We live in a world that loves power, especially political power. Christians are not immune to this. In fact, conservative Christians—particularly evangelicals—have honed their political influence just as much, if not more, than other demographics in America. Billy Graham advised Presidents, evangelicals anchored the ‘Moral Majority’ for Ronald Reagan, and now most white evangelicals are propping up Donald Trump’s re-election chances. But Trump’s M.A.G.A. movement arguably contains the last gasps of a bygone era: the modern ‘Christian’ America. Whether on the political Right or Left, the country is changing. As the baby boomers slowly expire and the Christian church downsizes, everyone needs to adjust to the new political landscape—and it is traditional Christians who may be on the outside looking in. The church needs new ways to influence society, if not on principle then purely for pragmatic reasons.
The difficulty is that too many Christians find their identity, even transcendence, in earthly politics. The wealthy, English-speaking church is also waging a larger battle to be influential in the upper echelons of society. If the publication and subsequent popularity of James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World (Oxford University Press, 2010) is any indication—Hunter (with some caveats) re-affirms that we transform culture through elite institutions—then we can expect more of the same in the future. We need to consider other options before it is too late.
One recent alternative is outlined in Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option, which advocates for the church’s ‘strategic withdrawal’ from society to preserve and pass along the faith in dark times. For all its merits, Dreher has arguably jumped the gun on society’s collapse and, if Ross Douthat has anything to say about it, we are in for decades or more of a slow, decadent decline. There is Liberation Theology, primarily rooted in the struggles of the South American church, though its use of Marxist principles makes it less palatable for a large swath of American Christians. Perhaps the most attractive option for Americans at the moment is the Neo-Anabaptism of Shane Claiborne and associated academics like Stanley Hauerwas (Hunter has sympathies with this view too). Like Anabaptists themselves—and most political theologies—its spirituality is rooted in the Gospels, especially the concept of ‘the kingdom of God’ as an alternative polis. But for those Christians who know that something needs to change, and want to find inspiration in underexplored parts of the New Testament, are there other options out there?
Enter the Apostle Paul. His qualifications as a guide to the church’s relationship with the world should be obvious. Arguably one of Christianity’s greatest intellectuals, the ‘second founder of Christianity’ founded the first Christian communities. As the most successful church planter in history, tilling soil previously unplowed, Paul sowed the gospel across much of Roman Asia and Europe. He also had interactions with politicians and public servants, from the Emperor himself (Acts 25:11) to Gallio (Acts 18:12-17) and ancient Corinth’s treasurer, Erastus (Rom. 16:23).
But modern political theologies never really talk about Paul. Even Oliver O’Donovan’s The Desire of the Nations, which cites Paul more than most, ignores large swaths of his corpus. Are we unaware of what Paul said? Or do we not like what he said? The Pauline hole in our politics is puzzling, although the answer is probably the latter. Political movements rarely find much that is moving in Paul. Long the supposed champion of female oppression and acceptance of the political status quo, Paul seems uninspiring. However, this is changing—and fast. Neil Elliott’s Liberating Paul and Sarah Ruden’s Paul Among the People gave us the premise that Paul has been misunderstood, and a range of smaller studies have since confirmed this, including Esau McCaulley’s recent cover story for Christianity Today on Paul and policing. I want to suggest that Paul has even more to say, and that it is good—if provocative—news for Christians’ concern with earthly influence and control.
At this point, those familiar with Pauline Studies might suspect that I am going to hitch my cart to N.T. Wright and his view that Paul’s letters contain anti-imperial rhetoric. For instance, Paul’s use of kyrios or Lord—a term that Romans applied to Caesar—has been considered an implied challenge to Rome’s sovereignty. But this is not certain. One could say that Paul credits Jesus with a degree of Lordship so transcendent that it renders earthly politics a matter of indifference, rather than a constant target for his rhetorical ploys. It is striking, after all, that Paul never talks explicitly about Caesar. And that is the point: if we want to build a political alternative (Wright does not claim to do this), we need more than implied messages. This is where my interest in Paul takes a surprising turn. The letter where Paul speaks most of the church’s relationship with the world (cosmos) is not Romans or Ephesians, it is…1 Corinthians.
