Alternative Perspectives beyond the Perspectives: A Summary of Pauline Studies that has Nothing to Do with Piper or Wright

Introduction

Engaging in the discussion of Pauline scholarship, articulating in plain terms the current state of play, is a complex exercise, a disciplined observation which requires a particular lens for a particular field. Lest papers driven by this type of summative investigation engender a birdwatching hermeneutic, our subjective criteria are made plain and obvious through what we choose to discuss, and what we choose to ignore. In the case of this paper at least, our concerns and supply of material cannot be endless, our choice of topics are consequently pragmatic—what is useful? is there space?

Given the intense, fraternal atmosphere of the contemporary Pauline guild, the outsider might have great difficulty penetrating this esoteric discourse. Very quickly it seems, one must choose to take sides in the sometimes toxic debate of competing perspectives, a complex ‘new versus old’ binarism from which everything falls into place, and polemic. For the outsider, this is a foreboding, intimidating discourse. This competitive academic environment relies heavily on the importance of choosing sides and scholarly allegiance—Piper or Wright? Schreiner or Dunn? (see Bird 2011). If the discourse of the ‘perspectives’ chooses to present itself in this way, perhaps trying to crack the nut in a survey like this is difficult, intimidating and might ignore some other significant work within Pauline biblical scholarship. So, as the discourse of the ‘perspectives’ presents an intimidating, voluminous binarism, I will plead the fifth and leave this particular discussion to others more flint of mind.

Method

Instead of critically engaging the debate between new and old perspectives, this paper will provide a careful, thorough survey of some alternative Pauline discourses and philosophical positions. I consider this exercise to be of significant importance, as much quality Pauline scholarship can (and does) take place in the world beyond justification. Therefore, this paper will summarize key thinkers and literature under the rubric of five main headings. They include:

Specifically, each section will be a critical analysis of relevant Pauline literature, some that might be foundational to the discourse, some in response to a heritage of Pauline learning. I seek to find ways in which each discourse is a cross-pollinating endeavour, while highlighting areas of great intrigue and meaning to the heterogeneous complexities of Pauline scholarship. Each discourse reveals its cultural concerns, what counts for evidence and what is peripheral, and this points to the more subtle, obvious understanding that no ‘one’ discourse is able to articulate the brilliant complexities of Pauline thought in a wholly summative manner.

Paul and Continental Philosophy

While we might risk violating the axiomatic ‘do not throw your pearls to swine’, renewed continental philosophical interest in Paul as universal subject provides an interesting alternative critical engagement with the Pauline corpus. This particular revision of Pauline philosophical positions is best situated as a response to the epistemological/ontological breakdown articulated in post-modern theoretical circles, and is less an engagement with contemporary biblical studies proper. However much this emerging discourse avoids the standard Pauline discussions of justification and faith, it offers a celebrated breakthrough in contemporary philosophical deadlocks and relativist deconstructive epistemological positions.

A key figure within a renewed Pauline continental discourse, a-philosopher Alain Badiou represents a dominant voice within the Pauline philosophical re-appraisal. His groundbreaking work, entitled Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, is certainly the most accessible articulation of this emerging position. Interestingly, Badiou’s fascination with the internal logic of the Pauline gospel does not come from an acknowledged Christian faith position; rather Badiou suggests Pauline logic to be of intense relevance for the pan-human struggle for meaning—a proto-Hegelian universalism:

Basically, I have never really connected Paul with religion. It is not according to this register, or to bear witness to any sort of faith, or antifaith, that I have, for a long time, been interested in him… He brings for the entirely human connection, whose destiny fascinates me, between the general idea of rupture, an overturning, and that of a thought practice that is this rupture’s subjective mentality (Badiou 2003: 1).

Badiou presents a Paul who is neither Greek philosopher nor Hebrew prophet, rejecting both identifications in the interest of identification as Apostle (Badiou 2009: 30). Unlike the Greek fascination with wisdom, and Jewish search for prophetic sign, Badiou’s Apostle Paul adheres to the singular, non-sensical invasion of truth beyond constructed identities and ethnic fault-lines. Paul is then, the first ‘universal subject’, a subject who, in declaring the truth-event, renders identification and difference as inoperative (Badiou 2009: 32):

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3.28).

Badiou suggests the truth-event is not a didactic teaching—it always appears as madness to the established authorities of discourse. In fact, the moment the Real is identified as an event, the differences between discourses are abolished because the constructed form of the Real they propose is an illusion (Badiou 2009: 32). The emphasis for Badiou, then, becomes the authentic subject as one who lives in accordance with what is revealed in the truth-event. For Badiou, the Christian subject is not the subject that believes only, but the subject that declares this belief in accordance to what is revealed in the truth-event (Badiou 2009: 36). In this sense, the singularity of truth breaks the law, and thus the only Christian is the militant one—a confessional witness to divine rupture that changes everything.

Similar to the universalist epistemology of Badiou, ideological critic and psychoanalytic theorist Slavoj Žižek has applied a similar Hegelian universalism to the character of Paul and his truth-event. His works, including such titles as The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity, On Belief and The Sublime Object of Ideology, emphasize a renewed interest in the Apostle Paul and his paradigmatic ‘truth-event’. As an interesting analysis of Christian theology and Continental philosophy, his work aptly titled Paul’s New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology articulates an emerging relationship between Žižek, Badiou, and radical Christian orthodox scholars like John Milbank.

In articulating his concept of truth-event, Žižek suggests this paradigmatic event is ‘wholly unpredictable’, an ex nihilo encounter which no amount of knowledge could have predicted (Žižek 2010: 76). His more contemporary example—the French revolution—suggests a crisis or malfunction in the very structure of the system itself, making visible the excesses, lies and inconsistencies of the ideological regime (Žižek 2010: 76). Thus, events like this are not events in the objective sense at all, but part of the event itself—with a goal, an operator, and an authentic subject (Žižek 2010: 93). Like Badiou, Žižek suggests the truth-event designates a violent, traumatic and contingent intrusion of another dimension not mediated by the domain of terrestrial finitude. For St. Paul, the opposition of life and death overlaps with the opposition of love and law; the way of flesh belongs to the universe of sin, desire, law and prohibition (Žižek 2010: 94). The power of the truth-event is seen in the authentic subject breaking through the noose of prohibitive law and desire, and its perverted cycle of oppression. For Žižek, the way of the Spirit is precisely this magic break; since there is a God of love, everything is positively affirmed. The truth-event makes public the failure of established positions, and breaks the cycle of oppression engendered by constructed identities (Žižek 2010: 98).

The emerging positions of both Badiou and Žižek are currently under evaluation by the biblical studies guild, and it will be an interesting future for this type of universalist reading. In his response essay entitled ‘A Very Particular Universalism: Badiou and Paul’, Stephen Fowl takes issue with Badiou’s negative conception of difference, suggesting instead that ‘Paul becomes just a cipher for what Badiou desires’ (Fowl 2010: 131). Fowl’s criticism is correct: is Badiou able to conceive of identity and difference that is non-antagonistic in nature? Pointing to Daniel Boyarin’s A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity, Fowl reminds us that Paul is not a subject without identity; rather Paul is a Jew who must now rethink what it means to be a Jew specifically. For Fowl, Badiou’s censure of difference is simply a ‘veiled political liberalism’, a false gloss of homogeneity in the interest of formulating a novel universal subject. Fowl concludes by suggesting Pauline agape love is not satisfied with indifference to differences; rather it is always a love in the particulars of context (Fowl 2010: 131).

While I still remain excited about the recent philosophical validation of Pauline scholarship in the continental discourse (it’s nice to be affirmed by the European Intelligentsia), it seems Badiou and Žižek are epistemologically distant enough to remain just beyond the purview of biblical scholarship. They do not have to play by the same rules, and are not bound by the mundane realities of historical criticism. A boring, more ‘whole’ picture of Paul might question Badiou’s careless use of Paul as universal subject—can we really have an unmediated event? Are national differences really insignificant? In the book of Romans, Paul’s own existential reflections take seriously the national categories of Jew and Gentile; grafting does not relinquish difference—rather its fracture is reconciled. Additionally, Paul’s universal truth-event does not mean a complete abandonment of existential struggle; rather he still exists within the contingent realm of law and oppression, sin and failure. The truth-event does not fully exorcise the claim of sin and flesh on Paul’s moral intent:

I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate to do, I do (Rom. 7.15).

Among many things, both good and bad, the strict discipline of biblical studies restrains the interpreter from turning the Pauline corpus into a salad bar. In order for Žižek and Badiou’s authentic subject to be taken seriously in the guild (if they even care), they will need to give a more whole, messy portrait of Pauline particularities—the ones of national identity, and the already-not yet existential struggle.

In order to augment Badiou’s concept of universal subject, a few recent publications do a more careful exegetical survey of Paul and the continental discourse. Douglas Harink’s edited volume entitled Paul, Philosophy, and the Theopolitical Vision incorporates the insights of Žižek, Badiou, Agamben and Benjamin in a thoughtful integrated fashion. Paul’s universal vision does not trump the particularities of ethnicity or transcend the existential struggle; rather these scholars deal with the Pauline ambiguities of nation, race and identity in total.

Another of Douglas Harink’s work, entitled Paul among the Postliberals: Pauline Theology beyond Christendom and Modernity, poses similar ambiguities to a different type of postliberal scholarship. Harink employs his position within the ‘new perspective’ of Pauline studies in order to encourage conversation between the work of Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder and the Apostle Paul. Harink carefully develops the particulars of faith with new perspective clarity, maintaining the specificity of call and biblical witness in contrast to the universalist gloss of Badiou.

In his 2006 publication entitled Reading Derrida/Thinking Paul: On Justice, author Theodore Jennings underscores the subtle but obvious connection of Derrida and Paul on the level of justice. A Derridean re-reading of Paul allows us reflection on key Derridean concepts like law, gift, debt, cosmopolitanism and grace (Jennings 2006: 2). Jennings’s generous reading is based on the notion of righteousness-as-justice, and this Pauline perspective is naturally socio-political. Jennings (like Badiou and Žižek) advocates a Paul that cannot be contained to a ghetto of the private, metaphysical spheres, but rather discussions of righteousness-as-justice are always with immediate political consequence.

