If you believe in women’s rights, you have Christianity to thank. That may sound like an overstatement, but it’s a historical fact.

In a new article at TGC, Rebecca McLaughlin explores how Christianity revolutionized the lives of women in the Greco-Roman world. And this had everything to do with how the founder himself treated them:

If we could read the Gospels through first-century eyes, Jesus’s treatment of women would knock us to our knees. His longest recorded conversation with any individual was with a Samaritan woman of ill repute (John 4:7–30), and this wasn’t an isolated incident. Jesus repeatedly welcomed women his contemporaries despised.

The article is adapted from McLaughlin’s brand-new book, The Secular Creed: Engaging Five Contemporary Claims, published by TGC (listen to her discuss it). Whether the claim is “Black Lives Matter,” “Love Is Love,” “Gay Rights Are Civil Rights,” “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights,” or “Transgender Women Are Women,” this resource will equip you to engage your neighbors with both truth and love.