The Politics and Ethics of Jesus and Paul - Reading Guide

The Politics and Ethics of JesusIn an appendix to his 1795 work Perpetual Peace, Immanuel Kant makes this remark based on a saying of Jesus:  
Politics says, “Be ye wise as serpents”; morality adds, as a limiting condition, “and guileless as doves.” If these two injunctions are incompatible in a single command, then politics and morality are really in conflict; but if these two qualities ought always to be united, the thought of contrariety is absurd, and the question as to how the conflict between morals and politics is to be resolved cannot even be posed as a problem. The idea that a person would base his or her ethical behaviour on the life and teaching of Jesus is not especially controversial as a general idea. If the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth evoked political controversy and intrigue in its own time, the effects of his life, teaching and achievement have hardly abated, even in such a different social and political world as we find ourselves. It is possible to neglect the differences. We live well after the democratic revolution in politics whereas Jesus lived in a world of rulers and governors, of masters and slaves, of benefactors and clients. Yet it is also possible to exaggerate the differences between Jesus’ time and our own and to find all-too-convenient ways to minimise Jesus’ demand on our lives with appeals to a supposed ‘realism’ of our own time and place. Despite the different socio-political configurations of First Century Judea, Jesus and his contemporaries still grappled with perennial questions—of power and privilege, of wealth and poverty, of justice and judgement, of cooperation, competition and the common good.
 Christian theopolitical thought must struggle in each time and every place with questions of continuity and discontinuity—to discern what are enduring models, practices and principles, as well as what episodes in the story of ‘the historical Jesus’ might simply be peculiar to a singular culture and time. Furthermore, the belief in development in ‘salvation history’—a ‘progress of redemption’—complicates things further: the God of Israel and of all creation declares from time to time that he is doing “a new thing”. The advent of Jesus as Messiah or Christ (in all its unexpected facets) is the most important and shocking of such declarations and acts. In its light, nothing can be taken for granted. Every expectation might be turned upside down.
 It is perhaps little surprise then that many in the mainstream Christian tradition have mollified the full extent of the challenge presented by Jesus to the world of politics. That, at least, is the thesis of John Howard Yoder’s landmark book The Politics of Jesus, first published in the 1970s and reissued and updated in the mid-90s. Yoder’s provocative claim was that mainstream Christian ethics had systematically rendered Jesus irrelevant to the social questions of our day by seeking to base Christian social ethics on some other foundation than the gospel. Rather than the controversial and disruptive call of the gospel of the kingdom of God, more ‘general’ and widely acceptable norms were sought whether derived from creation/’nature’, history, or culture, or else in selected aspects of the Old Testament.
 Certainly one can understand the attraction to seeking Old Testament answers to questions of politics and power. Jesus faced analogous problems to today in terms of social discontent, inequality of power, questions of justice and violence. The work of the ‘Context Group’—seen in works by Philip Esler, Jerome Neyrey and Bruce Malina—has applied sociological and cultural anthropological analysis to these interactions. As a former missionary in the Middle East, Kenneth Bailey has applied his own knowledge of cultural norms such as honour codes and practices of benefaction to understanding Jesus’ socio-political interactions. However, Jesus
 was not just a moralist whose teachings had some political implications; he was not primarily a teacher of spirituality whose public ministry unfortunately was seen in a political light; he was not just a sacrificial lamb preparing for his immolation, or a God-Man whose divine status calls us to disregard his humanity. Jesus was, in his divinely mandated prophethood, priesthood, and kingship, the bearer of a new possibility of human, social, and therefore political relationships. His baptism is the inauguration and his cross is the culmination of that new regime in which his disciples are called to share. Hearers or readers may choose to consider that kingdom as not real, or not relevant, or not possible, or not inviting; but... no such slicing can avoid his call to an ethic marked by the cross, a cross identified as the punishment of a man who threatens society by creating a new kind of community leading a radically new kind of life. It is therefore no surprise to find a strong, articulate and persuasive account of Jesus’ political ‘contribution’ in a more antagonistic, antithetical and even anarchist