Thursday, December 15, 2005
(9:26 AM) | Old - Doug Johnson:
Typologies of Early Christian Ultimate Allegiance
Following up on a comment I left under Adam's post below on Litigious Bloggers:A paper I wrote awhile back sparked an interest in obedience and allegiance, especially in early Christian communities. As I like to tell the story, Obedience and Allegience are inseperable. Paul's suspension of the law - and of course I mean suspension very intentionally -for missionary purposes opened up a pandora's box with respect to whom or what ultimate obedience was owed in place of Torah. Before Paul, pious people of God took it as axiomatic that a conflict between the Torah and any other authority gave cause for disobedience to the lesser authority. Ultimately, the complicated relationship between medeival church and state basically eliminated all answers that didn't run through the bishopric or the state sovereign. As has been noted, biblical authority was often appealed to against the king and church in the period intervening Nicaea and the Reformation. However, for a century and a half or more there were a plethora of options (with everyone agreeing that obedience was owed, to whom or what is the question). To name a dozen or so:
-words of Jesus
-Bishopric
-pattern of Jesus death
-state (only mentioned negatively)
-Torah (holdouts)
-Scripture (somewhat different than just Torah, could include some early N.T. writings?)
-Holy Spirit (often undefined what that would mean)
-charismatic authority (closely related to previous option)
-mutual subjection
-subjection based upon gifts of the spirit
-household structures
-natural law
-direct obedience to God
-servant leadership
