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The church was turning the world upside down. Throwing city after city into political and economic chaos. Holy hell breaking out. Despite a lack of overt antagonism, the Roman Empire came to see the Christian church as a threat, targeting Christians for persecution. Paul was beheaded. Christians were thrown to lions. Followers of Jesus were killed in gladiator games. This is the paradox of Jesus. Rome had trouble officially locating a treasonous element in Jesus and his followers, but riots broke out. The church was turning the world upside down. Something revolutionary was happening, but Rome had trouble seeing what it was. And I think we have the same problem. It’s hard for us to nail down exactly why the church was so subversive and revolutionary. What happened was that when people gave their spiritual allegiance to King Jesus, they started opting out of the Roman Zeitgeist and its political and economic systems.
Reviving Old Scratch
Richard Beck
It’s difficult to disentangle the political and economic aspects of our battle with the principalities and powers from the underlying spiritual struggle. Both conservative and progressive Christians tend to miss how these are two sides of the same coin. Conservatives tend to focus exclusively upon the spiritual aspects of spiritual warfare. This “spiritualizes” the struggle, which drains it of any political or economic impact or import. Spiritual warfare in the hands of many conservative Christians reduces it to something spooky, fretting about disembodied spirits floating around in the air. Progressive Christians, by contrast, tend to ignore the spiritual aspects of the struggle, focusing exclusively upon the political and economic arena. Where conservatives spiritualize spiritual warfare, progressives politicize the struggle. So when it comes to the riots in Acts, both groups overlook the spirituality of political and economic systems, how these systems are supported and animated by values, morals, worldviews, and cultural norms, that economies are guided by a spirit—a Zeitgeist—an unseen and animating spiritual center. That’s the critical piece of the puzzle doubting and disenchanted Christians miss when they stop talking about the Devil and spiritual warfare. The animating spiritual center—the spiritual heart and soul of civic life in Philippi and Ephesus—is precisely what was being disrupted by the coming of the kingdom of God in the book of Acts. And since doubting and disenchanted Christians miss this, they miss what was and is so subversive and unsettling about the kingdom of God. Consequently, doubting and disenchanted Christians can’t locate the key to unlock one of the great paradoxes of the book of Acts—the secret to the kingdom’s revolutionary, riot-inducing power.
Reviving Old Scratch
Richard Beck
“I am here to get it right, I am not here to be right. I am here to get it right, I am not here to be right.”
Brené on Shame and Accountability Episode Transcript
brenebrown.com
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