direction. Scholar/activists such as Ched Myers (Binding the Strong Man and Who Will Roll Away the Stone?: Discipleship Queries for First World Christians In any analysis, Jesus must be seen both as connected to the context of his day but also highly problematic to any notion of the status quo, whether it be social, cultural or political. N. T. Wright, in works such as Jesus and the Victory of God The tensions with Rome, Hellenism and paganism evoked a variety of responses. Wright characterises the three broad responses as collaboration(Herod’s regime, tax collectors, etc.), separation(Qumran community in the wilderness areas) and confrontation (Zealot guerrilla actions and Pharisee sympathisers). Jesus’ own response cut across all of these responses. The community of Jesus’ disciples was not a separated community but one immersed in the life and future of the people: Jewish most certainly but foreshadowing openness even to Gentiles. It was called to a moral excellence in service to the radical love of God that included the love of enemies even while it confronted the powers. (These themes and Jesus’ ‘transforming initiatives’ are explored in works such as Alan Storkey, Jesus and Politics: Confronting the Powers and Glen Stassen and David Gushee, Kingdom Ethics.) Such a ‘new people’ is no less political than Israelhad ever been and the allegiance to the King that is called for is certainly no less ultimate. What form did these communities take? In a move that is highly relevant to living in a pluralistic society, Wright suggests that Jesus did not expect a wholesale enactment of his teaching by the whole nation but instead
 Jesus intended his people, those who were loyal to him in the villages and towns, to form, cells, groups or gatherings, much as the non-Qumran Essenes, or John’s disciples, seem to have done—and, mutatis mutandis, much as the Haberim, the groups of Pharisees, must have done. Within these groups, a relearning of socio-political interaction was inculcated, drawing upon the Scriptures of Israel but reinterpreted through the teaching and example of Jesus, and refracted in particular through the final days of Jesus life and through God’s startling vindication of his praxis by raising him from the dead. John Yoder’s Body Politics and Gerhard Lohfink’s Jesus and Community and Does God Need the Church? explore the shape of this community life in terms of the theology and practices that constitute this community as an alternative polis living in the midst of the wider political community. The Politics and Ethics of PaulAny ethico-political activity of integrating the teaching and example of Jesus is an exercise in, to use Allen Verhey’s title, ‘remembering Jesus’ There are many useful recent introductions to Paul. The ‘new look’ or ‘new perspective on Paul’ that has energised Pauline studies (both in support, revision and opposition) has challenged the view of the apostle as primarily concerned with questions over alleged Jewish legalism. The editors of The Dictionary of Paul and His Lettersdeclared
 The present time is securely opportune to harvest the gains of such inquiries, proposals and investigations. We are sufficiently distant from E. P. Sanders’s epoch-making volume Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977), rightly praised, if then pertinently criticized, by J. D. G. Dunn (in his essay “The New Perspective on Paul,” 1983) as breaking the mold of current Pauline research and posing a new set of agenda questions, to attempt a re-evaluation and assessment. The team of essayists who have contributed to the Dictionary of Paul and His Lettersmainly stand in the shadow of this major new appraisal of Paul’s attitude to the Law, the covenant and the people of Israel, and reflect their reaction, whether positive or cautious, to the “new look” on Paul’s gospel of righteousness by faith and the elements of continuity with the ancestral faith.” New Perspective readings of Paul have brought to the interpretive fore again the tensions that early Christians struggled with—the relationships between Jewish and Gentile believers in these fledgling communities. The social and political dynamics of the communities living with ethnic and religious differences is undoubtedly relevant to such concerns today. Likewise, the tensions over social stratification in communities like the Corinthian church are no less relevant today. Now beyond these ‘New Perspectives’ have been added a fresh investigation of Paul’s theology in relation to the Roman empire. While Paul has been read in apolitical or quietist terms, fresh readings suggest that Paul’s theological language had political clout when heard by his first audience. There was no neat separation between spheres of ‘religion’ and ‘politics’. Everyday social interaction was fraught with questions of religion, ritual and idolatry. This could be in negotiating with social networks such as guilds, or in something so ordinary as the purchase of meat. With the rise of the worship of the Emperor, more dangerous questions of trust and allegiance arose.