Another moderately helpful synthesis of continental philosophy and Pauline logic, Herman Waetjen’s commentary, The Letter to the Romans: Salvation as Justice and the Deconstruction of the Law, is the first of its kind—continental philosophical engagement in commentary form. Waetjen suggests Paul’s letter to the Romans conveys a fundamental deconstruction of the law, not only the law at Sinai, but all law (Waetjen 2011: 11). He argues:

There is no evidence that his rejection of works of the law was restricted to circumcision, food laws, and feast days…the law is essentially punitive and violent…and the reality of baptism terminates submission to the law (Waetjen 2011: 13; italics added).

Subsequently, in charging all under the reign of sin, Paul naturally implicates the high placed authorities of Roman government and their surrogate rulers. According to Waetjen, Paul (like Derrida, or Derrida, like Paul) introduces an obligation beyond the economy of debt and exchange, a new criteria of reversal extended to those who suffer under marginalization and injustice.

While a helpful attempt at combining the standard ‘commentary’ genre of biblical criticism and creative deconstructionist theory, I find this work tilted heavily towards the biblical critic. In a book that claims Derridean ‘deconstruction’, the references to Derrida are brief and underdeveloped (in a 386 page monograph claiming ‘deconstruction’, Derrida is only mentioned four times). This reveals an interesting phenomenon, a potential trend towards adopting the language of post-structuralist discourse without exactly doing post-structuralist criticism—but you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

With renewed interest in St. Paul, the discourse of Paul and continental philosophy is stimulating new questions regarding the universality of truth-events, and offers a way forward in the philosophical discussion of truth beyond post-modern liberalism. Make no mistake—this is an exciting discursive phenomenon. However, as this discourse continues to develop, Žižek, Badiou, and the rest of us will need to take the tough medicine of historical-critical Pauline scholarship in order to develop a more grounded, particular, universal Pauline vision.

Paul and Empire

As another alternative discourse within contemporary Pauline studies, the discussion of Paul’s own relationship to Greco-Roman authority is an important and emerging area of study. In a culture in which revolution has become ‘en vogue’, the popularity of this discipline should come as no surprise. Revolutionary images and ideals are currently used to sell anything from cell phone plans to chicken tacos, so the economic potential of a Pauline anti-Imperial ethic might just make good publishing sense.

Kidding aside, crucial work in the field of post-colonial biblical studies has engendered an exciting, vibrant, anti-colonial discourse based on the work and imagery of early Pauline material. Post-colonial biblical studies takes seriously the imposition of imperial thought on the religious imagination, and underscores the value of Christian anti-imperial dispositions in support of marginalized, oppressed populations (see Said, Orientalism and Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak?). This discourse manipulates structuralist categories of centre-periphery, while employing the tactics of rhetorical analysis to read between the lines of power and culture in order to articulate an authentic Pauline subversion.

As an introduction to post-colonial criticism and Pauline studies, the first major work by Neil Elliott, Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle, provides a thoughtful post-colonial perspective on the alternative politics of Paul and early Christian self-organization. Elliott will go to great lengths in order to show how an a-political Paul engendered by Luther and others has predominated the Pauline interpretive scene. A re-analysis of Paul on the basis of subversive anti-imperial imagery like the cross of Christ reveals a Paul who was/is intensely related to political interests (Elliott 1994: 94). The brutal fact of the cross as an instrument of imperial terror, and Paul’s allegiance to a cruciform existence, eschews more sentimental, a-political introspections.

Drawing on the work of Elliott, the discourse of Paul and Empire is now typified by two foundational scholarly contributions. The first, an edited volume by Richard Horsley, Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society, charts a wholly new direction of work in Pauline studies at the time. Drawing on the success of his previous post-colonial endeavours, namely Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, Horsley organizes a successful collection of essays related to Paul and his emerging anti-imperial Christian ethic.

In his contribution, entitled ‘1 Corinthians: A Case Study of Paul’s Assembly as an Alternative Society’, Horsley articulates the early Corinthian community as:

A nascent social movement comprised of a network of small, private cell groups spreading out from Corinth into other smaller villages (Horsley 1997: 245).

As an emerging social movement, ethical purity and group decisions led to an alternative framework from that of the injustices of the dominant society (Horsley 1997: 246). For Horsley, the alternative Christian ethic engendered innovative internal ritual decisions, a novel approach to sexual, dietary and ritual religious purity. Furthermore, the paradigmatic example of Christ crucified entailed a complete rejection of patronage, subverting the logic of Empire through egalitarian collection of finances and alternative social practices (Horsley 1997: 246).

In another essay within this edited volume entitled ‘The Anti-Imperial Message of the Cross’, Horsley’s partner in crime Neil Elliott discusses the symbolic anti-Imperial significance of cruciform ethics and Christian ritual behaviour. Elliott suggests that the cross, as a symbolic imperial tool of terror, makes large-scale social control possible among the lower classes and non-citizens. Pauline logic implicates the ‘rulers of this age’ as hostile to the plans of God, while the cross event overthrows, exposes and unmasks the illegitimacy of this imperial terror. According to Elliott, Pauline indictment of authority goes beyond Pilate and the trial to include every principality that stands hostile to God, a God who seeks to bring this Imperial violent scheme to an end. Thus, Paul does not speak about the rehabilitation of powers, but their utter destruction. Elliott concludes the article suggesting early Christian ‘living in the Spirit’ is to live in sympathy and subversive solidarity with an oppressed creation (Rom. 8.22-23), an emancipation the resurrection of Jesus points towards, but that is not yet accomplished (Elliott 1997: 191).

