The big idea: Christians hold that God has acted to close a gap that human beings could not close themselves — and that God did so in Jesus Christ.
Everything in Christian teaching about salvation runs back to that claim.
The tradition began among Jews in first-century Roman Palestine and spread rapidly outwards. Its scriptures are the Old and New Testaments; the New Testament holds four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, letters of Paul and others, and the Book of Revelation.
It is now the largest tradition in the world by adherents and also one of the most internally varied, which is why naming the denomination is rarely optional.
Roman Catholic
- The Pope as bishop of Rome, with universal authority
- Seven sacraments
- Scripture read within the Church's tradition and teaching office
Eastern Orthodox
- Patriarchs, and a communion of self-governing churches
- Seven sacraments, often called the holy mysteries
- Icons central to worship; scripture read within the tradition
Protestant
- Many churches: Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal and more
- Usually two sacraments — baptism and Communion
- Emphasis on the authority of scripture, and on faith
The commonest avoidable error: Writing "Christians believe" where a denomination is meant.
Purgatory, the number of sacraments, who may be ordained, how scripture is read — all of these differ. Name who holds what.
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The guide's first question: Christians hold that God created humankind in God's own image and gave human beings free will — and that through disobedience humans became separated from God by sin.
The chain the guide sets out
Made in God's image, with free will
Human beings are held to be created good, and genuinely free. The capacity to choose is the ground of everything that follows, including the possibility of going wrong.
Disobedience, and separation
Christian teaching expresses this through the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall in the book of Genesis. The result is described as original sin: a separation from God that human beings are born into.
A means of salvation provided
The guide's own next clause: God provided a means of salvation through Jesus Christ. In Christian teaching the problem is stated only so that the answer to it can be.
Made good and free, separated by sin, met by Christ.
Denominations read the Fall differently: Some Christians read Genesis as an historical account; many read it as a narrative carrying a truth about the human condition rather than a report of events.
Both are held sincerely and by large churches. Saying that the reading differs is accurate; picking a side for them is not.
This is the sharpest contrast in Section B, and it is worth having ready.
Judaism holds that free will is a standing choice between two inclinations, with no inherited separation from God. Christianity holds that the separation is real and inherited, and that it is closed from God's side.
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The guide lists three destinations. The middle one is not shared by all Christians, and an answer that presents the three as one agreed map has a problem.
| Destination | How Christians describe it | Who teaches it |
|---|---|---|
| Heaven | Eternal union with God | All Christian traditions, though descriptions vary widely |
| Purgatory | A staging post between this world and heaven, in which a person is made ready | Roman Catholic teaching; the Orthodox describe a comparable process differently. Most Protestant churches reject it |
| Hell | Separation from God | Widely taught. Christians differ over whether it is eternal, and over how far its imagery is literal |
How Christianity answers the guide's three questions, in its own terms.
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Resurrection, not only survival: Christian hope is usually expressed as resurrection — Christ's, and then that of believers — rather than as the survival of a soul alone.
The creeds say "the resurrection of the body", and that wording is deliberate.
The guide names four things, and the fourth carries a qualification that is easy to skim past: as appropriate to the denomination.
The guide's four
- Believing in the presence of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit — the Trinity, a Christian expression of monotheism
- Believing in Jesus Christ as Saviour
- Living by the teachings of Jesus
- Participating in the sacraments, as appropriate to the denomination
What a sacrament is held to be
- Catholic and Orthodox: the actual presence of God, working through the sign
- Much Protestant teaching: an outward sign of a blessing given by God
- Catholic and Orthodox churches count seven
- Most Protestant churches keep two: baptism and Communion
Faith and works
- Christians hold that salvation comes through grace — God's love, not human achievement
- Reformation churches emphasise faith as the means by which grace is received
- Catholic teaching holds faith and works together, both enabled by grace
- Naming this difference is real analysis, not padding
Living by the teachings of Jesus: If you need a specific example, the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's Gospel, and Jesus' summary of the law — love God, and love your neighbour as yourself — are the two most often cited.
A named example beats a general claim every time.