The Western Church & the legacy of Christendom
Are we the first members of the people of the God of Abraham, revealed in Jesus, to face the challenge of living faithfully in the shadow of empire? In a word, no. Justice is a central concern of the Bible and the people of God has always been called to walk a fraught path between submission to and subversion of imperial power. [1] With very few exceptions [2] , throughout the entire historical period reflected in the pages of Scripture, the people of God consisted of a powerless minority, either under the hegemony of pagan empire or under direct foreign rule/oppression. The Bible is the subversive literature of a people who refused the identity that the empire of the day would have imposed on them, but rather embraced the identity bestowed upon them by the Creator God who, they believed, was beyond all imperial power structures, whether human or divine. [3] The challenge for the people of God (in the West...