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by Karl W. Luckert (Author)
Christian Thought took shape during millennia when religion and politics where still the same. During the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius it began to spread as a movement of protest against the Roman cult of emperor deification. Prehistoric chiefs among Stone Age hunters already knew themselves to be sons of totemic gods- Eagle, Bear, Lion, Wolf, Dragon and more. Sons of less specialized deities invented agriculture, while hunters and herdsmen, as warriors, progressed to "hyper-domestication"-Sons of the mightiest gods proceeded to enslave humankind.
Christians tell their story about God Father Almighty who sent his Son, who died by Roman crucifixion, resurrected and ascended into Heaven, for enthronement there. The Christian story mocked and topped religious as well as political paths to salvation. Three thousand years of Son of God tradition were rendered obsolete-Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and Roman-were replaced by the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, an oil-anointed commoner.
Three centuries after Jesus was crucified, the Emperor Constantine, presiding over all religions of Rome as Pontifex Maximus, began to favor Christianity. Thenceforth Christians in Western civilization, as "siblings of Jesus Christ" and as "equal children under God Almighty" have, by their faith, risen to the "level of royalty" where in later democratic revolutions their secularized offspring still could insist on equal status for all humankind.
