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The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, a holy place of Christianity

Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. The Gospels state that Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead after his crucifixion, whose coming as the messiah (Christ) was prophesied in the Old Testament and chronicled in the New Testament. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with over 2.3 billion followers, comprising around 28.8% of the world population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 120 countries and territories.

Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, and doctrinally diverse concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination, and Christology. Most Christian denominations, however, generally hold in common the belief that Jesus is God the Son—the Logos incarnated—who ministered, suffered, and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of humankind; this message is called the gospel, meaning the "good news". The four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe the life of Jesus and teachings as preserved in the early Christian tradition, with the Old Testament as the gospels' respected background.

The three main branches of Christianity are Catholicism (1.3 billion people), Protestantism (800 million), and Eastern Orthodoxy (300 million), while other prominent branches include Oriental Orthodoxy (60 million) and Restorationism (35 million). Smaller church communities number in the thousands. In Christianity, efforts toward unity (ecumenism) are underway. In the West, Christianity remains the dominant religion even with a decline in adherence, with about 70% of that population identifying as Christian. Christianity is growing in Africa and Asia, the world's most populous continents. Many Christians are still persecuted in some regions of the world, particularly where they are a minority, such as in the Middle East, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia. (Full article...)

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Formal portrait, 1904

Randall Thomas Davidson, 1st Baron Davidson of Lambeth, GCVO, PC (7 April 1848 – 25 May 1930) was an Anglican bishop who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1903 to 1928. He was the longest-serving holder of the office since the Reformation, and the first to retire from it.

Born in Edinburgh to a Scottish Presbyterian family, Davidson was educated at Harrow School, where he became an Anglican, and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he was largely untouched by the arguments and debates between adherents of the high-church and low-church factions of the Church of England. He was ordained in 1874, and, after a brief spell as a curate, he became chaplain and secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archibald Campbell Tait, in which post he became a confidant of Queen Victoria. He rose through the church hierarchy, becoming Dean of Windsor and domestic chaplain to Queen Victoria (1883), Bishop of Rochester (1891) and Bishop of Winchester (1895). In 1903 he succeeded Frederick Temple as Archbishop of Canterbury, and remained in office until his retirement in November 1928. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Christianity-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A painting depicting the Trifacial Trinity by an anonymous author from the Peruvian Cuzco School (but disavowed by the Catholic Church). (from Trinity)
Image 2Representation of the Trinity in the form of the mercy seat (epitaph from 1549) (from Trinity)
Image 3Depiction of Trinity from Saint Denis Basilica in Paris (12th century) (from Trinity)
Image 4The "Heavenly Trinity" joined to the "Earthly Trinity" through the Incarnation of the Son–The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities by Murillo (c. 1677) (from Trinity)
Image 5Attributed to the circle of Pieter Claeissins II, A Christian Allegory of the Salvation of a Christian Soul (c. 1570–1600) depicts the triumph of virtue over death and Satan. The Bowes Museum. (from Salvation in Christianity)
Image 6The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a holy site in Jerusalem believed by most Christians to encompass the tomb of Jesus and the site of his crucifixion and resurrection. (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 7Detail of the earliest known artwork of the Trinity, the Dogmatic or Trinity Sarcophagus, c. 350 (Vatican Museums).
Three similar figures, representing the Trinity, are involved in the creation of Eve, whose much smaller figure is cut off at lower right; to her right, Adam lies on the ground. (from Trinity)
Image 8Nativity at Night, by Geertgen tot Sint Jans, c. 1490 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 9The Communion of the Apostles, by Luca Signorelli, 1512 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 10First page of Mark, by Sargis Pitsak (14th century): "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God". (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 11Jesus' Farewell Discourse to his eleven remaining disciples after the Last Supper, from the Maestà by Duccio (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 12Many Christians use the crucifix to symbolise Jesus' sacrificial death and as a focus for devotion. (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 13A depiction of the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, at which the Deity of Christ was declared orthodox and Arianism condemned (from Trinity)
Image 1413th-century depiction of the Trinity from a Roman de la Rose manuscript (from Trinity)
Image 15A 'Jesus Saves' neon cross sign outside of a Protestant church in New York City (from Salvation in Christianity)
Image 16The Glory of Saint Nicholas, by António Manuel da Fonseca; Nicholas of Myra, a participant in the First Council of Nicaea, achieves the beatific vision in the shape of the Holy Trinity. (from Trinity)
Image 17God, in the person of the Son, confronts Adam and Eve, by Master Bertram (d. c. 1415). (from Trinity)
Image 18The Good Samaritan by James Tissot. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the parables of Jesus. (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 19Pope Clement I prays to the Trinity, in a typical post-Renaissance depiction by Gianbattista Tiepolo (d. 1770). (from Trinity)
Image 20Depictions of the Resurrection of Jesus are central to Christian art (Resurrection of Christ by Raphael, 1499–1502). (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 21The Trinity by Russian icon painter Andrei Rublev, early 15th century: this portrayal of the three angels who visited Abraham at the Oak of Mamre (Genesis 18:1-8) (from Trinity)
Image 22The Baptism of Christ, by Piero della Francesca, 15th century (from Trinity)
Image 23The Holy Trinity in an angelic glory over a landscape, by Lucas Cranach the Elder (d. 1553) (from Trinity)
Image 24God the Father (top), the Holy Spirit (a dove), and the child Jesus, painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (d. 1682) (from Trinity)
Image 25A Shield of the Trinity diagram, illustrating relationships between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (from Trinity)
Image 26The Trinity by Russian icon painter Andrei Rublev, early 15th century (from Trinity)
Image 27Three doors representing the trinity at a cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio (from Trinity)
Image 28A Gospel of John, 1056 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 29Jesus healing the paralytic in The Pool by Palma il Giovane, 1592 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 30An artistic depiction of the Trinity, with the hand representing the Father, the Chi Rho and ichthys representing the Son, and the dove representing the Holy Spirit (from Trinity)
Image 31A Greek fresco of Athanasius of Alexandria, the chief architect of the Nicene Creed, formulated at Nicaea (from Trinity)
Image 32The Adoration of the Trinity by Albrecht Dürer (1511).
From top to bottom: Holy Spirit (dove), God the Father and Christ on the cross. (from Trinity)
Image 33Atypical depiction of the Trinity where the Son is identified by a lamb, the Father an Eye of Providence, and the Spirit a dove (from Trinity)
Image 34The Holy Trinity on the stained glass windows of the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Brockdish (from Trinity)
Image 35A representation of the Trifacial Trinity, as a three faced head, sometimes used in Renaissance iconography (but disavowed by the Catholic Church). (from Trinity)
Image 36Christ on the Cross, 1870, by Carl Heinrich Bloch, depicting Jesus's crucifixion (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 37God the Father (top), and the Holy Spirit (represented by a dove) depicted above Jesus Painting by Francesco Albani (d. 1660) (from Trinity)
Image 38The Father, The Holy Spirit, and Christ crucified, depicted in a Welsh manuscript c. 1390–1400 (from Trinity)

