Christianity
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Christianity. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the religion of which Jesus Christ is not only the founder, but also the object, since it is by Him and in Him that man recovers his union with God by an effective reconciliation. This may be said to be in a general manner its true character, and to mark the difference that exists between it and all the religions which preceded it. About primitive Christianity we possess a number of documents which are at least authentic, whatever the authority we attribute to them from a doctrinal point of view. Confining ourselves to those documents alone, whose authenticity is not disallowed by the most negative criticism, we have in the epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Romans, and the Thessalonians, a testimony to primitive Christianity which falls between the year 55 and the year 64 after Jesus Christ. It emanates from an apostle who had been in direct contact with the earliest associates of Christ, with those who had both seen and heard Him. The first three gospels, in which a historical basis is generally recognized in what concerns the actions as well as the discourses of Jesus, point back to the same date. We are thus led back to the very origin of Christianity. Moreover, we recognize in the Church of the earliest period made known to us, whether in the Acts of the Apostles or in writings as authentic as the letters of James and those of Peter, the living impress upon simple and honest hearts of the direct remembrance of Christ. It is undeniable that if Christianity claims to carry to the world a revealed doctrine, revealing completely the true nature of God as well as that of man, and the normal relations of union between them, it attaches that doctrine to a personality considered not only as the organ of the revelation, but as its object. We have thus the right to assert that Christianity is Jesus Christ, without fo fearing to detract anything from the attributes of God, for Jesus Christ is His ambassador, His son, the sole mediator between God and man -in one word, the Redeemer, the Saviour, as His name implies. He has never ceased to require faith in Himself as the means of again finding God by Him. Fragmentary quotations on this point are vain. The whole gospel demands this faith in His person, and St. Paul sums it up in the words addressed to the gaoler at Philippi: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts xvi: 31.) distinguished Christianity is herein dis from all other religions. The revelation which it brings to the world is something other than a supernatural communication of a transcendent doctrine about God, and about our origin and purpose in the world. It consists essentially in a great work accomplished by a single person a work which is the supreme manifestation of the holy love of God. The mere exhibition of this divine work casts a bright light upon God as well as upon man and results in a doctrine which implies a complete metaphysic, a complete anthropology, and an entire system of ethics, as well as far-reaching views on the history of the human race in its terrestrial development and in its future destiny. For had it been otherwise, Christianity must have contented itself with communicating to us the outward fact without explaining it without making us grasp it by its inward side in its profound significance; which would have been to alter its nature completely. It none the less remains true that for Christianity doctrine is only a secondary and complementary element the interpretation of the fact of the great work, which is its first object. This is why it addresses itself before everything to the heart and to the conscience, though at the same time it opens up to the intellect the vastest possible horizons. Christianity is pre-eminently the religion of redemption and of the redeemer. It has introduced to the world the grand eparative influence of a victorious love, reparati inaugurating in Jesus Himself an unceasing struggle for that reparative influence must struggle constantly against the powers of evil, which are not magically suppressed. But this reparative su work cannot consist alone in the salvation of individual souls; to be worthy of God it must strive to restore all that the original fall has blighted or destroyedto make the fallen creature realize all his lofty destiny-that is to say, to reconstitute in man all the greatness kept in store for him, and to give him up without reserve to God, making the regenerating spirit penetrate into every sphere of his activity as into all his faculties. Hence the wide mission of Christianity to purify and raise everything that is human in the most diverse spheres of society, from the institutions which regulate the relations of men to each other to the highest culture of the intellect. This restoration of man after the divine type is the continuation and application of the redemptive work of Christ, which, after having had for its first intent to form in the Church a society of believing souls, pardoned and saved, called to work directly for the salvation of all that is lost, next radiates outward into all the departments of human activity. It is in this enlarged sense that we must understand the kingdom of God which the Saviour came to found in our sinful world, and of which the progress goes on only at the price of an incessant struggle, which will continue to the end of time. But this general advance of the kingdom of God in its widely human extension is always proportionate to its internal development within His Church, which keeps and cherishes the central hearth of the divine life, whence emanate all light and heat. We know in a general manner what the vast influence of Christianity has been in the world for 19 centuries. It has renewed society in the very depths of universal decline without ever neglecting its first task, which is to lead the souls of sinners to Christ. Spiritual conquests these count upon no more than this. But victorious struggles have not been pursued without many dangers, no little resistance and as much dark uncertainty, which have sometimes had the effect of altering Christianity for a time, at least in its historical realizations, for its high ideal has never ceased to soar with serene radiance in the eternal gospel. It may be put under a bushel, but it has never been possible to extinguish it or to change its form. It is this inherent recuperative power that admits of the renewal and elevation again of Christianity, however much it may have been debased. See CHRISTIAN CHURCH, THE.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the religion of Jesus Christ. It may be said to have been founded at his death by the dispersal and preaching of his disciples. Although the doctrines of Christianity are derived from the Hebrews, the Hebrews refuse to be reckoned as Christians. Christianity took root in Asia Minor , Greece, Rome, and northern Africa. As contrasted with Mohammedanism, Buddhism, and other great religions, it is now the prevailing religious faith of all Europe, Turkey expected, Armenia, the Coptic people including Abyssinia, Australia and the surrounding islands, and both Americas. The Russians have carried Christianity into northern Asia; the English have carried it to India; missionaries have carried it everywhere. There are said to be at least 1,000,000 Christians in the Chinese Empire . The African colonies of the various European powers are, in large part, Christian. The present branches of Christianity are as follows: Churches. Total Followers. Catholic Church 230,866,533 Protestant Churches 143,237,625 Orthodox Greek Church 98,016,000 Church of Abyssinia 3,000,000 Coptic Church 120,000 Armenian Church 1,690,000 Nestorians 80,0000 Jacobites 70,0000 Total . . . . . 477,080,158 Dr. Zeller, director of the German Statistical Bureau, writing in 1910, claimed 537,940,000 persons for Christianity; about one-third of the world's total population. Christianity may be regarded as a religion and as a civilization. In the latter respect it differs very considerably from the precepts of Christ. Christ enjoined peace. Christians are noted for conquest and fighting. Regarded as a civilization, rather than as a religion, it may be said to have followed the flags of the nations of Europe ever since the day of Charlemagne. The following shows the membership of the leading denominations in the United States in 1908: Roman Catholic 12,094,656 Methodist Episcopal 3,112,448 Regular Baptist (South) 2,054,301 Regular Baptist (colored) 1,864,877 Methodist Episcopal (South) 1,749,899 Regular Baptist (North) 1,187,356 Disciples of Christ 1,274,725 Regular Baptist (North) 1,187,356 Protestant Episcopal 884,553 African Methodist Episcopal 858,323 Congregationalist 721,553 Lutheran Synodical Conf 672,049 African M. E. Zion 583,106 Lutheran General Council 447,118 Latter Day Saints 350,000 Reformed (German) 289,328 Lutheran General Synod 280,978 United Brethren 279,846 Presbyterian (South) 269,733 German Evangelical Synod 238,805 Colored Methodist Episcopal 224,700 Methodist Protestant 190,708 United Norwegian Lutheran 156,936 Spiritualists 150,000 Greek Orthodox (Catholic) 130,000 United Presbyterian 129,564 Primitive Baptist 126,000 Reformed (Dutch) 117,139 Lutheran Synod of Ohio 110,877 Evangelical Association 105,733 Lutheran Synod of Iowa 100,500 Dunkard Brethren (conserv.) 100,000