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"big God" emphasizes a figure head, and then reflects that figurehead in less spiritual realms recursively until you get to the bottom of a hierarchy. Christianity the social structure (as opposed to the abstract religion) is very tied up in a patriarchal view of the world. Indeed, God's at the top, then it used to be the kings, the pope, the priests, etc., and slowly it descends until you get to the household, headed of course by a father. Everyone below that level was hardly a person at all, historically, traditionally. Jesus's messages may have been egalitarian, communal, and all that, but Christianity the social structure was very much not. The God/believer relationship was a model for human relationships, which, of course, put a man in the position of God, and a man with lesser status or someone with no status, below him. That statement you cited, of course, does not fall into that paradigm. That's a modern idea which incidentally became more and more prominent as the "big God" paradigm became less and less important. Of course, the truth historically and even in the present day is much muckier than that: the ideologies and their attendant power structures are very intertwined. But it's clear that bourgeoise liberalism won out a while ago and religious hierarchies like Christianity have been sliding since. I should have made it clear that what I'm criticizing is the common root of all hierarchical ideologies, not just the ones investigated in this article. |