The Christian Church: A Pig in the Oppressed Community

Karl Marx, the author of the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital stated that religion is the opiate of the masses.  There should be no doubt that Marx was speaking within a context of the religious institutions being aligned with corrupt economic and political systems.  I have no recollection of Marx denying in an outright manner the existence of God, or even saying that religion in and of itself is something evil.   He alluded to "privileged" religion, i.e. organized religion enjoying the favor of the state as long as it catered to the whims and dictates of the socio-political system.

We should consider the Church in terms of what Jesus intended it to be, i.e. a movement (not just another institution of society) that would identify with the social outcasts in both its life and mission.  The Church in the mind of Jesus is not what it turned out to be in the latter stages of history.

After the first century, the Church, in spite of the many persecutions that it endured, began to grow in numbers and political influence.  After the fourth century, the Roman Empire began to decline, and the Church in a certain sense replaced it after becoming not only a legalized faith, but also a popular one.  The Church during that time, because of its acceptance by the Empire, became politically popular.  The Church not only became the official faith of the Roman Empire, but in a sense became the new Empire.  In a historical sense, the Church went from being the oppressed community to becoming the oppressing agent in society, weeding and stamping out by force, if necessary, those who did not subscribe to its tenets or pander to its dictates.

During the ensuing centuries, the Church, through its missionary enterprise, became an agent of genocide, slavery, and colonization.  As an institution of society, it gave its rubber stamp to those governmental entities that carried out these brutal acts of dehumanization.

There have been many attempts to bring the Church back to its roots, i.e." to bring it back to what it was in the first century in terms of the early Church's identification with social outcasts.  In our times, through the advent of feminism and Liberation Theology, there have been voices in the Church who have denounced its oppressive structures and policies.

You might find it strange to hear me, a Christian minister, referring to the Church as "a pig." To the extent that it has at various moments in its history, stood against oppressed and suffering people, it has been just that, i.e. a pig.  However, all praise and thanks be to God that there have been people within the Church who have been used by God to raise a prophetic voice and to restore the Church to a condition of being pure.  That process has a long way to go before being completed, but the Church is under construction, and God is not done with us yet.

Through its many prophets and leaders who are in tune with the voice of God, the Lord is saying to the us "go take a bath you dirty pig."  God through the Holy Spirit continues to purify the Church and lead it to where it was originally intended to be, i.e. in a place of living out and proclaiming the good news that in Jesus the Christ, God has acted to bring about the liberating and redemptive activity throughout the historical process.  Please share with us how you see Jesus cleansing His Church of sin and impurity.

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Dr. Juan A. Ayala-Carmona