By Krysa
Two thousand years ago, the Roman Empire crucified Jesus Christ—a radical Jewish preacher who stood on the side of the powerless and the ordinary subjects of the Roman Empire. Three hundred years later, through a spiritual movement that, though persecuted by the Roman state, eventually conquered it through the spirituality of the soul rather than force of arms. However, with that acceptance came a price, the Roman Emperor, who had been the chief persecutor of Christians, became the recognized leader of the Christian faith. Indeed, for some, the institutionalization of the church would lead to Roman oppression becoming a never ending empire.
This would lead to problems in later centuries down the line. Institutional religious oppression would play a deep role in the succeeding centuries. Perhaps the most infamous example of this in the United States was/is the Ku Klux Klan, who use their religious bigotry to justify their hatred of African-Americans, Catholics, and other marginalized groups.
This would change in 1918 as the Catholic Worker Movement began to push for a christianity more in line with the days before it became the imperial religion. The Catholic Worker Movement and its founder, Dorothy Day, worked against the rise of totalitarian governments in Europe, some of which would later begin the Second World War.To abandon spirituality would be to abandon a tool used by the oppressor against the oppressed for millennia. Besides, what is the alternative? To let oppressors use the language of morality to justify immoral behavior? No, we must recognize that spirituality is and always will be an important tool in the fight against oppression!
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