Christianity a minority religion in Europe

WI Christianity survived never became a state religion. I picture it taking "Thou Shalt not kill" more seriously and being a lot less materialistic than in OTL.

Would other faiths play a major part after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

How different overall would European Society be from 500- 1500?
 
If christianity did not become religion of state in the Roman Empire, then either the Mithras cult or the Sol Invictus cult will take its place.

Why will the Mithras cult or the Sol Invictus cult take the place of Christianity? Why wouldn't the Romans just stick to the old religion?
 
How about the Arabs winning the Battle of Poitiers in 732? The Franks are defeated by the Muslims and the Kingdom of the Franks is incorporated and eventually becomes dominated by Islam. Byzantine Empire eventually also falls to Islam which leaves Italy boxed in and I imagine it will fall too.

The Mediterranean basin, modern day France, the Low Countries and the Rhineland are now Muslim. Christianity becomes a minority religion in Europe.
 
This would change nothing, because the Battle of Tours and Poitiers was not the end of an invasion attempt but the end of a raid. BTW the PoD was set before 732.
 

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Banned
as mentioned before Europe today has a christian minority.

People may say they are christian, but they dont go to church or donate to it, follow thier religions guidlines, or even care much about it at all.

Europe has more non religious than anything. (Southern and Eastern europe is still majority christian)
 
The "old" religion, which itself was largely reinvented as the Romans picked up more and more Greek influence, was on its way out for sure; no one, at least no one of the ruling classes, believed in it any more, the question was, what to believe in instead?

This is how the problem looked in ruling circles--it might well be that simpler folk in the countryside remained believers/practitioners, not so much of the official cults as promoted in the cities during the peak years of Imperial power, as to the older, more anciently Roman beliefs. In the neighborhood of Rome that is; presumably elsewhere the local, rooted "pagan" ("pagan"="heathen"=people of the countryside) tradition would be something else--but in no case identical to the urbanized cults that kings and emperors found useful to cultivate.

The thing about properly pagan, indigenous beliefs as adhered to sincerely and stubbornly in the various countrysides was that they were indeed local, and adapted to a peasant way of life; as soon as sophisticated and ambitious urban ruling classes started agglomerating various kinds of empires, be they mercantile confederations like that of Athens or the more usual blocs of military conquests, they found that they needed to modify the cult to span their territories and to address issues that local villages did not need to confront. Philosophers would find the local pieties both crude and inconsistent and would seek higher, "purer" and more sweeping metaphysical answers to the questions religion addresses. The Greeks would try reworking their native myths into a more elaborate system.

(One feature of Christianity that made it a candidate for eventual canonization as the state religion was that early on, its apostles (notably Paul) had sought to harmonize it with Greco-Roman high philosophy, taking the position that Christ had the answers to their conundrums, and doing so in Hellenistic language familiar to Roman citizens like Paul. Presumably the rival cults that were also such candidates were also reshaped in such Hellenistic terms--the tricky bit would be to gratify the philosophers while also retaining mass appeal to the low-class majority.)

As they conquered, the Roman ruling classes were rather restless dabblers in various religious fads. A trademark of their expanding rule under Republic and then Emperors was a broad tolerance and a tendency to equate local deities with their own, which had themselves been reworked for greater consistency with the Greek model. But one feature of religious devotion is that one wants to believe one has arrived at (or been raised in) a true religion; diversity in belief can tend to undermine one's confidence. So the hunt was on to find one broad cult that could strongly dominate everyone on the same terms.

As it happened the cults of Sol Invictus and of Mithra were strongly favored by ranking Romans, particularly soldiers, around the time Constantine cast his decisive vote in favor of Christianity. But there were other contenders--the cult of Isis had its devotees, and both the military cults above suffered from excluding women as potential acolytes, giving Isis (and Christ!) an edge in that female devotees might raise their children, both daughters and sons, in their devotion--the daughters to raise yet another generation no matter what their various husbands believed; the sons to add to the ranks of those whose opinions were deemed to count politically.

So, barring doctrinal mutations that gave women a stronger and more respected role within their cults, the two odds-on favored military cults probably were actually much weaker candidates than they looked; a single state religion that would be seriously imposed and have any chance of winning serious devotion in both city and countryside would have to give some recognition to women. At the same time it would need some sort of martial edge to enable soldiers and administrators in tough times to do their often brutal jobs. It would need to endorse the rule of the Emperor.

Christianity as it happened did not come quite ready-made to meet these specifications; as with other cults, it actually came in various versions, which gave Constantine the opportunity to mix and match, to stitch together a tailor-made version that could be acceptable to most Christians, palatable to many of the non-Christian holdouts, and facilitate his administration. Had some other cult been thus imposed, it would have gone through a similar refashioning.

Now one feature Christianity has demonstrated in the past 2000 years is a scope for syncretism, for adopting practices and even doctrines of other religions and presenting them as seamless parts of itself. This has been a great help in its entering various regions and displacing the local religion, to a significant degree by absorbing selected elements into itself and "baptizing" them into the Christian world-view. Purists of various generations have been horrified to contemplate how much "heathenism" has been adopted as Christian and have from time to time tried to purge the faith of these accretions, but Christianity as we know it is very much characterized by this. That accords well with the old Roman practice of seeking common ground with the local practices of the various places they conquered.