 In Colossians Remixed, In view of Paul’s messianic and apocalyptic gospel and theology, On the one hand, there was ‘another king’, and this king required allegiance and worship of a sort that radically subverted the allegiance and worship demanded by Caesar, and other lesser lords. On the other hand, the subversion in question was not that of the ordinary political revolutionary, and in the normal run of things Christians must submit to legitimate authority. James Dunn notes that Romans 12 begins with a discussion of the Christian community as “body”. If Paul “was conscious of the origin of the image in political rhetoric, as is probable, he may even have thought of the church of Christ as a model of what all social (and not just religious) community should be.” Paul’s statement of God’s authority and the relative legitimacy of ‘the powers’ is a deflationary account of political power, stripping politics of religious pretensions and redescribing the task of governing in terms of service of the common good—including serving the good of Christian community formation. The statement that rulers punish “evil” and reward “good” is not to affirm any epistemological privilege of the powers: it is deliberately vague and general. It is clear historically that the good known through Jesus Christ is opposed, persecuted or is sought to be manipulated or controlled by civil authorities. Nevertheless, in the main, Christian practice, communally and individually, directed toward the household of faith or to the wider society, where exemplary in Christian terms, will be recognised as beneficial to the polity. It was the aim of Paul to minimise unnecessary offence in mere custom and social interaction however it was clear that the practice of ‘putting on’ Jesus Christ, in certain times and circumstances, could be troubling to ‘empire’. In conclusion, neither Jesus nor Paul lead us toward government optimistically. Instead, they are preoccupied with the kingship of God and are quick to point out injustice or idolatrous pretensions among the powerful. However, their prophetic denunciations, their ethical teaching and their promotion of the churches as servants existing for the glory of God and the sake of the world, especially the poor and powerless, has contributed to the transformation of politics. Nonetheless, any Christian entering into political activity needs to recall their primary vocation and training in discipleship and can expect no special exemption from the conduct of good character in his or her dealings.
 
 
 
 




Immanuel Kant, “Appendix 1 - On the Opposition Between Morality and Politics with Respect to Perpetual Peace” in Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch(1795) - see https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel... the best and most important account of New Testament ethics is Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (New York: HarperCollins; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996)A recent account of Christian ethics based explicitly on this theme is Richard A. Burridge, Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2007)Some useful and notable recent works include Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), J. Gordon McConville, God and Earthly Power: An Old Testament Political Theology: Genesis-Kings (London: T. & T. Clark, 2006) and Walter J. Houston, Contending for Justice: Ideologies and Theologies of Social Justice in the Old Testament(London: T. & T. Clark, 2006) and for Christian ethics, Christopher J. H. Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 2004) and Andrew Sloane, At Home in a Strange Land. Using the Old Testament in Christian Ethics (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2008)Yoder, “Preface to the Second Edition” in The Politics of Jesus: Vicit Agnus Noster. 2nd ed. (Carlisle: Paternoster Press; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1994), p. vii.Alan Richardson, The Political Christ(London: SCM Press, 1973); Marcus J. Borg, Jesus - A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship (New York: HarperCollins, 1987) and idem., Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (New York: HarperCollins, 1994); and L. D. Hurst, “Ethics of Jesus” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight and I. Howard Marshall (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992)Richard J. Bauckham, The Bible in Politics: How to Read the Bible Politically (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989), p. 142Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels (Downers Grove, IVP Academic, 2008).Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, pp. 62-63.Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988) and Who Will Roll Away the Stone? Queries for First World Christians (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1994)Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2008)Lee C. Camp, Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World. 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2008)Tod Lindberg, The Political Teachings of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 2007)N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996)N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1999) and idem., How God Became King: Getting to the Heart of the Gospel (London: SPCK, 2012)N. T. Wright, “The New Testament and the ‘State,’” Themelios 16:1 (October/November, 1990), p. 12.For example, Richard A. Horsley, In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance(Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2008), Richard J. Cassidy, Christians and Roman Rule in the New Testament: New Perspectives. Companions to the New Testament (New York: Crossroad, 2001), and Warren Carter, The Roman Empire and the New Testament: An Essential Guide (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2006). Christopher Bryan’s balanced and judicious recent study is highly recommended: Render to Caesar: Jesus, the Early Church, and the Roman Superpower (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)Alan Storkey, Jesus and Politics: Confronting the Powers (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2005) and Glen H. Stassen and David P. Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003). See also Glen H. Stassen, A Thicker Jesus: Incarnational Discipleship in a Secular Age(Louisville: Westminster/ John Knox Press, 2012)ibid.John Howard Yoder, Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World(1992; Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 2001) and Gerhard Lohfink, Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith, trans. John P. Galvin (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984) and idem., Does God Need the Church?: Toward a Theology of the People of God, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press/Michael Glazier, 1999) Allen D. Verhey, Remembering Jesus: Christian Community, Scripture, and the Moral Life (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002)Timothy G. Gombis, Paul: A Guide for the Perplexed(London: T. & T. Clark, 2010), Michael J. Gorman, Reading Paul (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2008), Anthony C. Thiselton, The Living Paul: An Introduction to the Apostle’s Life and Thought (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2009), David G. Horrell, An Introduction to the Study of Paul. 2nd ed. T&T Clark Approaches to Biblical Studies (London: T. & T. Clark, 2006) Useful readings include N. T. Wright, “Coming Home to St Paul?: Reading Romans a Hundred Years after Charles Gore,” Lecture at Westminster Abbey, 14 November 2000 (http://westminster-abbey.org/event/le...) - accessed 08/08/02, idem., “The Letter to the Romans” in The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. 10. ed. Leander Keck (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002),  Michael Bird, “‘One Who Will Arise to Rule Over the Nations’: Paul’s Letter to the Romans and the Roman Empire” in Jesus is Lord, Caesar is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies, ed. Scot McKnight and Joseph B. Modica (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2013). More generally on Romans, see Richard B. Hays, “The God of Mercy Who Rescues Us from the Present Evil Age: Romans and Galatians” in The Forgotten God: Perspectives in Biblical Theology, ed. A. Andrew Das and Frank J. Matera (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2002), N. T. Wright, “Romans and the Theology of Paul” in Pauline Theology. Vol. 3: Romans, ed. David M. Hay and E. Elizabeth Johnson (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995) (also available on-line at http://www.ntwrightpage.com), and A. Katherine Grieb, The Story of Romans: A Narrative Defense of God’s Righteousness (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2002). A recent commentary that takes these developments to heart is John E. Toews, Romans. Believer’s Church Bible Commentary (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 2004)Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin and Daniel G. Reid, “Preface” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters. ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993). See James D. G. Dunn, “The New Perspective on Paul: Paul and the Law” in The Romans Debate, ed. Karl P. Donfried. rev. ed. (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991)See, for example, Bruce W. Winter, After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change (Grand Rapids, Mich. Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001) and Robert M. Grant, Paul in the Roman World: The Conflict at Corinth (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2001). See also Richard B. Hays, “Ecclesiology and Ethics in 1 Corinthians,” Ex Auditu(1994) – also available at http://cpcnewhaven.org/documents/Eccl... J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2004) Richard A. Horsley, ed., Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1997) and idem., Paul and Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2002). See also “Paul’s Gospel and Caesar’s Empire,” Paper originally delivered at the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton University (2002) - http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications... - accessed 21/09/02. John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed, In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom(New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004) utilise the latest research in archaeology on this question. Perhaps the most extreme advocate of this stance is Neil Elliot, The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009) but he draws usefully on classical studies, rhetorical criticism, postcolonial criticism, and people’s history. Questioning the “anti-imperial” hermeneutic altogether is Seyoon Kim, Christ and Caesar: The Gospel and the Roman Empire in the Writings of Paul and Luke(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008). Again, Christopher Bryan, Render to Caesar is worth consulting.See N. T. Wright, Paul: In Fresh Perspective(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005) and Douglas Harink, Paul among the Postliberals: Pauline Theology after Christendom and Modernity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2003)Storkey, Jesus and Politics, p. 273.N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 1 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), p. 449.ibid.James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of the Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 672-3Dunn, pp. 677-80.