Failures of Christianity

I made the following comment in someone else's journal earlier this week, and I wanted to keep track of it...

Part of the problem is that when Christian institutions, or individual Christians, fail at Christianity (by which I mean not actually following the precepts of Christ), their failures are writ large in history: crusades, pogroms, the Bush II administration. The good that Christianity does tends to be writ small, between people. (Although there are exceptions: the Underground Railroad (and the abolitionist movement in America in general) was often run by Christian organizations. The death squads in El Salvador went after religious figures because they dared stand up for the people.)


Christ does not call his followers to seek power or wealth, but instead humility and servanthood, which usually fail to make headlines or history texts.