Today the presenters highlighted the last stanza of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

and I couldn't quite remember what these lines reminded me of, but I just realized that some of Martin Luther King Jr.'s most powerful rhetoric is known for making a similar argument. In his "I Have a Dream" speech, King mentions several times that all people of all races are all "God's children", and should therefore be treated equally on God's earth. I find it interesting that the use of Christian principles was crucial to both the abolitionist movement and the civil rights movement almost 100 years later. Though the abolitionists may have been able to use religion in rhetoric alone, Christian principles of nonviolence, peace and the "golden rule" were intrinsic parts of civil rights organizations like the NAACP, SNCC and openly Christian organizations. Religion adds a moral dimension to any conversation, and Coleridge definitely makes both obvious and subtle use of it in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. On the obvious level, this ballad documents a crisis of faith, but closer reading shows that the author applies Christian values to denounce slavery. King would much more openly use Christianity to point out the evils of segregation years later. Clearly, religion has packed a powerful punch when it comes to bring about racial equality.