I'm reflecting on John Barclay's argument that Paul "relegated" and "consigned" Rome to an insignificant player by hardly ever speaking of her power and how this could inform how Christians engage in politics today.
2. Barclay argues Paul’s most subversive act in regard to the Roman Empire was not to oppose it but to deny its principal significance.
3. The main power players in Paul’s drama are the God the Father, Christ the Son, the Spirit, sin, flesh, and death. The Roman Empire was subsidiary, because it is simply coopted into the ranks of the sons of darkness.
4. Paul was not blind. He of course saw the huge statue of Caesar, but he looked past it and behind it.
5. What does it look like to follow Paul in this method (if one agrees this is his method, which is up for debate)?
6. Could it mean that we are at least partially complicit in granting too much power to current governmental system by our feverish responses? By manically speaking of them, we give them power. Paul stripped Rome of its power by relegating it.
7. This does not mean that we stop engaging in politics, or stop speaking to issues, but rather that we engage with them with serenity and a more clearly defined “structured authority.”
8. We relegate the power of the government by not assigning them power. We place them on the canvas of a larger drama in which they are only pawns.
9. That is truly subversive.
10. The first business of the church, as O’Donovan said, is to refuse the powers that be worship by any feverish response.
11. Christians are not a panicked people, a frightened flock, or an alarmed assembly. We are a calm community because we are children of the true King.
12. You can find a brief summary of Barclay's view here. upper-register.com/blog/?p=96
