"Christianity" is a myth

"Christianity", says Belloc, was a name invented in recent history.  No Christian in the first 1500 years of the Church's existence would have said "I believe in Christianity". He might have said I'm a Christian.  But there was no such think as an abstracted set of ideas divided neatly into essential and non-essential propositions.  There was the Church, and the rest: the heretics, the schismatics, the Jews, the Muslims, and the pagans.   So, it's best not to say that we live in a post-modern culture, or a post-Christian culture.  Rather, and of the essence, we should say that we live in a post-Church culture.  The Church no longer builds, guides, and leads our culture.

From the Outside

Chesterton said in The Everlasting Man that we have become too familiar with the Christian worldview and way of life.  We think we understand it, but we do not.   He wisely recommends we look at it as we look at Confucianism -- from the outside.