How Christianity Became the Empire It Was Meant to Resist

When faith was not a brand

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

There was a time when being Christian meant you might be fed to lions. Now you can buy Jesus merch at Target.

Somewhere between the cross and the conference stage, we lost the plot.

Christianity didn’t launch from palaces or polished pulpits. It started out in the dust, at the edges, whispered in alleyways, and shouted from hillsides.

A Strange Little Crew

A strange little crew gathered around a carpenter — no crown, no title — just calloused hands and truth in His words. His followers? Not exactly society’s finest.

Fishermen who smelled like the sea. Women silenced by culture. A tax man nobody trusted. A stew of the overlooked and unwanted.

And this carpenter from Nazareth? He spoke in riddles that rattled the rich and comforted the poor. “The last will be first,” he said with a glint in his eye, flipping more than just expectations.

He flipped tables — literally — sending coins clattering and priests scowling. He called peacemakers blessed, but never promised peace would be easy. His kingdom wasn’t built with bricks or swords — it came in stories, in scars, in a love that broke rules and raised eyebrows.

This wasn’t a religion polished for prime time. It was a revolution dressed in sandals.

It wasn’t built for power. It was a protest against it.

So, how did we get from there to here? From house churches to $60 million sanctuaries. From martyrs in the arena to pastors with private jets. From “take up your cross” to “God wants you to be rich.”

When Faith Was Not a Brand

Early Christians had no buildings, no budgets, and no political clout. What they had was a radical sense of community and a stubborn belief that love was more powerful than fear. Rome saw them as a threat because they refused to bow to Caesar. That refusal got them killed.

But in the 4th century, everything changed.

Constantine converted. Christianity went from persecuted to protected, then to preferred. Eventually, it became the official religion of the empire.

That’s where the trouble started.

What had been a grassroots movement of outcasts became a religion of kings and conquerors. The cross, once a symbol of execution and resistance, was hoisted as a battle flag.

Instead of challenging the empire, Christianity became part of it.

As author Diana Butler Bass puts it: “Christianity ceased to be a community and became a hierarchy.”

Trading the Cross for Comfort and Control

Power is seductive. Once the church had a taste of safety and influence, it started protecting those things at all costs.

• Doctrine hardened.

• Dissent got punished.

• Crusades were launched.

• Colonies were claimed.

• People were burned at the stake in the name of the Prince of Peace.

  
  

We started baptizing empire instead of challenging it.

And somewhere in all of that, the revolutionary heart of Jesus’ message got buried beneath dogma and gold.

The Gospel stopped being about liberation. It became about control.

And yet, Scripture never changed.

1. Jesus still said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

2. He still told the rich man to sell everything.

3. He still warned that you can’t serve both God and money.

4. He still stood with the outsider, the sinner, the oppressed.

   
   

But we made him safe. Marketable. Vote-able. We made him white, straight, American, and always on our side.

Voices Refusing to Stay Silent

Progressive Christian leaders have been sounding the alarm.

Rachel Held Evans wrote, “When the gospel has become bad news to the poor, to the oppressed, to the brokenhearted, we have replaced Jesus’ words with our own.”

Richard Rohr says, “The price for real transformation is always some form of suffering. But churches often protect people from that.”

And Rev. Jacqui Lewis reminds us: “If your gospel isn’t good news for everyone, then it’s not the gospel of Jesus.”

These voices aren’t trying to destroy Christianity. They’re trying to remember what it was. They’re digging through the rubble of empire to find the radical, liberating Jesus underneath.

Middle Age, Middle Ground, and a Crisis of Faith

Middle age is a funny time. You start to see behind the curtain. You start asking harder questions. Maybe the faith you grew up with doesn’t make sense anymore. Maybe you watched it cause harm. Maybe you’re wondering if there’s still something worth holding onto.

There is.

But it might not look like what you were handed.

Real Christianity — the kind that makes the powerful nervous and the hurting feel seen — is still alive.

It’s just not always on TV. You might find it in a community garden, in a recovery meeting, in a group of misfits gathering in someone’s living room. You might find it in the margins, where it started.

Jesus didn’t come to build a brand.

He came to set captives free. To call out hypocrisy. To tear down walls. To remind us that the kingdom of God doesn’t look like a throne — it looks like a table.

Reclaiming What We Lost Without Burning It All Down

We don’t have to burn it all down. But we do have to stop pretending the system we built is the same as the faith we inherited.

We can let go of the version of Christianity that cozies up to power, and reach for the one that walks with the broken. We can choose humility over certainty, love over control, and people over policy.

In the words of the prophet Amos, which still echo today:

“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me… But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:21,24)

This is not about nostalgia. It’s about rediscovery. Not of a church that once was, but of a Savior who still is.

And maybe that’s the invitation: not to give up on faith, but to follow it back to where it began.

With the outcasts. With the misfits.

With a carpenter who said there was another way.

© Gary L Ellis