Picking your oppression label

So to what oppressed group do you belong?
If you're not part of one, you're not relevant, not cool, you apparently don't matter.
We all know the "groups" that matter: African-Americans and women, of course. Hispanics (or Latinos, depending on your choice of labels). The Gay community.
But there are Native Americans. Native Hawaiians. Native Alaskans. Migrant farm workers. Illegals. Union members. Tea Partiers. The 99 percent. Environmentalists.
The young and the old (The advocates for Senior Citizens have, in one case, banded together under the clever label "Gray Matters").
Muslims, of course. Jews. Evangelical Christians. Atheists. And nobody seems to like Hari Krishnas (at least not at the airport).
And then the sub sets: Working women. Single moms. Soccer moms. NASCAR moms. And USA Today not long ago introduced a new group it called "Wal-Mart moms."

There is something about our society that awards some sort of perceived moral authority to people we label "victims" or "marginalized" or "oppressed" - perhaps because we love to fight for "rights" - human rights, women's rights, civil rights, animal rights, gay rights ... again, if you don't think you're being denied some basic right, call the ACLU or the Southern Poverty Law Center; I'm sure someone on staff at one of those two organizations can find some way you've been oppressed.

This will come as a shock to many of the people in many of the above lists, but this very idea of the oppressed having such standing can be traced to .... Christianity.
Yes, I know. It's popular to blame Christians and Christianity for being the cause of so much oppression. And I am certainly aware of the many times in history that people, animals, and the environment (just to cover my bases) have been victimized by certain groups in the name of Christ.
But Jesus - who lived as part of an oppressed group under a harsh and repressive occupying government - instructed his followers to take the side of the underdog: the widow and orphan and prisoner and the hungry.
Consider that Jesus himself died as a prisoner, and his early followers continued to be victimized throughout the early years after Jesus' death (and resurrection). Most of history is the story of the powerful oppressing the conquered, and nobody wanted to identify with the powerless.
But Christianity is the story of the victim becoming the hero by becoming the victim. That was Jesus' example, and it's an model that Christianity has followed time after time.
And the way early Christians conducted themselves won over the populace in Europe, and did so without weapons or allies or any semblance of earthly power.
And even as Christianity became identified with political power in Europe and, therefore, throughout the world, it is also true that throughout the subsequent centuries Christians took the lead in the move to end slavery and educate the illiterate and bring medical care and, yes, elevate the oppressed by fighting to end the idea of "classes" of people in societies all around the world.

So if today we lift up the victimized and oppressed and bestow upon them a level of recognition or popularity, it is because of the influence of Christianity. As someone once wrote, "in a great irony, the politically correct movement often portrays itself as an enemy of Christianity when in fact the gospel has contributed to what has made possible the existence of such a movement." (I can't remember where that came from; I found it written on a scrap of paper in my Bible).

Even when accused (and sometimes being guilty) of oppression, the Church's influence to make our society better continues.