Horsley’s collection of essays in Paul and Empire articulates clearly the post-colonial biblical position, and the possible antagonistic relationship between Paul, Early Christianity, and its Empire. This particular effort has engendered an intriguing hermeneutic that by necessity must take note of first-century historical questions, the symbolic effect of Imperial ritual, and the alternative nature of early Christian self-organization. In articulating a history of subversion and struggle, Paul and Empire does not offer a cheap revolution—it takes seriously the subversive effect of Christian symbolism within a particular social context of oppression, while offering a continued mandate for contemporary revolutionary wisdoms.

As a follow-up to the successful Paul and Empire, Richard Horsley offers a second, more inclusive discussion of Pauline anti-Imperial logic in Paul and Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation. This edited volume seeks to be in greater conversation with the various Pauline discourses, while continuing to identify various anti-Imperial Pauline themes within the Pauline corpus.

In his essay ‘Krister Stendahl’s Challenge to Pauline Studies’, Richard Horsley chooses to apply his particular post-colonial hermeneutic within the discourse of the new perspective. Horsley suggests the process of decolonization is currently needed in Pauline studies, allowing for the voice and interests of Other to speak against the hegemony of white male European criticism (Horsley 2000: 12). In combining his post-colonial hermeneutic with Stendahl’s and his landmark essay ‘The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West’, Horsley suggests post-colonial criticism, like Stendahl, encourages others to see the great difference of setting, thought and argument between the various Pauline epistles (Horsley 2000: 3). It is only the hegemony of western Christian theological interpretations of Paul that make his message irrelevant to the liberation movement and concrete social change. Essentially, Horsley blames ‘old perspectives’ for the continued irrelevance of Pauline studies, a perspective that continues to remain in its own private apolitical world (Horsley 2000: 13).

Again, in Paul and Politics, Horsley’s bold provocations are echoed by Neil Elliott’s follow-up essay ‘Paul and the Politics of Empire: Prospects and Problems’, a near mimetic of Horsley’s introductory challenge, with similar polemical aims and strategies. Employing the post-colonial logic of Edward Said, Elliott suggests most contemporary Pauline studies has become a ‘cultural colony of Europe’ in its preoccupation with a theological agenda inherited from the Reformation (Elliott 2000: 22). In order to avoid simplistic over-generalizations, Elliott argues that we should not look for a Paul who is clearly ‘pro-Roman’ or ‘anti-Roman’, but for more tenuously, situationally determined traces of Paul’s response to the pressures of Romanization (Elliott 2000: 33). Elliott reminds his readers that Paul’s letters are written against and in response to Roman Imperial propaganda; the conception of an emerging golden age of Empire produced a symbolic hegemony of rhetorical strategies and conformity. It is within this context that nascent Christianity articulated its subversive, anti-Imperial logic.

While we will discuss her prolific work later, it is worth noting Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza’s helpful essay in this edited volume, ‘Paul and the Politics of Interpretation’. Schüssler-Fiorenza warns against a negative legacy of ‘othering’ in Pauline biblical studies, the relationships of ruling through naturalized differences that legitimize ideological dualisms like gender (Schüssler-Fiorenza 2000: 45). Schüssler-Fiorenza recognizes a Pauline rhetoric of naturalized gender, maintaining his own authority through othering, censure, exclusions and vilification. In this sense, Paul looks very much like the type of Imperial discourse he seems to want to contradict.

The inclusion of Schüssler-Fiorenza is a critical addition to the sometimes rose-coloured interpretations of Elliott and Horsley in Paul and Politics. In general, as a double collection of essays, both Paul and Empire and Paul and Politics sufficiently ground the post-colonial discourse within the Pauline historical context. However, both Elliott and Horsley heavily rely on the purity of early Christian practice, an authentic core of egalitarian traditions and symbols which would eventually be corrupted by subsequent Imperial control. I question this notion of Pauline anti-Imperial original purity, and consider—like Schüssler-Fiorenza—a more complex, hierarchical structure endemic to its most primitive gatherings and rituals.

Although both Paul and Empire and Paul and Politics offer fresh, legitimate insights into the anti-Imperial nature of Pauline thought and praxis, perhaps biblical studies needs a contrasting voice to that of Horsley and Elliott. If this is the case, a more recent monograph Christ and Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Times might articulate the complexities of the situation to a greater degree.

In this book, author Joerg Rieger draws on the anti-Imperial insights of Horsley and Elliott, but refuses to frame subsequent Pauline interpretation as an absolute hostile conspiracy. Rieger will agree with Horsley and Elliott, namely that ‘In the long history of effects, the challenges that Paul poses to the Empire have been often ignored if not repressed’; however, in his more thorough analysis, Rieger (unlike Horsley and Elliott) articulates how exactly this happened (Rieger 2007: 23). Rieger’s bold work takes seriously the greater trajectory of Pauline theological thought, on the basis of its effect both for, and against, Imperialist logic. From the perspective of Rieger, Paul is both friend and foe to Empire—a critical stumbling block to Roman hegemony, yet fuel for the Constantinian fire.

