Kenneth Scott Latourette
Kenneth Scott Latourette
Kenneth Scott Latourettewas an American historian of China, Japan, and world Christianity. His formative experiences as Christian missionary and educator in early 20th century China shaped his life's work. Although he did not learn the Chinese language, he became known for his magisterial scholarly surveys of the history of world Christianity, the history of China, and of American relations with East Asia...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth6 August 1884
CountryUnited States of America
Christianity is usually called a religion. As a religion it has had a wider geographic spread and is more deeply rooted among more peoples than any other religion in the history of mankind.
In the third century after Christ the faith continued to spread.
We must, however, note that what are usually called the high religions made their appearance within about twenty-five hundred years - most of them within fifteen hundred years.
Religiously the Empire was pluralistic and marked by a search for a faith which would be satisfying intellectually and ethically and would give assurance of immortality.
This means that to man God gave a degree of free will.
The primary source of the appeal of Christianity was Jesus - His incarnation, His life, His crucifixion, and His resurrection.
Hinduism's basic tenet is that many roads exist by which men have pursued and still pursue their quest for the truth and that none has universal validity.
In both the presence of evil and the eventual triumph over evil the sweep is cosmic. It embraces the entire universe, what to man is both seen and unseen. The victory is to be accomplished through Christ.
Freedom was conditioned by man's physical body, heredity, and environment.
Compared with the thousands of years in which human life has been on this planet, Christianity is a recent development.
Christianity emerged from the religion of Israel. Or rather, it has as its background a persistent strain in that religion. To that strain Christians have looked back, and rightly, as the preparation in history for their faith.
Christians were regarded as separated from society and therefore destructive of the Greco-Roman way of life.
The most that one of Jewish faith can do - and some have gladly done it - is to say that Jesus was the greatest in the long succession of Jewish prophets. None can acknowledge that Jesus was the Messiah without becoming a Christian.
John the Baptist, who we are told was related by blood to Jesus, was preaching the impending judgement of God, urging repentance and moral reform, and baptizing in the Jordan River those who responded.