Evolution of Christianity

Evolution can mean many things. Change and complexity increasing in time seems to be the main meaning. Things that don't work die off. That's the paradigm when someone says something like 'our seminary will grow if it's God's will'. In that case though it's a kind of directed evolution determining the winners within a pre-determined physical Universe of possibilities. The irony is that winning means being chosen by God for salvation unto eternity rather than the temporal. Plainly over time Christianity has grown in scale and compexity.

The visible church has evolved extensively-possibly more than any other human social organization establishment the past two millenia plus. To fail to see that would require blindness. Consider just the relation of Church and state, empires and ethics across the entire world from Jesuits in Japan and Brazil to the Orthodox church in Byzantine and Russian history, the tonsure and celibacy policies of various times, dead sea scrolls, illustrated manuscripts and PDF files.

Even so the concept of evolution does not require atheism as part of its meaning. Neither does evolution mean that one must accept Darwinian evolution as its meaning exclusively. Christian theology has evolved as well as the visible church. Arianism mostly died off for example. There are not too many Lollards about these days, and in the second century Jehovas Witnesses and Mormons had yet to see frst light. One could write on the topic for years regarding the historical evolution of the Christian church including that of the history of St. Cyril, Constantine and Irish Celtic Christians.

Chrstianity and the kingdom of God in the church of the Lord has increased like Abraham's children from a small sprout to a great tree rich with complexity and size. From being communicated just in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin the gospel is available now in virtually every spoken language and on every continent. etc.