As is the case with any historical figure, Jesus cannot be understood outside the context in which he lived. The socio-political climate of Jesus' world is extremely important because our current situation strongly resembles that of first century Palestine--history does indeed repeat itself. Jesus of Nazareth was born under, lived within and was eventually executed by, one of the most compelling and successful imperial powers in history. He was executed as a terrorist, a threat to the status quo. It is highly probable that if Jesus were living today he would be held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib or some other 'secret prison' for disturbing and subverting the 'peace' of the empire.
Perhaps the most regrettable and paralyzing misstep of post-Constantinian Christianity is the domestication and depoliticization of Jesus. With the turbulent and uneasy marriage of the church and the Roman Empire came the compromise of the gospel and the institutionalization of Jesus' counter-cultural, nonviolent resistance movement. This phenomenon has become even more popular and damaging in the Western world, particularly in the United States. Jesus has become nothing more than a detached religious figure irrelevant to politics, economics, and other social issues; in short, Jesus has become uninvolved in and unrelated to the modern imperial world. Christians would rather lift the Jesus of the bible out of the historical narrative, place him on an altar and worship him, oblivious to the demands of his gospel; to do so renders him influential, ineffective and worst of all, impotent. Jesus must be understood within history and within his socio-political context, lest we run the risk of crucifying him all over again.
The Roman Empire was the most powerful, oppressive and violent power in the ancient world. Since at least 539 BCE, the Hebrew people had been ruled and dominated by some sort of imperial power; the Romans were not the first overlords. They were however, the most potent and the most successful. By the time a Jewish peasant named Jesus was born in a small agrarian town on the fringes of the empire, the world was experiencing an age of 'peace' and security it had never known. Augustus Caesar was emperor and he had ushered the empire into a golden age of prosperity and success. This peace had been brought into existence by means of unbridled war, grotesque violence, and imperial triumph--known as the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome. Roman imperial ideology, indeed Roman imperial theology was in essence peace through war and victory, peace through domination and conquest. The ethos of Rome, and the ethos of empire are just that, domination, absolute power and complete supremacy.
The Pax Romana was praised throughout the empire by means of political propaganda and actively resisted by Jewish commoners. For example, at the age of sixty-six Augustus produced a 2,500-word eulogy wherein he listed all of his imperial accomplishments, down to the very last territory conquered. This document known as the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (The Acts of the Divine Augustus) was forged in bronze and circulated throughout the empire as means political propaganda, reinforcing the imperial theology of religion, war, victory, peace; put more succinctly, peace through victory. This is just one example of many; others include a shrine and altar built at Rome in honor the Augustan peace, imperial currency, and various sculptures depicting 'the divine Augustus.'
The importance of imperial divinity cannot be overstated. According to Roman imperial theology, the emperor was the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer, the Lord of all. The Acts of the Divine Augustus state:
The birthday of the most divine Caesar Augustus is...the day which we might justly set on a par with the beginning of everything, in practical terms at least, in that he restored order when everything was disintegrating and falling into chaos and gave a new look to the whole world...For this reason one might justly take this to be the beginning of life and living...All the communities should have one and the same New Year's Day, the birthday of the most divine Caesar...[who] by his epiphany exceeded the hopes of those who prophesied Good News (Gospel), not only outdoing benefactors of the past, but also allowing no hope of greater benefactions in the future; and since the birthday of the god first brought to the world the Good News (Gospel) residing in him...the Greek of Asia have decided that the New Year in all the cities should begin on...the birthday of Augustus.
The new calendar was thus divided into 'before Caesar Augustus' and 'after Caesar Augustus,' making the emperor Lord not only of the empire, but of time. Roman imperial theology worshipped and exalted the emperor as god and praised 'peace' through victory and conquest.
We know that the Romans viewed the emperor as the divine 'Son of God,' the 'Savior,' the 'Redeemer,' and the Lord who brought the whole world under his 'peace.' What then, did it mean for early Christians to declare, "Jesus is Lord?" Better yet, what does it mean to say, "Jesus is Lord" within the American empire, under the Pax Americana? Many modern American Christians utter this phrase nonchalantly taking it to mean Jesus "saves me," indicating one has a 'personal relationship' with Jesus or God--although that phrasing is never mentioned in the bible. The title of 'Lord' has been perverted in the American imperial context and has been individualized becoming solely synonymous with catch-phrases and buzz words such as 'personal salvation' and as contributed to the depoliticization and domestication of Jesus we spoke of earlier. Indeed, many American Christians in service to the empire would likely refuse to utter the phrase were they to discover what the statement "Jesus is Lord" originally meant.
To declare Jesus as Lord is to overtly and directly challenge the lordship of the emperor. The title of lord, in Rome was a political categorization. Thus, to declare Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior and the Redeemer is to rival the imperial authority. For the early church, prior to Constantine, declaring lordship of Jesus deliberately and intentionally subverted and opposed the domination of the empire. Hence, to be a Christian was to be a countercultural and radically apolitical revolutionary who pledged one's allegiance to Jesus and God's kingdom rather than earthly Powers. What might this mean in our current imperial situation? Perhaps it might be better and more true to the original meaning to declare, "Jesus is President" challenging the presidency of George W. Bush and the authority of American imperialism. That is exactly what the early Christians were doing. As singer/songwriter Derek Webb states in his song "A King and A Kingdom," "...my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man...my first allegiance is not to democracy, or blood...it's to a king and a kingdom." The entire system, the domination system, the myth of redemptive violence, imperialism--everything that constitutes the normalcy of civilization--belongs to God and is subject to God's purposes in God's nonviolent, equitable and domination-free order. To be a Christian is to make these claims; anything less is idolatry.
As Christians who happen to be citizens of the American empire we must actively resist and oppose imperial domination and proclaim as loudly as possible that normalcy is not inevitability. The myth of redemptive violence and the scapegoat mechanism were unmasked and exposed through Jesus; we must now live as though they have, actively subverting imperial violence with creative nonviolent tactics. We must continue to proclaim Jesus as lord, realizing God's domination-order and participating in God's kingdom, "...on earth as it is in heaven." Above all, we must remember, "The Powers are good, the Powers are fallen, the Powers must be redeemed." We live in between the 'already' and the not 'yet' in a process of transformation and restoration; we must never lose hope in our endeavors. In April 1995, following the tragic bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City a group of rescue workers left this statement in spray paint on one of the surviving walls, "We search for the truth. We seek justice. The courts require it. The victims cry for it. GOD demands it!" As Christians seeking to follow in the footsteps of Jesus we seek truth, we seek justice, and we seek peace. Let us never lose hope and let us never deter from our task, we are the ones we've been waiting for--it starts now.
J. Blake Huggins (For and expanded version of this article with extensive citation, see http://www.blakehuggins.com)
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