THE GATHERING PT.1
The Christian cult is a basically political action: it reminds the state of the limited and provisional character of its power, and when the state claims for itself an absolute trust and obedience, the Christian cult protests against this pretension to claim a kingdom, a power and a glory which belong of right to God alone. That is why, in gathering together for Christian worship, men and women compromise themselves politically.
von Allmen, Worship, pp. 63-66.
When von Allmen uses “cult” he is referring to the gathered, embodied reality of the church,.
Simon Chan adds, “If we reflect on the church’s doxologies, we discover them to have “an eminently polemic implication.” When the church proclaims, “For yours is the kingdom and the power” (Mt 6:13 footnote) or “To the only wise God be glory” (Rom 16:27) or “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory” (Rev 4:11), these proclamations affirm the obverse side of its baptismal vow—its renunciation of the world, the flesh and the devil. In effect, the church is saying that the only true worship is the worship of the true God, and by so doing it exposes any earthly entity or ideology that claims the right of absolute allegiance as both pretentious and idolatrous.
Chan, Liturgical Theology, pp. 42-43
The allegiance of the Christian is precariously singular. There is no Christian nationalist, only a nationalist.
Get the flag out of the Sanctuary.
We will cooperate, serve with love, usher in the good, but never fully incorporate into any ideology.
Our citizenship resides elsewhere (Phil. 3.20).
We are sojourners.
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. (Rom 13.1)
On what other principle than this could Paul have explained his own public conduct? Would he have stated that he had gone under interrogation and into prison and before magistrates again and again and received multiple authoritative beatings…because he couldn’t stop doing wrong?… It was his experience that it was not always possible for a Christian to please those placed over him.
Sarah Ruden, Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time (New York: Image Books, 2010) p.122.
Given Paul’s conduct and example, we cannot, with any integrity, read Romans 13 as a flat command to mindlessly obey whatever governing power rules over us. Treating the text prescriptively means sacrificing a high view of Scripture and ignoring Paul’s own embodied witness. To free us even more from a superficial ethic of docility, Ruden points out the defining act of early Christian martyrs: the face-to-face defiance of authority and that Paul “must have allowed for this exception.” So, whatever Paul is getting at with his letter to the Romans, it is not intended as universal. He grew up in a time when Tarsus was a peaceful provincial capital with relative order, crime was minimal, and potentates were monitored. To influence his perspective (at the time) even more, Roman officers were frequently the ones rescuing Paul from angry mobs. Most importantly, the Epistle to the Romans was written in the late fifties, when Nero was still a young adolescent and the organized persecution of Christians had yet to start. If Paul intended passive compliance, he nor his successors practiced it. Probably because that kind of obedience, as pointed out by Erich Fromm, “might very well cause the end of human history.”
Read Thurman on Paul, his experience of Rome at the time of writing Romans 13, and what is imperative to understand: “The stability of Paul’s position in the state was guaranteed by the integrity of the state.”
It is quite understandable that his sense of security would influence certain aspects of his philosophy of history. Naturally he would have a regard for the state, for the civil magistrate, unlike that of his fellows, who regarded them as the formal expression of legitimatized intolerance. The stability of Paul’s position in the state was guaranteed by the integrity of the state. One is not surprised, then, to hear him tell slaves to obey their masters like Christ, and say all government is ordained of God. (It is not to meet the argument to say that in a sense everything that is, is permitted of God, or that government and rulers are sustained by God as a concession to the frailty of man.) It would be grossly misleading and inaccurate to say that there are not to be found in the Pauline letters utterances of a deeply different quality—utterances which reveal how his conception transcended all barriers of race and class and condition. But this other side is there, always available to those who wish to use the weight of the Christian message to oppress and humiliate their fellows. The point is that this aspect of Paul’s teaching is understandable against the background of his Roman citizenship.
Thurman, Howard. Jesus and the Disinherited (pp. 22-23). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition.
A vivid description of the Church in the world is described in “From a letter to Diognetus.” (Nn. 5-6; Funk, 397-401) Note the description of the foundational, early church.
The Christians in the world
"Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.
And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country…
They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.
To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen…
Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body's hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself."