Western religions Western religions Western religions refers to religions that originated within Western culture, and are thus historically, culturally, and theologically distinct from the Eastern religions. The term Abrahamic religions (Islam, Eastern Christianity and Judaism) is often used in lieu of using the East and West terminology. Western culture itself was significantly influenced by the emergence of Christianity and its adoption as the state church of the Roman Empire in the late 4th century and the term "Christendom" largely indicates this intertwined history. Western Christianity was significantly influenced by Hellenistic religion (notably Platonism and Gnosticism) as well as the Roman imperial cult.
Christianity and Judaism and professional lives, forcible relocation and ghettoization, mandatory dress codes, and at times humiliating actions and torture. All had major effects on Jewish cultures. There have also been non-coercive outreach and missionary efforts such as the Church of England's Ministry Among Jewish People, founded in 1809. For Martin Buber, Judaism and Christianity were variations on the same theme of messianism. Buber made this theme the basis of a famous definition of the tension between Judaism and Christianity: Pre-messianically, our destinies are divided. Now to the Christian, the Jew is the incomprehensibly obdurate man who declines to see what has happened;