“Today, I rebel against orthodox Christianity, as I am convinced it has distorted the message of Jesus. He was an Asiatic whose message was delivered through many media, and when it had the backing of a Roman emperor, it became an imperialist faith as it remains to this day.”
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Source: Harijan, 30 May 1936.
About this quote
A message and the institution built on it can drift far apart, especially once empire and authority attach to it. The claim is that political power reshapes a teaching to serve the powerful, so the original, often radical kernel gets buried under the machinery that grew up around it.
When to use it
- A grassroots movement's plain demands get watered down once a big party adopts it for votes.
- A founder's simple mission blurs after the company scales and lawyers rewrite every promise.
- A reformer's ideas end up quoted to defend the very hierarchy she set out to dismantle.