Of all the world’s institutions and movements, the church of Jesus Christ is history’s greatest force for good. It’s also the most blameworthy.
We’ll get to the blameworthiness in a minute, but first let’s consider its goodness because I think it ought to be uncontroversial.
If you told your friends you belonged to an organisation that abolished the slave trade, or outlawed child sexual abuse, or ended infanticide, or which founded charities as we know them, or orphan care as we know it, or hospitals or hospices, they’d be impressed enough. If you told them that a single organisation did all these things, they’d be astonished. If you went on to describe how it has been the greatest patron of the arts, and the academy, inventing human rights, and parliaments, and universities, and modern science, they’d wonder why they’ve never heard of it. When does it meet? How do you join? Tell them: ‘You’re welcome any time – Sunday at 10:30 – it’s called church.’