It's my suspicion that on the whole, Christianity won the competition for "suitable Imperial cult" by evolving the most and longest to match the needs of the society it served. If some other cult were to take its place, that one would have needed to evolve in a parallel manner, and would therefore probably be in a position to evolve similarly once the Empire fell in the West and through its fluctuating fortunes in the East.

Or it could be that Constantine and the others involved in establishing Christendom weren't the shrewd geniuses they appear to have been, and he or someone else might have given the nod to a less robust candidate, the enterprise might thus have failed, perhaps leading to an earlier collapse of the Imperial system. If Imperial Rome were not Nicean Christian for instance, but the Goths had meanwhile been won over to Arian Christianity, perhaps when they invaded they'd have an easier time assimilating and being assimilated by the Imperials they conquered, and established an Arian Christendom where OTL they had endless conflict with a populace devoted to orthodoxy as defined by Constantine. Certainly there would have been some Christians among all the other contenders everywhere; it would be odd if not one of them developed some approach to the union of interests of Church and State to render itself a more suitable cult for a pragmatic military regime. Christians of some denomination seem likely to bounce to the top in this sort of free-for-all that would result from the Emperors failing to impose a cult that meets their needs in advance.

Perhaps I misunderstand the nature of Mithras or Sol Invictus in pretty much dismissing them as possible long-term candidates. Perhaps a "marriage" of one of these to Isis, or some other Goddess cult, could do the trick.

But frankly if all versions of Christianity are somehow ruled out, say because a strong orthodox consensus arises among Christians that they really can't be soldiers by any rationalization, the most likely outcome for a future religious landscape I'd guess at would be a new paganism based on the prior faiths of the waves of Germanic, Hunnish, Magyar, Slavic and so forth invaders and locals. The Slavic and Germanic traditions appear to have been branches of the same roots and some sort of syncretism between them (probably involving less compromise than the Romans did in Hellenizing their own pantheon) might develop; later generations of scholars might unearth the Classical philosophers and recognize in their conundrums the same issues that concern them and look for parallel solutions. Since in this timeline the Classical world failed to adopt a working solution, they are back to square one!

By then, one might expect Islam to have offered another answer--except of course that aside from random "butterflies," it seems plain to me that the context in which Muhammed developed Islam was one where a Christian Rome (as the Eastern Empire is called in the Koran--Rum) posed a challenge to the Arab way of life; had Rome failed to Christianize it is not clear that any kind of monotheism would develop in Arabia--this isn't a "butterfly," it's a systematic shift in the basic conditions. Then again aside from powerful monotheistic Christians of the Empire, Muhammed would have been familiar with Jews, with the Ethiopian Christians, and with the more sophisticated philosophical reformulations of Arabian paganism called IIRC "Sabateans" in the Koran, and accorded a "People of the Book" status along with Christians and Jews. So something like Islam arising at Mecca is not impossible perhaps, and then, even assuming that a non-Christian Rome had somehow followed a parallel path thus far and a Justinian-like figure had once again secured control over Egypt, Levant, and North Africa, I'd think the *Muslim Arabs would have even more success, with their monotheistic religion meeting the needs of an Imperium more successfully than the fumbling alternatives hit upon in lieu of orthodox Christianity as we know it. Lacking the stubborn resistance that religious orthodoxy conferred on potential conquests of the Arabs, they might wind up taking the capital in their initial rush, and meanwhile they or their Moorish successors might find Western Europe much easier pickings.
 
What evidence is there that the Roman political class "didn't believe in their own religion any more"? If so, why were they continuing to build and maintain temples with public money? I don't buy for a minute that Christianity had such a mass appeal, that everyone wanted to convert. If they did, then future Christian emperors after Constantine wouldn't repeatedly prohibit the observance of the old religion(s). Most people raised in a faith are reluctant to give it up. Just ask any Christian, Jew or Muslim today. Ancient people were no different.
 
as mentioned before Europe today has a christian minority.

People may say they are christian, but they dont go to church or donate to it, follow thier religions guidlines, or even care much about it at all.

Europe has more non religious than anything. (Southern and Eastern europe is still majority christian)
... If they say they're a Christian then they're a Christian. There aren't requirements to what religion you can claim to follow.
 

Prefrence

Banned
... If they say they're a Christian then they're a Christian. There aren't requirements to what religion you can claim to follow.

I can say im Muslim, but If i believe that Jesus is God, and base my life off ot the Bible instead of the Muslim holy books, what religion am i?

all religions have some requirements.

For example if your Catholic you must believe that Abortion is the killing of a human.
 
Without Christianity there will be no Islam! Why? Simple, because some controversal results of the latest research, which BTW are not accepted in any islamic country, suggest that the Quran was based on a Syriac lectionary. So if Christianity is only a minority religion and the PoD is before 600 AD, it is very unlikely that Islam will ever exist.
 
