The Church Is Responsible for So Much Injustice

At a glance

Relevant Scripture

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

Micah 6:8 KJV

UECF.NET summary

Keller does not minimize the church's real failures — he names the Crusades, the Inquisition, complicity in colonialism and slavery, and everyday self-righteous hypocrisy as genuine sins requiring repentance, not excuse. His central move is to distinguish nominal or cultural Christianity — using the church's name and power for worldly ends — from the actual content of the gospel, which teaches grace instead of merit, service instead of domination, and love of neighbor and even enemy. Where professing Christians committed atrocities, Keller argues, they were typically betraying core gospel teaching, not simply applying it.

He then points to the internal resources within Christian teaching that fueled reform: Old Testament prophets condemning the oppression of the poor, Jesus's countercultural treatment of women and social outcasts, and Paul's declaration in Galatians that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female — an equality that took centuries to be lived out but supplied the theological seeds for movements like abolition and civil rights, often led by deeply committed Christians such as William Wilberforce. Keller's final point is that abandoning Christian belief does not solve the underlying human problem: secular societies and ideologies in the twentieth century produced their own atrocities on an even larger scale, which suggests the deeper issue is the universal human capacity for self-righteousness and abuse of power, something no worldview, religious or secular, automatically cures.

Main themes

• Real historical sins by the church call for honest acknowledgment and repentance, not denial.
• Abuses done in Christ's name often contradict, rather than express, the actual content of the gospel.
• Biblical teaching supplied theological resources for major reform and justice movements.
• No worldview — religious or secular — is automatically immune to being used to justify oppression.

Key ideas

• Distinguishing nominal Christianity from gospel Christianity clarifies which failures are betrayals of the message versus applications of it.
• Galatians 3:28's vision of equality in Christ pre-dates, and helped inspire, later movements against slavery and discrimination.
• Prophetic critique of injustice (Micah 6:8 and similar texts) is built into the Bible's own moral vision, not opposed to it.
• Secular ideologies committed comparable or greater atrocities in the twentieth century, undermining the idea that religion alone is the problem.

Important concepts

• Nominal Christianity — Cultural or in-name-only religious identity, detached from the actual content and demands of the gospel — the source, Keller argues, of much abuse done "in Christ's name."
• Prophetic critique — The Bible's own internal tradition (the Old Testament prophets, Jesus, the apostles) of condemning injustice and oppression, including by religious leaders.
• Imago Dei — The doctrine that every human being is made in God's image, supplying the theological basis for human equality and dignity across race, class, and sex.

Related Bible references

• Micah 6:8
• Galatians 3:28
• Amos 5:24
• James 2:1-4
• Genesis 1:27

Practical Christian application

• When you hear of historical or present-day church wrongdoing, practice naming it honestly before defending the faith — lament before apologetics.
• Study one Christian-led reform movement (abolition, civil rights, or another) and note the specific biblical convictions that drove it.
• Examine your own life for any gap between the gospel you profess and how you actually treat people different from you.

Questions for study