Luke and Empire

Luke is often opposed (as in Badiou) as a pro-Roman conservative over against the radical Paul.

Rowe suggests an alternative, and far more convincing, reading of the politics of Acts: “On the one hand, Luke narrates the movement of the Christian mission into the gentile world as a collision with culture-constructing aspects of that world. From the perspective created by this angle of vision, Christianity and pagan culture are competing realities. Inasmuch as embracing the Christian call to repentance necessarily involves a different way of life, basic patterns of Graeco-Roman culture are dissolved. The pagans in Lystra, Philippi, Athens, and Ephesus are understandably riled: the Christians are a real threat . . . .

“On the other hand, Luke narrates the threat of the Christian mission in such a way as to eliminate the possibility of conceiving it as in direct competition with the Roman government. Of all forms of sedition and treason, Luke says, Christianity is innocent. Paul engenders considerable upheaval as a part of his mission, but time and again—in Corinth, Jerusalem, Caesarea, and Rome (so the reader understands)—the political authorities reject the accusations of his opponents: Paul is dikaios [righteous, or innocent]. The Christians are not out to establish Christendom, as it were. New culture, yes—coup, no.”

I was with him until the last few lines; actually, I’m with him until he says that the church is not “out to establish Christendom.” It all depends on what that contested term means, of course. If Christendom means “Roman politics as usual with Christian icing at the edges,” then of course that’s not what the church was aiming for. If “establishing Christendom” means armed revolution, then again this is not what the church aimed for.

But, if the church was nurturing a new culture, dissolving the patterns of Greco-Roman culture, that mission won’t stop when Christians reach Caesar’s courts. Why can’t the church’s new culture transform the way business gets done there? If the answer is, They can, then that sounds like Christendom to me. If the answer is, They can’t, I’m immediately suspicious that secular reason lurks nearby.