Paul especially talks about the ‘world’ in 1 Corinthians 1-4—the very chapters that are ignored if one engages Paul on politics at all. Paul begins with his screed about the “foolishness of our preaching” (1:21) and how, ultimately, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1:27). We usually interpret these statements in terms of our salvation or piety. I doubt that the Corinthians heard it only in that way. Corinth was a cosmopolitan city, filled with people who were not well-born but were nonetheless driven to succeed. The pressure of the Roman honor/shame dynamic created a competition culture that drove these Christians to obsess about their place in the world. Paul shows that he is aware of this, and he wants to point to a different kind of power that even the cultural ‘losers’ can possess: knowing, and living in light of, “Christ crucified” (1:23).
This alternative power is more than a consolation prize for Paul. It is the heart of the Christian life that echoes outward, creating a peculiar place for the countercultural Jesus movement in the world. It even draws a certain kind of attention from outsiders. “For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all,” Paul says, “because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals” (4:9). Notice that Paul sees divine intent in his cruciform life. He may work with his hands, and preach a gospel which, to Roman ears, was unknown and strange. But God intended this. Paul goes so far as to cultivate the scandal: “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we answer kindly. We have become like the garbage of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day” (4:13). Lest you think he is only talking about himself or other apostles, his conclusion is “be imitators of me” (4:16).
The notion that these passages could form a political alternative for modern Christians may be laughable. The anti-realism of being ‘the garbage of the world’ is just too much. Of course, to create any kind of fully-fledged political viewpoint would require far more space, and expertise, than what I can provide here! But for Paul, it is worth nothing that these sentiments are among the most realistic in his corpus. The earliest Christians had no hope of real political influence and, instead, they fought for their existence. They knew that the world often disliked or misunderstood them, and they had to embrace this. In fact, Paul’s emphasis on his outsider status prepares the aspiring elites in Corinth to receive his ethical advice later in the letter (chs. 5-9), which often departs from Roman norms. There is a persuasive consistency to Paul’s message that would be lacking if he were like the Corinthians and desperate for earthly power.
Now we are prepared to see both why Paul has been less interesting for political theorists to this point, and why his words are good news for the twenty-first century church. In the old America, Christians represented the vast majority of society, and securing the support of church leaders was essential for political success (it still is, to a degree). The church naturally looked for inspiration in those biblical passages that help us to think about earthly statecraft. It goes without saying that modern Christians (particularly white ones) have not usually felt like the ‘garbage of the world’. But our time is coming, and it may already be here in the 2020s. Rod Dreher overstated his case in The Benedict Option, but he is right to say that a post-Christian future has arrived and certain Christian beliefs and practices are increasingly intolerable to our culture.
Paul’s good news for our post-Christian predicament is that the church does not need to hold political power to flourish, nor should we feel lost when we lose influence—we have Christ’s power. In this age, perhaps we should give up trying to rule and, in doing so, we may find that we are (eventually) respected and ruling once again. Paul notes that his persistence in doing good despite his lowly status draws interest and attention, which is more than what we can say for most non-Christians right now. If we get their attention, it is usually for the wrong reasons.
An explanation of why our society’s future leaders reject Christianity for its hypocrisy may be that we have spent too much energy trying to rule and thereby distanced ourselves from our message, and from Christ. In my view, Christianity is most attractive when Christians are most like Christ—in his weakness. We do our best work from a grassroots position, serving citizens through local congregations and voluntary organizations. We look weak to the world, but we are not beholden to the rat race of accumulating possessions and status. We are free to care for our families, for ourselves, and for each other. Our lives, if lived in the shadow of the cross, should speak for themselves.
All of this may still sound unrealistic to you. Note that I am not advocating a withdrawal from earthly politics altogether. Paul’s approach in 1 Corinthians is not unlike the prophetic stance that the African-American Church in America has taken for decades, leading to societal change on many occasions, including today. They have done a lot of lobbying, but they have not done as much ruling (in an earthly sense) due to unjust forces waged against them. They are marginalized, overlooked, and often forgotten; nonetheless, they find power in close social bonds, voluntary organizations, and leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. who talk about the ‘weak power’ of love. Perhaps Pauline politics are not unrealistic after all, especially when you remember how the church grew in the first place: people imitated Paul, who imitated Christ.
Our beginning in a post-Christian world can be, and should be, like our ancient beginning.
This resource is part of the series Kingdom Politics. Click Here to explore more resources from this series.
B.G. White is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at The King’s College in New York City. He holds a PhD in New Testament from Durham University and is a member of the St. Augustine Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians. You can follow him on Twitter @bg__white.
