interpretation of the Trinity has always seemed somewhat arbitrary and unnecessary. If two people believe the same on 95% of doctrine, but one believes that the Godhead is 3 personages in some kind of amorphous grouping, while the other believes that the Godhead is 3 physically separate beings, is THAT distinction really the important thing? Yet, when you codify things and state that anything else is wrong, then you inherently drive a wedge.

You could still have some "standardization" without that degree of specificity. You could have a pope, or patriarchs, agree to a broad set of beliefs that are mandatory to be considered "legal," but local churches could vary in other things.

Other than that, a much earlier defeat of Islam would have increased the coverage of Christianity considerably (Middle East, N Africa, Central Asia) and left Christianity better positioned to continue expanding in Asia.

I am not sure if it is possible keep Christianity united. There was already many Christian nominations during early centuries. You might get world where Christianity is wide spreaded than in OTL but probably not so unified. Or you can get unified Christianity, but it probably should be quiet small and probably united by common enemy.
 
I don't think that Christianity can spread very much to Persia. Zoroastrianism was quiet established religion already. Christianity might spread to rest of Middle East but hardly to Persia. Altough it could spread to many areas of Southern Asia through sea routes like Islam did.
 

B-29_Bomber

Banned
Have the nature of Christ be resolved satisfactorily in a council and avoid the Dyophysite-Monophysite split, which avoids the early tensions between East and West, from the way the Eastern Empire tried to appease the Monophysites.

And with this, you'd most likely butterfly away Islam, which means Christianity will continue to spread Eastwards much more effectively. While China and India proper may not convert, the peripheries may well convert.
 
Have an anvil fall on Muhammad's or something before he started preaching.

With only a bunch of pagan deities and the closest thing to a large scale religion being Zoroastrianism Christianity should have no trouble spreading through the Arab world.

Christian arabs would go and try to take India instead of Islam, with Christianity having less requirements such as cutting out Pork and Booze it could potentially spread to china to a larger extent.

And so Christianity would really have not much competition other than maybe Judaism and Buddhism.
 
I don't think that Christianity can spread very much to Persia. Zoroastrianism was quiet established religion already. Christianity might spread to rest of Middle East but hardly to Persia. Altough it could spread to many areas of Southern Asia through sea routes like Islam did.

Um...Zorastrianism fell to Islam OTL. Does that mean "Christianity cannot into Persia" in a TL where Islam is sufficated in the crib?
 
I don't think that Christianity can spread very much to Persia. Zoroastrianism was quiet established religion already. Christianity might spread to rest of Middle East but hardly to Persia. Altough it could spread to many areas of Southern Asia through sea routes like Islam did.

Christianity most certainly did spread in Persia in the form of the Church of the East (not the Eastern Orthodox church, to be clear) and was quite successful.

With all sincerity, the best method of moving forward might be a collapse of the Roman Empire at some point late enough for Christianity to have the necessary momentum not to be snuffed out, early enough that the Church can continue to spread without centralizing in Roman. Where exactly that would be, my expertise cannot say. Christianity was a dominating force in North Africa and the Middle East before Islam, so averting Islam is basically a protective measure there. Put some revivalists there at the period that feels most appropriate for you and call it good.

You absolutely must preserve the Church of the East and avert the circumstances that led to its decline (which is, you know, hard and hard to talk about). Perhaps if you convert Genghis (well, his equivalent, really)? But then when the Mongols fall, the Chinese will probably kick out the Christians (do not want).

Now, once you've done all this you must prevent the Christians from talking to each other enough to excommunicate one another... If you do all this, when the Europeans start riding the North Atlantic Current around, you'll probably have Christianity spreading in the Americas the same way it did in our world.
 
Christianity had enough of a presence within the Sassanid empire that it was considered a threat by Shapur II in the 4th century, resulting in a great persecution. Christianity recovered to the point where rumors circulated throughout the empire that Yazdegird I (early 5th century) might convert.

Even after the Islamic conquest, the sacred fire Adur Gushnasp was burning as late as the middle of the 9th century, and Qutayba ibn Muslim complained about having to bribe Bukharans to go to Friday prayers after the Zoroastrians renounced their conversion three times. So Zoroastrianism did not disappear quickly even in a hostile environment.

See Mary Boyce's Zoroastrians and Ehsan Yarshater's The Cambridge History of Iran if you want to read some sources on the topic.
 
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