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Why is it appropriate to say there are christianities instead of Christianity?
Wiki User
∙ 11y ago
There is humanity and there is Humanism. One refers to an intrinsic characteristic and the other to an aspirational one. Similarly relativity and relativism, community and communism and so on. The import of this statement is that subliminally the word "Christianity" suggests intrinsic characteristics - something that is universal, as opposed to other "religions" which are aspirational and therefore abstract and unnatural. So as against the "ity" of Christianity stands the "ism" of pagans, heathens and non-believers like judaism, mohammadenism (old name for Islam), Hinduism, Buddhism, jainism, zoarastrianism, Confucianism, taoism, shitoism etc. The -ism terminology further manages to localize, marginalize or regionalize definitions of these faiths.
How did this sly suggestion come about in the English language? For that one must understand that none of the non-christian faiths mentioned above call themselves by their English names. These names were coined in the very recent past. What is more even the definition of religion, its aims and methods differed substantially from the then western viewpoint of faith and religion. In fact even today scholars have no consensus on what the term religion actually means. This term too is an inadequate western category attempting to describe the various global belief systems, faiths, cultures and customs that western civilizaition encountered.
English being a language that spread through means and mechanics of western (and christian) colonialism contrived to establish a privileged position for its native faith. Hence the term Christianity as opposed to the many -isms.
A corrective to such obiviously biased nomenclature would be to call Christianity christism
Wiki User
∙ 12y ago
Wiki User
∙ 11y agoNo, absolutely not. There is not several different types of Christianity, or sects though people often think so because of different denominations. There are not several different types of faiths either. There is one faith, Jesus. That is the only type of Christianity there really is biblically.
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