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Kimberly Jean Davis (née Bailey; born September 17, 1965) is an American former county clerk for Rowan County, Kentucky, serving from January 2015 to January 2019. She gained public attention in August 2015 when she defied a U.S. federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Davis was elected Rowan County Clerk in 2014 and started her four-year term in January 2015. In June 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Obergefell v. Hodges, and all county clerks in Kentucky were ordered to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Citing personal religious objections to same-sex marriage, Davis began denying marriage licenses to all couples to avoid issuing them to same-sex couples. A lawsuit, Miller v. Davis, was filed, and Davis was ordered by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky to start issuing marriage licenses. She appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the application to appeal was denied. Davis continued to defy the court order by refusing to issue marriage licenses "under God's authority"; she was ultimately jailed for contempt of court and was ordered to pay $360,000 to the same-sex couple who she refused to marry. Davis was released after five days in jail under the condition that she not interfere with the efforts of her deputy clerks, who had begun issuing marriage licenses to all couples in her absence. Davis then modified the Kentucky marriage licenses used in her office so that they no longer mentioned her name. (Full article...)

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A Christian martyr is a person who is killed for following Christianity, through stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake or other forms of torture and capital punishment. The word "martyr" comes from the Greek word μάρτυς, mártys, which means "witness." At first, the term applied to Apostles. Once Christians started to undergo persecution, the term came to be applied to those who suffered hardships for their faith. Finally, it was restricted to those who had been killed for their faith. The early Christian period before Constantine I was the "Age of martyrs". A martyr's death was considered a "baptism in blood," cleansing one of sin, similar to the effect of baptism in water. Early Christians venerated martyrs as powerful intercessors, and their utterances were treasured as inspired by the Holy Spirit.

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... that John Allen Chau illegally travelled to North Sentinel Island in an attempt to convert its inhabitants to Christianity?
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... that a former management consultant who coined the framework of "The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism" was described by The New York Times as "a kind of Malcolm Gladwell of conservative Christianity"?
... that anti-racism campaigner Kamal Chunchie converted to Christianity from Islam during the First World War when serving in the British Army?
... that although the Jesuit missionary He Tianzhang despised his "sad Chinese appearance", it allowed him to circumvent the Qing's ban on Christianity and enter China?
... that a reviewer said that the musicians on the Christian music compilation 4-Way Noise Explosion would prompt a wave of people leaving Christianity?

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He also spoke a parable to them that they must always pray, and not give up, saying, “There was a judge in a certain city who didn’t fear God, and didn’t respect man. A widow was in that city, and she often came to him, saying, ‘Defend me from my adversary!’ He wouldn’t for a while, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God, nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will defend her, or else she will wear me out by her continual coming.’”
The Lord said, “Listen to what the unrighteous judge says. Won’t God avenge his chosen ones, who are crying out to him day and night, and yet he exercises patience with them? I tell you that he will avenge them quickly. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

— Parable of the Unjust Judge, Luke 18:1-8; World English Bible

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