It's easy to point to specific things in the history of christianity to argue that the religion was closed minded, sexist, etc. You have the inquisitions, witch/pagan burning, general disenfranchisement of women, etc.

But, for most of western history all of society was kind of like this, right? Women had few rights, nonconformity was punished, etc. So, how fair is it to blame the church, or religious doctrine, vs. just saying that religious doctrine reflected the wider social views of the time? I know it's hard to compare religious and secular views in a vacuum from each other, but do we have any instances of society pushing religion to be more closed minded or vice versa? Or, instances of equality/oppression that existed in the religious or secular sphere but not the other?