DBWI: Christianity thought of as a "Western Religion"

I've always been fascinated with the Christian Period of Rome. People don't realize how entrenched Christianity was in Roman society prior to Julian I's religious reforms, not just among the elites, but among ordinary people. If Julian hadn't attempted to root out Christianity, or even if he'd been less successful at it, it seems likely the Church could establish a more permanent presence in Western Europe. And if the Church can stay on friendly terms with Rome, it seems decidedly unlikely that the Sassanian would become very tolerant of them, let alone convert themselves. With a hostile Persian Empire in the way, what would be the fate of Christian missionary activity in Central Asia and the Subcontinent? Would China ever have a Christian Emperor? Also, what do a Christian Europe and a European Christianity actually look like? It honesty seems like a pretty feasible scenario, but damn if it isn't difficult to imagine.
 
IOTL christianity provided for the expansion of Persian influence around South Africa and into the New World, and expansion of Chinese influence into SE Asia and the pacific. Unless Christianity is replaced in Eurasia by a similar religion, there wouldn't be such a drive to "civilize" the "barbarians" across much of the world. I doubt Rome would do that as a christian empire though, they were confined to a continental penninsula, and as far as they knew there was nothing of value beyond the atlantic.
 
Impossible. Christianity was derived from Judaism, which itself is an evolved form of Canaanite polytheism. And Canaan was certainly "Eastern", being so close to Babylon. No Roman would truly convert to it, and it was doomed to fail like Mithraism. The only reason it became a the religion of Persia and elsewhere is because it essentially ripped off Zarathustraist dualism. Hell, at this point, Christianity is little more than Zarathustraism with another prophet, to the point that the famous Christian fire temples are effectively rebranded Zoroastrian fire temples, and the name "Ahura Mazda" for the Christian God comes from Zarathustraism.

If we handwave a Christian Roman Empire, it'll be a new cult competing with many others. I expect it'll absorb elements of Hellenism and Romanism rather than Zoroastrianism, but will remain a forever competing religion.
 
Well, European Christianity would be far less sycretic than Asian Christianity as Asian Christians are well-known for viewing (insert local religious figure here) as prophets of God with examples being Chinese Christians viewing Lao-tzu and Confucius as prophets and Indian Christians viewing Siddhartha and Mahavira as prophets. Also, have you read the timeline "A Christian Europe"? It features a Romanism-esque religion arising among the Arabs.
 
The reason Christianity didn't stick in Rome was because no religion did for very long. Cults rose and fell in the empire constantly. Often due to having powerful patrons. Christianity had a few powerful patrons for awhile (even an Emperor or two according to some unproven sources) but when Julian came into power and made that less fashionable the upper class moved with the Emperor and without the income or protection of the upper class the Christian religion fell out of favor for the rebirth of the Pantheon, then the rise of the northern pantheon in the West and the Church of the Unconquered Sun and The Church of Isis. In Persia Christianity found a culture used to having a set belief system with the concept of Monotheism being more or less common place and having a Priest class that had the wealth and intellectual freedom to keep the religion from falling out of style.
 
Impossible. Christianity was derived from Judaism, which itself is an evolved form of Canaanite polytheism. And Canaan was certainly "Eastern", being so close to Babylon. No Roman would truly convert to it, and it was doomed to fail like Mithraism. The only reason it became a the religion of Persia and elsewhere is because it essentially ripped off Zarathustraist dualism. Hell, at this point, Christianity is little more than Zarathustraism with another prophet, to the point that the famous Christian fire temples are effectively rebranded Zoroastrian fire temples, and the name "Ahura Mazda" for the Christian God comes from Zarathustraism.

If we handwave a Christian Roman Empire, it'll be a new cult competing with many others. I expect it'll absorb elements of Hellenism and Romanism rather than Zoroastrianism, but will remain a forever competing religion.
I think you're underestimating the extent to which Christianity was already a Hellenic phenomenon. Keep in mind that the Detqy Hata* was originally written in Greek, and the surviving Greek manuscripts suggest its writers were familiar with Greek literature and philosophy, as educated Jews of their time and place tended to be. There was actually a really cool discovery a couple years ago of a Greek manuscript of Dahnn- or Ioannes, rather- that confirms what decent scholars had long supposed, that the author identified Yesu with the Logos of Platonic philosophy. And Christianity's core deviation from Judaism was in transforming the figure of hte Messiah from a military liberator of the oppressed Jewish people to a mystical liberator of all humanity. It derived from Judaism, sure, but it defined itself as equally applicable to Jews and non-Jews. That's what's enabled Christianity to be so widespread outside of Rome, but I'd argue that the more Hellenized parts of the world had more common ground with Christianity to work with. And that in turn makes it hilarious to me when hardcore Persian nationalists who treat Alexander like history's greatest monster are also Christian. Like the oddballs practicing Neo-Zoroastrianism are at least consistent, you know? But I'm stepping on too many toes here.

*(OOC: New Testament. This, and other original terms for Christian terminology, come from a crude attempt to transliterate article titles from the Aramaic Wikipedia, since Syriac Aramaic was the lingua franca of early Christianity in the Middle East and India and for our purposes remained such. I welcome any corrections from anyone who happens to speak any Aramaic dialect.)
 
If Rome somehow adopted Christianity to be it's state religion, I'm sure the rest of Europe would follow suit. And, if that happened, I feel as if we would see a more united Europe than today. I mean, the only reason that OTL Christianity is so syncretic is because of how entrenched but malleable many of the old Asiatic religions such as Buddhism or Taoism were. These were basically just incorporated into Christianity, since many of the tenets were the same to begin with. In Europe however, you lack these ancient religions. Most of the continent was still tribal, and followed lose paganistic religions that varied from tribe to tribe, let alone culture to culture. Who knows, maybe some of the rituals such as celebrating around trees would be incorporated, but no way the local religions have any real lasting remnants in Christianity. So if there is one, more standard Christianity that unites Europe, then I think its possible we see larger states. Maybe the Romans are able to survive in some form if both they and the Germanics convert, so they avoid being invaded and dismantled?
 
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