Individualist Collectivism

I have a great deal of sympathy with Jose Miranda’s claim (in Marx and the Bible) that Paul is writing about justice in Romans, and that the apostles is concerned “with the problem of society . . . of human civilization. His anguish is over the injustice which reigns in the world, the collective slavery which has gained control of human history” (178)_

I have no sympathy for what he takes as the corollary: Paul’s “concern is not individual salvation. . . . Paul’s gospel has nothing to do with the interpretation which for centuries has been given to it in terms of individual salvation. It deals with justice which the world and peoples and society, implicitly but anxiously awaiting” (178-9).

The problem here is not that Miranda has illegitimately collectivized the gospel. I think the problem is the opposite: He assumes that if Paul is talking about the repair of society, he cannot be talking about individuals. But that assumes the modern individualistic picture that individuals are isolated entities outside society. 

If, on the other hand, individual and society are co-inhabiting, mutually-defining, then any gospel of social salvation must at the same time and for that very reason also be good news for individuals.