Christendom - Terminology and Usage

Terminology and Usage

The term Christendom is developed from the Latin word Christianus. The Christian world is also known collectively as the Corpus Christianum. The Latin term Corpus Christianum is often translated as the Christian body, meaning the community of all Christians. The Christian polity, embodying a less secular meaning, can be compatible with the idea of both a religious and a temporal body: Corpus Christianum. The Corpus Christianum can be seen as a Christian equivalent of the Muslim Ummah. The Kingdom of God is also frequently used, denoting that the Christian world is within (or among) people.

"Christendom" is used in this article to denote the global community of Biblical Christianity. Christendom as such is set on the appellation of religious aspects. However, the word is also used with its other meaning to frame-true Christianity. A more secular meaning can denote that the term Christendom refers to Christians considered as a group, the "Political Christian World", as an informal cultural hegemony that Christianity has traditionally enjoyed in the West. In its most broad term, it refers to the world's Christian majority countries, which, share little in common aside from the predominance of the faith. Unlike the Muslim world, which has a geo-political and cultural definition that provides a primary identifier for a large swath of the world, Christendom is more complex. It may be a cultural notion, but has very little weight in international discourse; very few political observers really discuss Christendom, while the Muslim World tends to comprise of a civilization in itself. For example, the Americas and Europe are considered part of Christendom, but this region is further subdivided into the West (representing the North Atlantic) and Latin America. It is also less geographically cohesive than the Muslim world, which stretches almost continuously from North Africa to South Asia.