Your Christian Heritage - The Scandal of Equality
Your Christian Heritage: The Scandal of Equality
Equality. Human rights. These are words that resonate deeply with us here in America. The idea of equality is perhaps the most foundational and important value in our culture. It doesn’t matter whether we are discussing healthcare, economic policies, justice, or sexuality, we start with the immovable assumption that every single human being possesses equal dignity and worth.
But have you ever stopped to consider why you believe that? Where does that idea come from? Why do you believe so deeply? The answer to all of those, is because it has been hammered into our collective souls for centuries through a very specific story. A Christian story. And here is the catch…without that story, it won’t last much longer.
The Immense Value We Place on Human Rights
Consider the COVID pandemic, a phenomenon where we saw almost the entire world grind to a halt to protect the vulnerable. We made enormous economic, relational, and educational sacrifices because we believed the lives of the elderly, immuno-compromised, and others were of infinite value. We did not just let nature take its course; we valued the individual over the system.
Consider also our reaction to international human rights abuses. Even when an injustice happens across the world to someone who we do not know, will never see, and share nothing with, we feel a visceral sense of indignation a their being taken advantage of. We believe they have rights, simply because they are human. Not because of any particular property that they have.
The Problem: Where Does Equality Come From?
The reality is, equality is a very difficult thing to prove without a religious foundation. Science, the overlord of modernity, can tell us what is (i.e., how photosynthesis works, the chemical composition of a substance, etc.), but it cannot tell us what ought to be (i.e., how we should treat people, why a particular action should or should not be done). Yuval Noah Harari, a noted historian, says this “Take a human being, cut him open, look inside; you will find the heart, the kidneys, neurons, hormones, DNA. But you won’t find any rights.” Rights are not natural features of human beings; they are moral claims.
Furthermore, if we look out into the natural world we find inequality everywhere. Some are faster, some are smarter, some are stronger, some are more beautiful…the list goes on and on. With nature as our guide, inequality is the rule and the survival of the fittest, whether it be in love or war is the only law.
Consider also certain religious stories outside of Christianity. Many have codes of justice, but they are almost all written within a framework of a very specific hierarchy. For example, in Islam, there is no equality and rights are based on a hierarchy that begins with the Muslim male. He is at the pinnacle of the social order and he alone has the right to lead families, the state or many business enterprises. Muslim women are a decidedly second-class citizen, often prohibited from learning to read or write and forced to remain covered in public. Even further down the hierarchy are those conquered and subjugated by Islamic regimes or forces. They are the dhimmi’s and must pay the jizya tax. They have rights in-so-far as their Muslim overlords choose to give them. At the bottom of the hierarchy are the unbelievers and polytheists who have no rights and are often given the choice to convert to Islam or die. In this system, your rights are based on your beliefs and your gender.
My point here is not to denigrate other belief systems, but instead to help you to realize that what you believe comes from a very particular God story, and without it what you believe makes no sense.
The Vertical Connection: A Love Story That Levels the World
So where does this idea of human rights and equality come from? If we can’t find it in the natural world, or science or pretty much every religion, where does it come from? The answer is as beautiful as it is scandalous to us. It comes from Christianity and the very radical idea that our equal worth is a gift given to us from above.
The Bible begins with the book of Genesis, the origins story. In it we find a God who creates out of love; not out of need or accidentally. The first chapter of Genesis chronicles the rhythmic work of the Lord in speaking and creating and pronouncing that what he has created is good. When he reaches the pinnacle of his work, the creation of the man and woman, he does something new and different, he breathes his own life into us.
Genesis tells us that every single human being has value not because of how we look, or how smart we are or how much money we can earn, but because of the fact that we are created in the Imago Dei – the image of God. You have value because you are a child of God and are stamped with his image and likeness. You are his regent here on this earth; here to exercise dominion over the world God created and tasked to fill it and subdue it.
The Apostle Paul, in the New Testament, writing to the church at Galatia, and to a culture deeply divided by race, status and gender, reminds the church in Galatians 3:28 that:
"There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
One simple sentence levels all the hierarchies in the world. Now, keep in mind, Paul isn’t saying that categories don’t exist – they do. He was saying that your value or your worth isn’t defined by whatever category you fall in. The Roman emperor was not inherently more valuable than the slave or the barbarian. You want to talk about a cultural and theological grenade? That idea seems second nature to us, but that is because you have been taught it for centuries. It was not natural to them; it was scandalous and dangerous. Paul and Christians were imprisoned and executed for ideas like that.
Listen, please. You believe that the person standing next to you at the grocery store, the child halfway across the world, and the neighbor you disagree with all have equal rights. But it is only the Christian God story that makes sense of that conviction. It is the only story that says your value is absolute, unchangeable, and given by a God who loved you before you ever drew a breath that makes sense of that.
We still value equality in 2026, but when we try to hold onto it and let go of the God and story that gave it to us, it’s like trying to enjoy the light of a lamp after you have unplugged it. The light fades and darkness falls. I am inviting you to see that what you believe can only be sustained by the faith that brought it to you in the first place. Maybe you should give it another or deeper look. Maybe you will find a foundation on which to stand in this crazy world.
