The Church and Resistance in the New Testament

Christianity is a subversive religion:

One does not ordinarily think of the following activities as having deep political implications, or as sending a strong message of resistance to the reigning powers that be: the Lord’s Supper, baptism, and songs of praise and worship. But that is in many respects just what they were: challenges to all rulers and all power structures.

Three books by American biblical theology professor R. Alan Streett set out to make that case in great detail. Penned between 2013 and 2022, they help us to think much more clearly about just what a radical lot the first Christians were – at least in the eyes of the state.

Here I will briefly deal with all three volumes, providing a quick overview of the contents of each one. I will mainly make use of some select quotations in order to give the reader a good feel for what is found in each book. The three volumes are these:

Subversive Meals: An Analysis of the Lord’s Supper Under Roman Domination During the First Century (Wipf and Stock, 2013)

Streett argues that meals in the Roman world were much more than just about eating food, but they served social and political purposes. He says this early on in the book: “Since all meals in the Roman Empire were political as well as social functions, what political function did the Lord’s Supper serve? This book seeks to offer an answer.” (p. 1) He goes on to explain:

[T]he Lord’s Supper is an anti-imperial practice. When the Lord’s Supper is placed within the historical context of a Jesus movement that nonviolently opposed the tyrannical practices of the empire, it becomes clear that it was an act of resistance and took on political significance. Believers not only gathered to eat and satisfy their appetites, they engaged in various kinds of anti-imperial symposium activities that included prophetic utterances, singing protest songs, and lifting a toast to a man whom Rome deemed worthy of a criminal’s death.

 

By failing to recognize the anti-imperial nature of first-century Christian meals, the modern church has eviscerated the Lord’s Supper of its political significance. As a result, the Lord’s Supper rarely serves the same function as it did at the time of Peter and Paul but has devolved into a symbolic act that offers spiritual solace to the partakers but does little to contest the policies of modern-day tyrants who rule their empires for the benefit of the few and to the detriment of the oppressed masses. (pp. 3-4)

And again:

Christian ekklesiai ate together because that is what all groups did in the Roman Empire during the first-century CE, regardless of their religious identity. Believers reclined on couches before low-lying tables to celebrate weddings, to bid farewell to friends and families, to extend hospitality to traveling apostles, evangelists, and prophets, to join the bereaved in a meal after the funeral of a loved one, and so on. The dining room was the default context for early Christian social formation in the house church.

 

Christian communal meals performed the same function as all Greco-Roman banquets. They served as venues for social formation, where people not only discovered their place within society, but how to live out their assigned role on a daily basis. The church used the communal meal as an opportunity for believers to discover their identity in Christ and learn what God expected of them as citizens of his kingdom. Here they were able to express openly their alternative social vision and gain strength from each other. As such the Christian banquet was characterized by anti-imperial behavior and beliefs that were subversive and counter to the purposes of the empire. Hence, the very social institution originally designed to promote Roman peace through social stratification, actually served to undermine the ideology of the empire. (p. 30)

Caesar and the Sacrament: A Rite of Resistance (Wipf and Stock, 2018)

Baptism was of course an outer, public sign of an inner work of grace. It was an identification mark of those who had given themselves over to the ownership of Christ. But in the eyes of the powers that be, it was an act of rebellion. Streett lays all this out carefully.

He reminds us that the word sacramentum (sacrament) was used before the Christians, and among other things, it meant an oath of exclusive loyalty taken by Roman soldiers to Caesar. So when Christians participated in the sacrament of baptism, they were swearing an oath of allegiance to Christ alone. Says Streett:

My use of sacramentum will be limited to the way it was used from the time of Julius Caesar until Tertullian, e.g., taking an oath, making a pledge or promise, or entering into a covenant. Specifically, I show how the NT portrays baptism as the believer’s sacramentum. Just as Roman soldiers pledged their allegiance to Caesar and Empire, so soldiers of the cross vowed their fealty to Christ and his kingdom. I will give particular attention to how undergoing baptism “in Jesus’ name” changed the participant’s status, identity, relationships, and loyalties. (p. 5)

