On the idea that changed the world

The basic idea in the Jewish Bible, right in the first chapter of their Bible and ours, that God created male and female in God’s image to be lords of the world, as God is Lord of the world, does put us all in the same role. There is no racial distinction, there’s no class distinction; as you are a human being, you are part of this species that is supposed to exercise this benevolent role of gardening the earth and tending the world. So in that sense, everybody is truly equal. The implications of that take a long time to work their way through the fallen, corrupt nature of human society, which tends to say anything but that. Human societies tend to be stratified – various kinds of social relationships to do with power. But eventually, that basic teaching undermines them all.