Christianity, the most widely distributed of the world religions, having substantial representation in all the populated continents of the globe. In the late 1990s, its total membership exceeded 1.9 billion people.
Like any system of belief and values—be it Platonism/ Marxism, Freudianism or democracy—Christianity is in many ways comprehensible only 'from the inside', to those who share the beliefs and strive to live by the values and a description that would ignore these 'inside' aspects of it would not be historically faithful. To a degree that those o;-; the inside often fail to recognize, however, such a system of beliefs and values can also be described in a way that makes sense as well to an interested observer who does not or even cannot, share their outlook.
A community, a way of life, a system of belief, a liturgical observance, a tradition—Christianity is all of these and more. Each of
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