When Nothing Goes Right Just Go Left

The video that I chose focuses on Christian martyrs and whether or not they existed in the way that biblical stories suggest they did. The video also examines conflicts between the Ancient Roman religious practices and early Christian practices, going on to suggest that these conflicts may be hiding the actual motives behind martyrdom. Christianity supposedly began during the life of Jesus Christ, the self-proclaimed son of God. The faith is centered around his teachings and uses a sacred written text called the Bible which is split into two parts, the Old and New Testaments. Today the faith is organized through a series of hierarchal systems within the Church, but in the days of the Roman Empire the church operated through a very small number of Jesus' disciples who were dedicated to keeping the teachings of Christ alive through creating written records of his beliefs. The documentary I viewed also suggests that early Christians held secretive meetings between themselves, causing great tension within the Roman Empire and earning distrust from non-Christian members of the community. Despite widespread persecution from leaders of Judaism and the Roman Empire, Christianity spread to many regions in Africa and Europe early on. The decline of the Roman Empire gave way to Christian rise to power and the faith soon became the dominant religion in Europe. Translations of the Bible and European conquests throughout the Western world helped to spread the faith and kept it from isolation. Below, I have included a link to a video giving a brief history of early Christianity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG55ErfdaeY Christianity still holds true to most of its early practices today. For example, women are still not allowed to be part of the priesthood, Sunday remains the holy day of obligation, and baptism is still viewed as a necessary practice in order for babies to be saved from damnation. However, various denominations of Christian churches have undergone several reforms in order to make stances on modern issues known. Recently, the current Catholic Pope has made statements about the ongoing issues with ISIS and gay rights. Having gone to Catholic school for the majority of my life, I consider myself a pretty good authority on the Christian faith. However, the video I watched presented information on Roman religion which was completely new to me. The video touched on ritual sacrifices and Roman gods, which helped me to better understand the fundamental differences between Christianity and the Roman religion. I knew that the Romans were polytheists, but I did not have an understanding of their exact beliefs. That being said, the new knowledge helped me to see why the Christians were rejected they were. On the other hand, the film presented a heavy front of bias against early Christians. Though they gave insight to Roman culture, they rejected any thought that the Christians were actually sought out by the Roman Empire. They believe that Christians may have been punished when they refused to participate in Roman sacrificial ceremonies, but the filmmakers believe punishment in the form of a death sentence is highly unlikely. While I appreciate their lens on Roman perspective, I think they leaned a little too strongly towards one side. The documentary definitely could have benefited from just as much investigation into early Christians as it took into Early Romans.

http://bit.ly/2KyH9eN