Join me next week as we look at the second value in our heritage: Compassion.
Equality. Human rights. These are words that resonate deeply with us here in America. The idea of equality is perhaps the most foundational and important value in our culture. It doesn’t matter whether we are discussing healthcare, economic policies, justice, or sexuality, we start with the immovable assumption that every single human being possesses equal dignity and worth.
But have you ever stopped to consider why you believe that? Where does that idea come from? Why do you believe so deeply? The answer to all of those, is because it has been hammered into our collective souls for centuries through a very specific story. A Christian story. And here is the catch…without that story, it won’t last much longer.
The Immense Value We Place on Human Rights
Consider the COVID pandemic, a phenomenon where we saw almost the entire world grind to a halt to protect the vulnerable. We made enormous economic, relational, and educational sacrifices because we believed the lives of the elderly, immuno-compromised, and others were of infinite value. We did not just let nature take its course; we valued the individual over the system.
Consider also our reaction to international human rights abuses. Even when an injustice happens across the world to someone who we do not know, will never see, and share nothing with, we feel a visceral sense of indignation a their being taken advantage of. We believe they have rights, simply because they are human. Not because of any particular property that they have.
The Problem: Where Does Equality Come From?
The reality is, equality is a very difficult thing to prove without a religious foundation. Science, the overlord of modernity, can tell us what is (i.e., how photosynthesis works, the chemical composition of a substance, etc.), but it cannot tell us what ought to be (i.e., how we should treat people, why a particular action should or should not be done). Yuval Noah Harari, a noted historian, says this “Take a human being, cut him open, look inside; you will find the heart, the kidneys, neurons, hormones, DNA. But you won’t find any rights.” Rights are not natural features of human beings; they are moral claims.
Furthermore, if we look out into the natural world we find inequality everywhere. Some are faster, some are smarter, some are stronger, some are more beautiful…the list goes on and on. With nature as our guide, inequality is the rule and the survival of the fittest, whether it be in love or war is the only law.
Consider also certain religious stories outside of Christianity. Many have codes of justice, but they are almost all written within a framework of a very specific hierarchy. For example, in Islam, there is no equality and rights are based on a hierarchy that begins with the Muslim male. He is at the pinnacle of the social order and he alone has the right to lead families, the state or many business enterprises. Muslim women are a decidedly second-class citizen, often prohibited from learning to read or write and forced to remain covered in public. Even further down the hierarchy are those conquered and subjugated by Islamic regimes or forces. They are the dhimmi’s and must pay the jizya tax. They have rights in-so-far as their Muslim overlords choose to give them. At the bottom of the hierarchy are the unbelievers and polytheists who have no rights and are often given the choice to convert to Islam or die. In this system, your rights are based on your beliefs and your gender.
My point here is not to denigrate other belief systems, but instead to help you to realize that what you believe comes from a very particular God story, and without it what you believe makes no sense.
The Vertical Connection: A Love Story That Levels the World
So where does this idea of human rights and equality come from? If we can’t find it in the natural world, or science or pretty much every religion, where does it come from? The answer is as beautiful as it is scandalous to us. It comes from Christianity and the very radical idea that our equal worth is a gift given to us from above.
The Bible begins with the book of Genesis, the origins story. In it we find a God who creates out of love; not out of need or accidentally. The first chapter of Genesis chronicles the rhythmic work of the Lord in speaking and creating and pronouncing that what he has created is good. When he reaches the pinnacle of his work, the creation of the man and woman, he does something new and different, he breathes his own life into us.
Genesis tells us that every single human being has value not because of how we look, or how smart we are or how much money we can earn, but because of the fact that we are created in the Imago Dei – the image of God. You have value because you are a child of God and are stamped with his image and likeness. You are his regent here on this earth; here to exercise dominion over the world God created and tasked to fill it and subdue it.
The Apostle Paul, in the New Testament, writing to the church at Galatia, and to a culture deeply divided by race, status and gender, reminds the church in Galatians 3:28 that:
"There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
One simple sentence levels all the hierarchies in the world. Now, keep in mind, Paul isn’t saying that categories don’t exist – they do. He was saying that your value or your worth isn’t defined by whatever category you fall in. The Roman emperor was not inherently more valuable than the slave or the barbarian. You want to talk about a cultural and theological grenade? That idea seems second nature to us, but that is because you have been taught it for centuries. It was not natural to them; it was scandalous and dangerous. Paul and Christians were imprisoned and executed for ideas like that.
Listen, please. You believe that the person standing next to you at the grocery store, the child halfway across the world, and the neighbor you disagree with all have equal rights. But it is only the Christian God story that makes sense of that conviction. It is the only story that says your value is absolute, unchangeable, and given by a God who loved you before you ever drew a breath that makes sense of that.
We still value equality in 2026, but when we try to hold onto it and let go of the God and story that gave it to us, it’s like trying to enjoy the light of a lamp after you have unplugged it. The light fades and darkness falls. I am inviting you to see that what you believe can only be sustained by the faith that brought it to you in the first place. Maybe you should give it another or deeper look. Maybe you will find a foundation on which to stand in this crazy world.
Join me next week as we look at the second value in our heritage: Compassion.
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