A final book worthy of serious consideration within the Paul and Empire debate, Crossan and Reed’s publication In Search of Paul: How Jesus’ Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom is an excellent survey of both ancient literary references and archaeological evidence. Crossan and Reed suggest the Pauline depiction of Jesus as ‘Son of God’ can only be read in reference to common Imperial claims of divinity. Additionally, Crossan and Reed argue the early Christian self-understanding as ‘kingdom of God’ is directly political, and thus evidence for early antagonism between the Jesus movement and Roman authorities. Like N.T. Wright, In Search of Paul agrees that to affirm the Lordship of Christ is a treasonous act of Imperial sedition, and the use of divine language a part of competing totalizing narratives. A little heavy on the archaeology, In Search of Paul is still a fundamental piece to the Paul and Empire discussion.

The discourse of Paul and Empire typifies a more general concern of post-colonial scholarship to peel back the layers in order to identify the ‘other side’ of Imperial rhetoric. This notion identifies exactly how and why the earliest Jesus followers endured both state and social persecution with such nobility and frequency, and makes greater sense of the threatening nature of Christian symbolism itself. While I hesitate to accept the popular notion of early Christian original egalitarian purity proposed by Elliott and Horsley, I welcome the suggestion that early Christian imitation of a crucified Christ, in real and symbolic terms, would (and should) always pose a threat to Imperial hubris.

Paul and Ecology

As another exciting, alternative field in Pauline studies, Paul’s relationship to ecology is developing interest from a wide variety of scholars and perspectives. Perhaps, as Pauline scholarship seeks continued relevance, increased contribution in this field will make for an interesting dialogue quite quickly. Unlike some of the other areas mentioned above and below, the Paul and Ecology debate is driven by the perception of contemporary crisis—how does the biblical text speak to impending environmental disaster?

A key text in this emerging debate includes the work of David Horrell, Cherryl Hunt and Christopher Southgate, entitled Greening Paul: Rereading the Apostle in a Time of Ecological Crisis. Utilizing a ‘feminist reading strategy of recovery’, the book aims to show how certain texts affirm an ecotheological order, an order that has remained hidden and implicit (Horrell, Hunt and Southgate 2010: 14). In general the book is an apologetic response to the accusation of Christian ecological tyranny, an attack best articulated in Lyn Whites’s now famous article ‘The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis’.

The criticism landed by White and others points to the anthropocentric nature of Christianity itself; the Christian worldview promotes ecological dominance as part of a totalizing narrative of subjugation. Their concerns include—but are not limited to—the creation stories of Genesis 1 and 2, biblical eschatology, and its emphasis on global catastrophe (2 Pet. 3.10-13). The authors of Greening Paul take this criticism seriously, but value the Pauline approach to cosmic renewal.

In Greening Paul, certain texts provide an alternative reconstruction of the Pauline cosmological position; in particular these three passages are often used to affirm Paul’s ecotheological ethic:

Horrell, Hunt and Southgate suggest the above passages represent a coherent Pauline narrative of creation, a story of salvation that includes the whole of creation, not just its human elements (Horrell, Hunt and Southgate 2010: 217). This particular biblical picture is noticeably not one of destruction and displacement, but rather one of significant transformation and global continuity. Specifically, the images within Romans 8 lend themselves well to the notions of evolutionary science; the motif of the reconciliation of the cosmos stands as a critical insight to Pauline cosmic theology (Horrell, Hunt and Southgate 2010: 218). The work concludes with a fruitful discussion of Pauline ‘in Christ’ statements, and its potential relationship to ecological stewardship.

Two other fine works have made use of Romans 8 and Colossians 1 towards an ecotheological ethic, both found in an interesting edited volume entitled Ecological Hermeneutics: Biblical, Historical and Theological Perspectives.

In his essay entitled ‘An Ecological Reading of Rom. 8.19-22’, Brendan Byrne recognizes the difficulty of asking so much of a small passage like Rom. 8.19-22. Are we pushing it beyond Paul’s main concern? While the Pauline letter might have a greater emphasis on themes like salvation and election, Byrne engenders a new approach to understanding the cosmic significance of Pauline thought. For Byrne then, as creation groans in hopeful expectation, it mimics, and is bound by, the existential wavering between aeons. In this sense, contemporary environmental degradation reflects a cosmic ‘creation in futility’ where God remains the chief agent of emancipation.

In her helpful article ‘Hellenistic Cosmology and the Letter to the Corinthians: Towards an Ecological Hermeneutic’, Vicky Balabanski investigates the alternative cosmological structure of Colossians, when compared to the cosmological structure of Romans and authentic Pauline material. Stoic cosmological elements, including Christ as the primary ‘logic, cause and telos of the visible and invisible cosmos’, provide an interesting, realized cosmology of philosophical synergism and oriental astrology (Balabanski 2010: 100). When compared to Plato’s Timaeus, and middle platonic thought, the cosmology of Colossians represents similar Stoic emphasis on a unified cosmological rationale. What we begin to see is a (pseudo?) Pauline shift from eschatology to cosmology. Balabanski notes, if one holds to this cosmic christology, the fabric of the material world cannot be viewed as spiritually irrelevant; all things cosmological are connected in origin, purpose, and eventual reconciliation (Balabanski 2010: 104).

