The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.
There’s a religion whose savior was a refugee, yet it rejects refugees. Whose God embraces sojourners, yet it deports immigrants. Whose parishioners worship someone called the Prince of Peace, yet they defend violence and are pro-war.
What happens when faith is co-opted for power? We are far from the first Christians to find ourselves forced to address this question. In A People’s History of Christianity, historian Diana Butler Bass traces 2,000 years of push and pull between one version of Christianity that cozies up to power—or seeks to seize it outright—and another version that sides with the people oppressed by this very same power.
