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The Development Of Christianity In America

As Christianity spread through the Western world, it rarely followed a linear path: different pockets of faith and doctrine were developed by a variety of peoples in an even greater variety of locales. Nowhere is this more evident than in Roman Britain and the era of Anglo-Saxon migrations. In five centuries, English religious culture transformed from one of pagan worship to that of leadership in the Christian world. Controversies included more than merely pagan-Christian dynamics; the Christians were greatly divided, and Christian efforts went through many ebbs before becoming firmly established. One must evaluate the development of both Rome and England to gain an adequate understanding of early English Christianity.

Fifty-five years before the birth of Jesus Christ, Julius Caesar encountered the Druidic religious culture in his invasion of Britain. Although only recently established in Caesar's day, the Druids exerted tremendous influence over British society; they were the priests of the primitive government, and possessed considerable authority as such. In addition to their spiritual duties, Druid priests were responsible for educating the youth, remained immune from military duty and taxes, and presided over civil and criminal legal matters (to the point of deciding controversies among states). They were the expression of both a local government and a community spirituality that were bound to a larger whole. They ruled with an iron fist - decisions by Druid priests were final and irrefutable. Their penalties were swift and severe, with many individual Celts and Britons banished from contact with civilization. Many aspects of Druidic culture surfaced in the formation of Celtic Christianity.

Druidism was a polytheistic cult with a naturist bent: gods and goddesses were believed to inhabit local springs, caves, forests, and mountains, and became the personification of natural objects and events. The entire social structure, both as local community and as...