Paul and the Petty Tyrants

Theodore Jennings (Transforming Atonement, 158) observes that “what is visible on the grand scale of imperial political history also lodges itself in the dynamics of quite small-scale communities, including those that may seem to be, and may think of themselves as, and may even in important respects actually be, ‘countercultural’ in respect of the politics of empire.”

Jennings thinks that Paul spots the connection, especially in 1 Corinthians, where he sees the church in the grip of competitive and divisive patterns that resemble the honor-grabbing of the empire: “if the cross of the Messiah brings to ruin the strategems of imperial power, it must also bring to ruin the strategems by which, even among the poor and despised, the struggle for power and prestige takes place and so threatens the group with division, jealousy, and envy. Put another way: the community founded through the proclamation of the cross (which reflects the ruin of imperial power) must not be simply a reflection, in its own reduced circumstances, of the same power dynamics that led the empire to execute the divine Messiah.”

It was Paul’s “genius” to see the connection: “To see that divisive dynamics based on strivings for influence or control within this countercultural and marginal community are a small-scale replica of the empire that crucified the Messiah.” He could see in the conflicts in Corinth a repetition of the crucifixion, a division of Christ, as tin-pot Corinthian Caesars put Jesus back on the cross all over again.

What is at stake for Paul is “whether the followers of Jesus will be understudies of the one . . . executed by those in authority, by the great ones among the nations – or instead will be the understudies of the very powers and authorities who . . . impose their violent authority through the execution of the Messiah” (165).