The Early Christians Were Focused on Solidarity Across Race, Class and Gender. Then Things Changed

Jesus is remembered once to have said, “Who made me a divider? I’m not a divider, am I?” That line, found in the Gospel of Thomas, may strike an ironic note today: nothing, it seems, divides us more than Jesus — believer from non-believer; evangelical from liberal; Christian from Jew or Muslim. Religion divides us along ethnic lines and by class, and it imposes distinctions in male and female gender roles not tolerated anywhere else in society.