In my opinion, both Greening Paul and Ecological Hermeneutics represent an interesting way forward in the discussion of Paul and ecology, and Christian ecological positions in general. They cause us to pause regarding the global implications of our eschatology, and evaluate biblical texts with a hermeneutic of global sustainability. Unfortunately, as I will explain below, I question the quasi-feminist notion of reading recovery—that hidden under the layers of false ecclesial tradition exists a pure ecological basis for Christian ecology.

Furthermore, as articulated best by Slavoj Žižek, the politics of ecological disaster can be a part of a greater culture of ideological violence and green capitalism (Žižek 2008: 41). Ecology has assumed the role of god/God, the voice that dictates moral choice, what to consume, how much, where and with whom. The threat of ecological disaster provides a new consumer apocalyptic ‘consciousness’ that weighs behaviour on the basis of ecological cause and effect. I often wonder what role Christian ecological literature plays within a hyper-culture of ecological disaster? Particularly, how does all this Eco-God talk further the agenda of green capitalism?

Paul and Gender

Like the hermeneutics of ecotheology, most feminist reconstructions of primitive Christian origins must rely on suppressed notions of early Christian egalitarian virtue. In her landmark publication, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins, Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza advocates a reading against the text, drawing meaning from silence and suppressed feminine voice in early ekklesia:

If a feminist reconstruction of history can no longer take patriarchal texts at face value but must critically interpret them in a feminist perspective, the notion of history as ‘what actually has happened’ becomes problematic (Schüssler-Fiorenza 1983: 68).

In Memory of Her articulates an alternative early Christian egalitarianism element, an increased institutional role for women as prophets and priestesses. Early gnostic influence or ‘spirit-enthusiasts’ blurred distinctions between gender, and were Paul’s chief opponents in the polemic of 1 Corinthians. For Schüssler-Fiorenza, the inscribed politics of ‘othering’ is a negative legacy of Paul, a quelling of an authentic egalitarian voice of Spirit-Christians. In Memory of Her engenders foundational insights into the connection between Paul and gender identification, and questions a common patriarchal interpretation of early Christian origins. As an exercise in the hermeneutic of suspicion, In Memory of Her succeeds in articulating a lost female voice, a first of its kind in feminist biblical hermeneutics.

A second notable publication entitled The Corinthian Women Prophets is a more contextual, restricted application of the feminist reconstruction. In this helpful book, author Antoinette Clark-Wire reconstructs specifically the conflict of women prophets in the book of 1 Corinthians. Clark-Wire takes seriously the ancient study of rhetoric (as the art of persuasion) and its ability to conceal/infer a particular audience. Such a rhetorical reconstruction identifies the other side of the argument, and in 1 Corinthians the breakdown of rank and privilege makes this hidden conversation partner a bit more plain. In advocating believers to ‘remain in the situation they were called’, Paul seeks to establish strict group boundaries and secure discipline among a heterogeneous blend of gnostic women, Spirit-Christians and Jewish believers (Clark-Wire 1990: 192). Clark-Wire’s work relies heavily on Mary Douglas’s model of group-grid classifications, and successfully identifies the ‘other side’ of Paul’s rhetorical polemic.

Another stimulating analysis of Pauline gender scholarship, Beverly Gaventa’s Our Mother Saint Paul, highlights the importance of maternal imagery implied in Paul’s self-presentation of his gospel. While we might be familiar with the popular perception of Paul as misogynist and social conservative, his numerous references to birth metaphors, labour and nursing might just balance out his more obvious paternal inclinations. For Gaventa, Paul’s use of maternal imagery ‘re-arranges the furniture of the mind’, and promotes the potentially shameful connections of a female-identified male (Gaventa 2007: 14). Birth metaphors including 1 Thess. 2.7, Gal. 1.15, 1 Cor. 3.1-2 and Rom. 8.22 are consistently used alongside paternal metaphors to suggest a sustaining, nurturing effect of Pauline missionary care. I prefer Gaventa’s analysis compared to Schüssler-Fiorenza and Clark-Wire—Gaventa argues from the evidence that is available, and does not have to rely on historical reconstructions.

As an alternative to the standard Christian baptism of Pauline patriarchal text (or, the treasure hunt for a hidden egalitarian ethics), the Marxist-feminist reading of Paul has less theological burden to bear, and might do a better job of calling a spade a spade. The Marxist-feminist position takes seriously the human control of meaning and labour within a complex economic and social matrix (Ǿklund and Boer 2008a: 2).

