How was Christianity spread around the world?

Answer 1

It began spreading by the work of the Apostles and disciples as Jesus had instructed them to from Jerusalem throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Rome itself. Then it spread via the Roman Empire in the 4th Century AD, to spread even more to other countries.

Answer 2

Answer 1

when jesus came he taught people then thoes people told other people. so it just sperded from person to person.

Answer 2

It depends entirely on the time-period.

Early Period

Between the years 0-350 CE, more or less, Christianity was a repressed religion. There were definitely sermons and churches, but outreach was hindered by the Polytheistic Roman authorities (in whose empire Christianity primarily existed). Conversion to Christianity was relatively high considering the small numbers of Christians and the violent attacks to which Christians were subjected, such as gladiatorial events. During this period, Christian Leaders met in councils and survived in catacombs.

Middle Ages

From 350-1650, more or less, there was a sea-change. Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and Christianity became the official religion of Rome. Christianity was spread by imperial edicts, peaceful proselytism, incentivized conversions, persecutions of adherents of other religions, and forcible conversions.

Western Europe: Christianity expanded greatly during this period as Germanic Polytheists in modern day Germany, Netherlands, UK, and other places were forcibly converted. Polytheists in Spain and Gaul were converted using financial incentives. Pogroms and expulsions were visited upon polytheists and Jews who failed to convert.

Eastern Europe: Christianity expanded in Ukraine, Poland, and Russia through the acts of missionaries like Saint Cyril who converted the Polytheists there using methods of peaceful proselytism and teaching Slavs how to write their own language.

North Africa: Tunisia and Egypt became prime centers of Christianity due to both forcible conversions and more peaceful proselytism. Heretical Christian sects were also attacked and forcibly ejected from the Roman Empire and the subsequent Byzantine Empire.

Americas: The Americas were a place of innumerable forcible conversions by the Spaniards, French, Portuguese, and British colonizers. Native peoples were compelled on pain of death to abandon their native religions and accept Christianity.

Modern Period

From 1650-1850 there was an intermediate period where there was a general shift from the more violent propagation of Christianity during the Middle Ages to a more peaceful propogation with Christianity. This change corresponded with the Enlightenment, the American Revolution, and the Rise of Secularism as an acceptable political structure. Proselytism with material inducements and forced conversions did continue, however, especially in the Asian and African colonies made by Imperialist European Powers who saw a duty to improve the "Barbarians" by giving them the proper religion. From 1850-Present, Christianity has expanded almost entirely from proselytism both with and without inducements.

Another View:

The teachings of Christ, known as The Way, began in Jerusalem in circa 31 A.D., shortly after Jesus' Resurrection. From that time, the Apostles and other disciples of what would become 'Christianity' spread the word throughout the region - historical and archaeological records support there going as far east as India, West as the British Isles, and other parts of the Roman Empire. There were many Jews as well as gentiles now who became Christians following the teaching of Christ which were in line with Old Testament teachings with only some amendments made for this stage of God's Plan of Salvation.

Within two decades after Christ's Resurrection, believers were turning away to a 'different gospel' (see Galatians 1:6). Paul called those who were misleading by teaching this different message 'false apostles and deceitful workers' (see 2 Corinthians 11:13 and the problems with false brethren in verse 26). By late in the first century, as we see from 3 John 9-10 - then the last living of the original Apostles - conditions had grown so dire that false ministers openly refused to receive representatives of the Apostle John and were excommunicating true Christians from the Church. Yes, the Church of God members were no longer accepted into this new Christianity.

This troubling period Edward Gibbon, the famed historian, wrote in his classic work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire of a "dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church" (1821, Vol. 2, p. 111). So, members of the original Church of God - Christians - were now being marginalized and becoming a scattered minority in various lands. A new 'Christian' religion which a mixture of Gnostic teachings and other concepts and practices rooted in paganism - called Syncretism common within the Roman Empire at the time - took hold and transformed the teachings of Christ.

Another historian Jesse Hurlbut says of this time of transformation: "We name the last generation of the first century, from 68 to 100 A.D., 'The Age of Shadows,' partly because the gloom of persecution was over the church, but more especially because of all the periods in the [church's] history, it is the one about which we know the least. We have no longer the clear light of the Book of Acts to guide us; and no author of that age has filled the blank in the history . . .

"For fifty years after St. Paul's life a curtain hangs over the church, through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it rises, about 120 A.D. with the writings of the earliest church fathers, we find a church in many aspects very different from that in the days of St. Peter and St. Paul" ( The Story of the Christian Church, 1970, p. 33).

For the sake of brevity, the teachings of Christianity were absorbed into the Roman Empire in the 4th Century A.D., have evolved into what is called mainstream Christianity today - of course with about 41,000 differing churches and organizations worldwide. However, through the centuries, the teachings of Christ with the minority members throughout the world still hold fast and await...

Luke 12:32

King James Version (KJV)

32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Answer 3

•Christianity was illegal during the first 3 centuries but as im not quite sure how it spreaded?