Don't be ashamed to be religious

I was thinking earlier today about how the liberal intelligentsia has made being religious the object of scorn or laughter. Of course, the rise of evangelical fundamentalism in the 1980s surely did not help. However, I would like to remind people who say that "religion is the root of all evil in the world" how much people of faith have done. Take Christianity in America and the UK in the twentieth century for example: the Civil Rights movement, abolitionism, woman's suffrage, and the worker's rights movement are all social justice movements which originated and were championed by Christian leaders. Historically, the development and propagation of hospitals and universities are also Christian developments. Sure, I would prefer not to lump myself together with the Crusades and Pat Robertson. But I'm not going to be ashamed of being a member of a movement which has been the champion of social justice throughout history. I guess at the end of the day you never find true religious people on TV or in magazines. You find them with the poor and the oppressed. Anything else is merely a cheap fake of the original.