In his essay entitled ‘Julia Kristeva, Marx and the Singularity of Paul’, Roland Boer is critical of Kristeva and a heritage of biblical scholarship that, in general, tries to ‘make you feel good about what you are reading’, and so detoxify the Apostle Paul (Boer 2008: 207). Since Roman political language permeates the discourse of the new ekklesia, how revolutionary can Christian symbolism be? In Kristeva’s psychoanalytic interpretation of Paul, the relationship between a variety of neuroses (including fantasy, death drive, narcissism, oral sadism and masochism) are overcome in the crucified pathologies of the Pauline Christ-event. In the psychoanalytic analysis of neuroses, however, Boer notes Kristeva’s omission of psychosis as a legitimate trauma to be overcome (Boer 2008: 212). Boer will highlight the reality of psychosis and its relationship to the ritual re-enactment of the Christ-event in early Christian ritual. In baptism, the Pauline communities re-enact the trauma of the Christ passion, and so overcome the psychotic estrangement of loss and absence (Boer 2008: 214). As a community which re-enacts the trauma, this ritual engenders an original collective and transformed society—the ekklesia embodies the Marxist collective spirit.

Like Roland Boer, feminist critic Jorunn Ǿklund is critical of positivist interpretations of Paul and gender—aspects of Pauline language might never have the emancipatory potential we seek to give it. In her essay ‘Textual Reproduction as Surplus Value: Paul on Pleasing Christ and Spouses, in Light of Simone De Beauvoir’, Ǿklund highlights the general tone of Pauline letters as a ‘male to male’ discourse (Ǿklund 2008b: 184). For Ǿklund, the injunction for women to ‘remain in their position’ has terrible consequences for the emancipation of women and subsequent class struggle in general. Specifically, Ǿklund highlights the discussion of preferred celibacy in 1 Corinthians 7 and its relation to labour—for whom do you toil, the Lord or your Mate? Who merits your surplus labour?

Given the difficulties of reading modern notions of equality into an ancient patriarchal context, feminist scholarship must work a little harder, dig a little deeper, to get the same result. While I applaud the foundational work of Schüssler-Fiorenza and Clark-Wire, I must admit some hesitancy towards the feminist reconstruction in general. Its fantastic assumptions of corrupted original purity sound too much like Da Vinci Code conspiracy theory, and while it might not fill the shelves at Chapters bookstores, Gaventa’s honest assessment of actual Pauline material plots a more realistic picture of Pauline gender identifications.

Paul and the Social Sciences

A helpful introductory article to the various issues and sub-disciplines related to Paul and the social sciences is David Horrell’s article ‘Social Sciences Studying Formative Christian Phenomena: A Creative Moment’. This article, situated within the encyclopaedic Handbook of Early Christianity: Social Science Approaches, defines social-scientific methodology as one that analyses the social and cultural dimensions of the text and its environment, and is a component of the historical-critical method (Horrell 2002: 3). As a helpful heuristic tool, Horrell organizes the discipline into three main categories:

Horrell’s article is an excellent primer for the discussion, and shows the relevance of the social sciences to Pauline studies since the 1970s.

A major work within the Context group, Bruce Malina’s groundbreaking book The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology offers a general overview of the Mediterranean world of nascent Christianity. In order to displace anachronism, Malina highlights the contextual realities of honour/shame, individual/group and fictive kinship within early Pauline communities. Malina’s book emphasizes a more strict social-scientific approach and language, incorporating social-scientific grid analysis and purity language into his exegesis. The Context group, which meets annually to ‘discuss their individual and collaborative work’, is also represented in the scholarship of Jerome Neyrey, Philip Esler and Richard Rohrbaugh.

More key contributions to the study of early Pauline group organizations are perhaps offered through the social-historical perspective, represented chiefly by the scholarship of Wayne Meeks and Gerd Theissen.

Wayne Meeks’s The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul set the gold standard for emerging Pauline social-scientific analysis in the 1980s. Meeks’s work was the first of its kind to analyse the social function and formation of the early Christian ‘ekklesia’ in a Greco-Roman culture quite familiar with that particular social model. Meeks offers helpful cultural analogies to understand primitive Pauline group formation, that early ekklesia could be compared to:

In The First Urban Christians, Meeks suggests the original Pauline communities were comprised of mixed social strata, and ‘the extreme top and bottom of the Greco-Roman social scale are missing from the picture’ (Meeks 2003: 73). Meeks identifies a paucity of early Christian elites, while at the same time there seems to be very little mention of Christ-followers who lived at the subsistence level. With this type of analysis, Meeks’s The First Urban Christians has spawned numerous critique, yet this remains a fundamental text within Pauline social-scientific criticism.

In response to Meeks’s mixed social strata, Justin Meggitt offers an alternative critique of Pauline socio-economic positions. In his response to Meeks, entitled Paul, Poverty and Survival, Meggitt argues against the notion of early Christian elite status, and that, instead, most of primitive Christianity existed below the subsistence level.

In another interesting response to Meeks, Dale B. Martin in Slavery as Salvation takes seriously Paul’s self-identification with slavery and the complexity of the institution itself in late antiquity. Beginning with the rather obvious question—why would anybody want to be called a slave of Christ?—Martin highlights the ambiguity of slave status in the Greco-Roman world and its value as an early Christian metaphor. How would Paul’s self-reference as mid-level, managerial slave be received by the early congregations? Is this the best way to solve the internal conflicts of 1 Corinthians? Martin suggests Paul’s reference to ‘slavery to Christ’ did not always connote humility, but rather established his authority as Christ’s agent and spokesperson. Paul took up the slavery motif and so identified himself with the lower classes, becoming a virtual ‘patron of the patron-less’ (Martin 1990: 148-49).

