Christianity - Overview - Christianity And Secular Politics

The Gospels say that Jesus taught his disciples to be compliant citizens, "rendering to Caesar" what the law required. The Roman Empire became officially Christian with the conversion of the emperor Constantine the Great in the early fourth century. Modern manifestations of the resulting long-term tension in relations of church and state include liberation theology in South America in the late twentieth century, which pressed for recognition of the dignity of the poor. Liberal feminism, especially vigorous in the United States in the late twentieth century, called for inclusiveness of language and an end to the assumption that God is a "he." Women are ordained to the Anglican, though not the Roman Catholic or Orthodox, priesthood and episcopate in the early twenty-first century. The old debate about the relationship of science and religion has moved partly into the political arena and is now preoccupied with the ethics of the mapping of the human genome, genetically modified food, and the means now available to achieve live births of human children not conceived by ordinary sexual intercourse.