Hong Kong theologian Kwok Pui-Lan on the importance of empire for the study of Christianity: Christianity cannot be understood apart from empire. We cannot understand the Bible without knowing something about the struggles for survival of the Hebrew people under the Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman Empires. Christianity began in the Roman Empire, in which Jesus and the early disciples lived as colonised peoples. Jesus died on the cross, which was a symbol of state terrorism and a form of torture and punishment for political rebels.18