As a more formal response to Meeks’s The First Urban Christians, the edited volume After the First Urban Christians: The Social-Scientific Study of Pauline Christianity Twenty-Five Years Later evaluates the span of literature produced in the wake of Meeks’s landmark analysis.

Todd Still’s article entitled ‘Organizational Structures and Relational Struggles among the Saints’ evaluates Meeks on the basis of early Christian authority. How does Pauline terminology like ‘brothers and sisters’ function on the level of authority and conformity? What are the occasions for Pauline use of ‘Apostle’? What are the warrants for Pauline authority? Todd Still agrees with Meeks, articulating six specific warrants for enjoining obedience to Paul in his letters:

In another article within the edited volume After the First Urban Christians, Edward Adams suggests a renewed look at the social function of Meeks’s comparative models of early ekklesia. In ‘First-Century Models for Paul’s Churches: Selected Scholarly Developments since Meeks’, Adams seeks a renewal of interest in these early Christian organizational analogies. Specifically, Adams is critical of Richard Ascough and John Kloppenborg’s analysis of Greco-Roman voluntary associations or collegia, and instead offers a fresh look at Greco-Roman philosophical schools as an interesting primitive analogy for early Christian self-understanding (Adams 2009: 70).

In his contribution to the re-analysis of Meeks, Dale B. Martin identifies how the early followers of Jesus and Paul related religious belief to their social situation and experiences. His essay ‘Patterns of Belief and Patterns of Life: Correlations in The First Urban Christians and Since’ underlines the rather obvious notion that all relational aspects of life—sexuality, finances, family, politics—come under the purview of group identity, and marks a belief in a God who is active in the affairs of the early Pauline world (Martin 2009: 118). Meeks (and Martin), as examples of structuralist social-scientific thought, recognize the correlations between structures and systems of meaning, ritual etc., and help us to understand the complexities of early Christian group identity.

Another critical analysis of the field of early Christian social history, Gerd Theissen’s Social Reality and the Early Christians, charts an early radical egalitarian ethic with itinerant spatial strategies. Such ‘wandering radicals’ emphasized a developing oral tradition of Jesus’ teaching, were most likely homeless, practised sexual asceticism, and rejected common views of household relationships (Theissen 1992: 38). According to Theissen, this radical itinerant method would eventually be replaced by a more institutionally viable ‘love patriarchy’, which made it possible for the Christian faith to become a practical form of living for men and women in general within Pauline churches.

Finally, in contrast to Gerd Theissen’s conception of love patriarchy, Kathy Ehrensperger’s Paul and the Dynamics of Power discusses the alternative, mutual obligations of grace and its relationship to Pauline perspectives on power. Instead of circumscribing power from above, Paul establishes loose networks of power relations, and complex webs of interdependence with transformative power. The use of Pauline terminologies like ‘co-workers’, and the fictive kinship of ‘brother/sister’, establish themes of mutuality and co-dependence and are the terms most frequently used by Paul within his web of interdependence (Ehrensperger 2007: 47). This is an interesting re-appraisal of Pauline ‘power’ terminology, and is of intense relevance within the scholarly discussion of Pauline Christianity.

This is but a small glimpse of the great work that has been accomplished in the field of Paul and the social sciences. The increased scholarly interest in the sociology of early Christian group formation has the potential to refine analysis of the twenty-first-century exegete, and forces us to deal with what is altogether an alternative culture, practices, and lifestyle. What makes our first century such a popular topic of inquiry? Why pool our intellectual resources into such a small arena? The obvious popularity of social-scientific analysis of first-century documents is always a question of emphasis, and makes me think the social-scientific discourse is much more than just science.

Concluding Remarks and Comments

As stated above, the types of things we choose to emphasize, and what we ignore, are a ‘tip of the cap’ to our interests in general. The various hermeneutical positions within biblical scholarship means we must choose to develop particular interests within particular parameters—we cannot be experts in everything. This summative exercise has sought to highlight five key areas of Pauline discourse:

The selection of these topics, and not others, serves my scholarly interest in general, while concomitantly articulating a continued relevance in these alternative fields, and the heterogeneous zones where they might converge. How and why that convergence happens is completely dependent on the interpreter—yet I trust this synthesizing effect bears fruit.

As a result of this interpretive exercise, one looming hesitation remains. While I certainly appreciate the post-colonial, feminist and ecological re-reading against the grain, I am afraid that such readings rely too heavily on a false ‘original purity’ of primitive Christian origins. The logic of reconstruction implies a certain docetism, namely that human organizational strategies are always a corrupting one, and that underneath the appearance of institutional domination and hegemony lies a pure Christian ethic of blissful togetherness. Reconstructions that function on the notion of original primitive purity are virginal narratives—relying on an origin ‘in abstraction’ from the frail contingencies of human interactions and complex power struggles. A less idealistic reading strategy might reject this as fantasy, and develop reading strategies that take seriously the human complexities of power ‘in the beginning’.