He summarises his argument this way:

The church in the first century, as the locus and earthly manifestation of God’s kingdom, was the antithesis of the Roman Empire. Through baptism, believers sided with the kingdom of God and rejected Rome’s dominant narrative that it alone possessed a divine right to rule the world. Another kingdom under another Lord had arisen to challenge Rome’s claims and ethical practices. When Christ-followers submitted to baptism they committed an act of resistance against Rome by becoming part of a movement that challenged Roman ideology, its hierarchical social order, and rejected Caesar as the ultimate Lord. For many of the original believers, baptism was the initial step that led to persecution and even death. Hence, baptism was a rite of resistance.

 

Baptism was a “boundary crossing ritual,” i.e., a proverbial line drawn in the sand. When crossed, it meant breaking formal ties with the past, declaring fealty to another Lord, and accepting a new and alternative identity—Christ-follower. As such, baptism was a political act of subversion or a rite of resistance against the prevailing power structures of the day. Is there any wonder that the early believers were challenged to count the cost before taking the plunge?

 

As the radical Jesus movement evolved over the centuries and became the established cultural religion of the Empire, baptism lost its counter-imperial significance. No longer seen as a mark of resistance, it became a sign of acceptability and respectability. The idea that baptism was a rite of entrance into an alternative kingdom fell by the wayside. (pp. 10-11)

Songs of Resistance: Challenging Caesar and Empire (Cascade Books, 2022)

Early on Streett urges us to not miss the cultural, historical and political background in which the early church lived and had to deal with. The faith of the early church was no mere privatised faith. He writes:

In ancient societies, unlike modern democracies in the West, worship was a political act. Religion and politics functioned like Siamese twins, organically and practically, co-joined at the hip. Rome was a political entity wrapped in religion. Likewise, ancient Israel was a “kingdom of priests” and operated as a theocracy (Exod 19:6). The terms “kingdom” and “priests” were inseparable. All kingdoms in biblical times implemented the will of their respective deities.

 

Jesus’ kingdom message was just as political as Rome’s. It was about God restoring his kingdom on earth. It was about regime change. Christ followers rejected Rome’s right to conquer the world. Their songs presented Christ as God’s designated sovereign over the cosmos and themselves as citizens (Phil 2:9-11; 3:20); “a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet 2:9); “a kingdom”; and “priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen” (Rev 1:6). (p. 11)

In his conclusion he says this:

Their songs of praise followed traditional Jewish and gentile models, except their lyrics focused on Jesus; hence, they were mainly christological in nature. By definition these songs were anti-imperial and challenged the claims of Caesar and empire. Their political content extolled Jesus above Caesar and God’s kingdom above Rome’s. They proclaimed in rhythmic style that the kingdom of this world operated under the authority of Satan and the Greco-Roman gods were demons. Through his death and resurrection, Christ defeated the powers and now reigned over them.

 

Many christological songs existed long before the Gospels and Epistles were written and delivered (48-86 CE). When examined in their historical context, these songs reflected the beliefs of a minority in contrast to the majority of people in the empire. They resisted social stratification, the imperial cult, ethics based on honor and shame, and Rome’s divine right to rule the world.

 

Christological hymns did not call for violent revolution or attempt to overthrow the government. Instead, they rejected Rome’s illusionary version of reality, i.e., its worldview. (pp. 169-170)

One need not agree with everything Streett has written in these three books, but by reminding us of the historical and political context of the early church – as seen in its worship and in its early Christian rites – we are reminded of just how revolutionary and subversive the faith was to the surrounding powers.

And it helps us to remember that the same should be true today: the church is not just something that happily goes along with the surrounding culture and promotes its values, but is really a counter-cultural institution, one that proclaims the exclusive Lordship of Jesus Christ. That stance will always be seen as being radical, troubling, and even treasonous to those in power.

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