Saying “The only one I call king is the one who died at the cross” subverts the very concept of a king. Not only is this guy no longer here to directly command anyone but his death was the most humiliating to him and his followers possible. In this way, it’s anti-authoritarian. Similar with the greatest in the kingdom of god. It’s the last you would think of: the poor, the children, … . Sure, this leaves place for interpretation. You can say it’s just a new hierarchy. Or it’s so radically putting everything into question that it’s in effect a call against all hierarchies. Or that it’s so radical, it can’t be taken serious at all so barely means anything anymore.
Christianity as a whole shows all of this. The first communes shared everything in common, there was “neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. (Gal 3, 28). Later a new hierarchy establish which, once established, wasn’t new or subversive anymore but just a top down hierarchy. Once in a while someone came with a more subversive reading, more often than not founding a new organization that ended up with a strict hierarchy.
I think the biggest flaw is that there is no sustainable alternative given. You can criticize capitalism all day long and reinforce it as a system without an alternative if you don’t give one. Some Christians found alternatives and supported them with the scripture, others supported very different things with scripture. That’s the thing with all world religions: They start in opposition to society but fail to think outside the box and so they end up reinforcing it while keeping the seldom fulfilled potential for a better society (“world region” in the sense Graeber uses the term in Debt and Graham discusses in this podcast episode I guess but I’m not sure).
All that said, since the first Christians certainly had a very egalitarian, anti-authoritative reading, this is the most authoritative reading (pun intended).
This is good stuff; your argument is well reasoned. Brings me back to my Bible study days.
I still think “all hierarchies” might be overbroad. The Bible itself prescribes elders/bishops and deacons to administer the church, for instance, and it’s radical enough regarding obedience to authority that, in my experience, modern day theologically conservative churches trend toward authoritarianism and mostly unchecked abuse of power more often than not. This would have been contemporaneous with the communes.
As for the more heavenly hierarchies, I looked back at some of the points of evidence that I was going to bring up here that I thought supported my case, but the “outer darkness” in Matthew 22 I once thought might not necessarily be hell sure seems like hell upon rereading, and as for the parable of the unforgiving servant who was sent to the “torturers” despite his debts being forgiven, it looks like that word “torturers” is connected to jailers, i.e. debtors’ prison, so I can’t argue confidently that the servant was “saved” from anything and given a different punishment instead. There are still a few passages I can’t totally square though:
The parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32): He gets welcomed back into the family, and he sure seems saved in the sense that I think most Christians would read into it, but his inheritance is spent; he doesn’t get more. All the father has belongs to the other son.
The purifying fire of 1 Corinthians 3:9-15: Both groups of people are explicitly “saved”. One is rewarded, the other suffers loss.
The parable of the talents/minas: In the Matthew 25 version of the parable, the first two servants get the same reward (authority over “many things”). No issue there. But in the Luke 19 version, the rewards are proportional. And the one with 10 minas gets a bonus at the end.
That’s as far as I got before my eyes glazed over.
I see your point but hear me out:
Saying “The only one I call king is the one who died at the cross” subverts the very concept of a king. Not only is this guy no longer here to directly command anyone but his death was the most humiliating to him and his followers possible. In this way, it’s anti-authoritarian. Similar with the greatest in the kingdom of god. It’s the last you would think of: the poor, the children, … . Sure, this leaves place for interpretation. You can say it’s just a new hierarchy. Or it’s so radically putting everything into question that it’s in effect a call against all hierarchies. Or that it’s so radical, it can’t be taken serious at all so barely means anything anymore.
Christianity as a whole shows all of this. The first communes shared everything in common, there was “neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. (Gal 3, 28). Later a new hierarchy establish which, once established, wasn’t new or subversive anymore but just a top down hierarchy. Once in a while someone came with a more subversive reading, more often than not founding a new organization that ended up with a strict hierarchy.
I think the biggest flaw is that there is no sustainable alternative given. You can criticize capitalism all day long and reinforce it as a system without an alternative if you don’t give one. Some Christians found alternatives and supported them with the scripture, others supported very different things with scripture. That’s the thing with all world religions: They start in opposition to society but fail to think outside the box and so they end up reinforcing it while keeping the seldom fulfilled potential for a better society (“world region” in the sense Graeber uses the term in Debt and Graham discusses in this podcast episode I guess but I’m not sure).
All that said, since the first Christians certainly had a very egalitarian, anti-authoritative reading, this is the most authoritative reading (pun intended).
This is good stuff; your argument is well reasoned. Brings me back to my Bible study days.
I still think “all hierarchies” might be overbroad. The Bible itself prescribes elders/bishops and deacons to administer the church, for instance, and it’s radical enough regarding obedience to authority that, in my experience, modern day theologically conservative churches trend toward authoritarianism and mostly unchecked abuse of power more often than not. This would have been contemporaneous with the communes.
As for the more heavenly hierarchies, I looked back at some of the points of evidence that I was going to bring up here that I thought supported my case, but the “outer darkness” in Matthew 22 I once thought might not necessarily be hell sure seems like hell upon rereading, and as for the parable of the unforgiving servant who was sent to the “torturers” despite his debts being forgiven, it looks like that word “torturers” is connected to jailers, i.e. debtors’ prison, so I can’t argue confidently that the servant was “saved” from anything and given a different punishment instead. There are still a few passages I can’t totally square though:
The parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32): He gets welcomed back into the family, and he sure seems saved in the sense that I think most Christians would read into it, but his inheritance is spent; he doesn’t get more. All the father has belongs to the other son.
The purifying fire of 1 Corinthians 3:9-15: Both groups of people are explicitly “saved”. One is rewarded, the other suffers loss.
The parable of the talents/minas: In the Matthew 25 version of the parable, the first two servants get the same reward (authority over “many things”). No issue there. But in the Luke 19 version, the rewards are proportional. And the one with 10 minas gets a bonus at the end.
That’s as far as I got before my eyes glazed over.