I can say im Muslim, but If i believe that Jesus is God, and base my life off ot the Bible instead of the Muslim holy books, what religion am i?

all religions have some requirements.

For example if your Catholic you must believe that Abortion is the killing of a human.

That would be news to an awful lot of Catholics out there.

What you're touching on here is the difference between religion as defined by orthodoxy, by orthopraxy, and by social identificastioon. They are all valid methods of counting heads for different purposes, but they are different, and you have to decide which one to apply top a given problem. Obviousaly, the orthodoxy approach doesn't work well for population statistics.
 
I've always liked the idea of buddhist elements seeping into western native religions and they did in Asian native religions.

Also interesting would be the develoment of the Germanic pantheon as the Germanic people's mellow out and become more civilized- looking at a list of the Germanic gods one cannot help but be struck how so many of them have overlapping domains and how many of them are in some way Gods of war.
Would be interesting to see the Gods more firmly establish themselves as unique characters and not all obsessed with war.
IOTL of course the settling down and civilizing of the Germans happened at much the same time as their christianisation, which is sad as it means their faith is permanently stuck in the dark ages.
 

Prefrence

Banned
That would be news to an awful lot of Catholics out there.

What you're touching on here is the difference between religion as defined by orthodoxy, by orthopraxy, and by social identificastioon. They are all valid methods of counting heads for different purposes, but they are different, and you have to decide which one to apply top a given problem. Obviousaly, the orthodoxy approach doesn't work well for population statistics.

Former Catholics that is, anyone who supports, prefroms or recieves an abortion is excommunicated. (Moreso the lattter two, since there is more definitive evidence than the first).

Well let me reword my original point, Christians that belong to a church are now a minority in europe.
 
Former Catholics that is, anyone who supports, prefroms or recieves an abortion is excommunicated. (Moreso the lattter two, since there is more definitive evidence than the first).

Excommunicates that still attend Mass, receive Sacraments, and participate in church activities? That is a strange kind of excommunication. Perhaps they are indeed excommunicate by the letter of canon law, but to all intents and purposes, I fail to see in what way they are not Catholics.

Well let me reword my original point, Christians that belong to a church are now a minority in europe.

I'd argue the contrary: Christians that belong to a church, in the legal sense of membership which entails duties and rights, and in the social sense of a feeling of community and identity, are far more common in Europe than those who actually believe in the tenets of Christianity. Germany, allegedly, has almost 50% Christians, yet you weill hardly find anyone who can keep up an intelligent conversation on the nature of Christ or the theology of salvation. I am convinced, however, that that is nothing new, and that it is merely the number of those entirely outside that group that has risen.
 
This would change nothing, because the Battle of Tours and Poitiers was not the end of an invasion attempt but the end of a raid. BTW the PoD was set before 732.
It was only a raid, but if a large proportion of the Frankish army was destroyed, later Arab incursions may not be able to be stopped. It would be a process largely similar to the conquest of Spain.
Without Christianity there will be no Islam! Why? Simple, because some controversal results of the latest research, which BTW are not accepted in any islamic country, suggest that the Quran was based on a Syriac lectionary. So if Christianity is only a minority religion and the PoD is before 600 AD, it is very unlikely that Islam will ever exist.
Got any links to the study? Im skeptical of the Quran being heavily based on any pre-existing book (though it is already based on the Bible and Torah to some extent), though the Christian influence mainly came from Christians Muhammed knew. If I can remember rightly, it was a Christian relative of Khadijah that told him he had recieved a message from God first.
 
It was only a raid, but if a large proportion of the Frankish army was destroyed, later Arab incursions may not be able to be stopped. It would be a process largely similar to the conquest of Spain.
This Arab army defeated there was not an invading army but a raiding force.

Got any links to the study? Im skeptical of the Quran being heavily based on any pre-existing book (though it is already based on the Bible and Torah to some extent), though the Christian influence mainly came from Christians Muhammed knew. If I can remember rightly, it was a Christian relative of Khadijah that told him he had recieved a message from God first.
See this article:
Wikipedia said:
The skeptic approach has been further expanded by Christoph Luxenberg, who supports claims for a late composition of the Qur'an, and traces much of it to sources other than Muhammad. Luxenberg is known for his thesis that the Qur'an is merely a re-working of an earlier Christian text, a Syriac lectionary.[45] (See also the articles Gerd R. Puin, and Alexander the Great in the Qur'an.)
He says that many word in the Quran suddenly make sense if read in Syriac-Aramaic an not in Arab. His research my not be the best but IMO many researchs are not opne to this idea because they are either muslim or they fear that aknowledging this theory will discredit them in the eyes of the muslim community. And after learning that the goverment of Jemen denied further research of Quran fragments which are older that the oldest known Quran text...
 
Former Catholics that is, anyone who supports, prefroms or recieves an abortion is excommunicated. (Moreso the lattter two, since there is more definitive evidence than the first).

Well let me reword my original point, Christians that belong to a church are now a minority in europe.

Raymond Gravel and liberal catholics are catholics. The Church =/= The Catholics. Or ALL Anglicans of USA would have been traitors?
 
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