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What happens when a Church founded by a victim of state violence becomes one of history's most effective engines of religious and political violence? This bold, accessible work traces how the Roman Catholic Church evolved from persecuted minority to global power broker, sacralizing Crusades, Inquisitions, colonial conquest, and modern Christian nationalism in the name of orthodoxy and order. Through vivid chapters on Augustine, Aquinas, just war theory, the Inquisition, colonialism, and today's culture wars, the book argues that fear, mortal sin, and clerical control built a "Procrustean bed" that often inverted the Gospel, turning shepherds into bureaucrats and chaplains of empire.
Yet alongside this indictment, it lifts up the Anawim, Francis of Assisi, Bernard Häring, lay movements, and intentional communities that embody a different Christianity from below-rooted in the Golden Rule, nonviolence, and radical solidarity with the marginalized. Both searing and hopeful, this is a summons for Christians and skeptics alike to reckon with the Church's record and to imagine a kenotic, de-imperialized faith that returns to Jesus' simple command: treat others as you wish to be treated.