4. I Impeach Christianity in the Name of Human Freedom—

Because it sets up a despotic authority which, whether as Church, as Bible, or as Christ, makes man a slave in his very soul—an authority which shuts up the human intellect within arbitrarily prescribed bounds, hands over the human conscience to the custody of clerical keepers, and rules all human life, individual or social, with an iron rod.

Because it has always allied itself with despotism in civil government, joined with the oppressor in keeping the oppressed under foot, and sought to maintain its own supremacy on the ruins of all human liberty.

Because, as Catholicism, It has been an unmitigated spiritual and temporal tyranny, from which many centuries of constant struggle have today only partially emancipated the world.

Because, as Protestantism, it has been an unmitigated spiritual tyranny, and is even now plotting in this free republic to re-establish itself as a temporal tyranny also.

Because it is the true heir of the ancient Roman Imperialism, seeking now as ever to establish and maintain an absolute empire over the whole world, and to bind the entire human race not only in political, but also in religious bondage. Wherever Christianity lives, Freedom dies. They cannot both long breathe the same atmosphere.