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Мир англ яз (Кукурян) - конспекты.docx
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Conversion to Christianity

It has been called the foundational experience of Christian life. Conversion to Christianity primarily involves belief in God, repentance of sin, acknowledgement of falling far short of God's glory and holiness and confession of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. While conversion to Christianity may simply involve a personal choice to identify with Christianity rather than with another religion, many Christians understand it to mean that the individual attains eternal salvation - a "radical transformation of self." Conversion has also been described as the point of transition from "natural life" to spiritual life.

According to theologian Charles Curran, conversion is the central moral message of Jesus. He describes it as an "awakening to a consciousness of the presence of divine reality" in one's life.

Early Christians

Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John.

The first Christians were all Jews or Jewish proselytes, either by birth or conversion, referred to by historians as the Jewish Christians. By the end of the 1st century, Christianity began to be recognized internally and externally as a separate religion from Rabbinic Judaism.

Early Christians generally used and revered the Jewish Bible as Scripture, mostly in the Greek or Aramaic translations. As the New Testament canon developed, the Letters of Paul, the Canonical Gospels and various other works were also recognized as scripture to be read in church. Paul's letters, especially Romans, established a theology based on Christ rather than on the Mosaic Law, but most Christian denominations today still consider the "moral prescriptions" of the Mosaic Law, such as the Ten Commandments, Great Commandment, and Golden Rule, to be relevant. Early Christians demonstrated a wide range of beliefs and practices, many of which were later rejected as heretical.

St Augustine

Augustine of Hippo was Bishop of Hippo Regius. He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity.

In his early years he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism (AD 387), Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology. He believed that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, and he framed the concepts of original sin and just war.

When the Western Roman Empire was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God, distinct from the material Earthly City.

In the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, he is a saint and pre-eminent Doctor of the Church, and the patron of the Augustinian religious order. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of Reformation due to his teaching on salvation and divine grace. In the Eastern Orthodox Church he is blessed and called "Blessed Augustine" or "St. Augustine the Blessed".