As someone who is concerned with the New Testament's reading of "empire", this book captivates my attention. That's because his reading is somewhat at odds with the way in which I've learnt to read the New Testament. According to Rowe, the consensus view among the scholars mitigates against reading the bible as an anti-Empire polemic. Consensus views in NT scholarship don't end up being consensus views for no reason. There is something in the book of Acts that anti-Empire Christians need to wrestle with. Rowe's World Upside Down will help you do that.
So what is this consensus view?
The consensus view is that Luke wrote Acts to calm the fears of the Roman empire -- onlooking Roman neighbors and the Roman state -- as the Jesus movement spread and grew more numerous. Wary of a violent backlash, and perhaps in the beginning throes of it, Luke pens a narrative to show that the Empire has nothing to fear from Jesus and his followers. Acts is a letter to Rome that basically reads, "Dear Empire, you have nothing to worry about". King Jesus is not a rival for Caesar's throne. To quote Rowe:
Without question, the dominant trend in NT scholarship has been to read Acts as a document that argues for the political possibility of harmonious, coeval existence between Rome and the early Christian movement.If you read the Bible (at least partially) as an anti-Empire polemic and say things like "Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not" -- in other words, if you read the Bible as I do -- then this consensus view is worrisome. Does the state have nothing to fear from King Jesus? Is Christianity politically innocuous and inoffensive? Is that what Luke was trying to say in the book of Acts?
To evaluate this reading of Acts we need to look at the evidence that supports the consensus view. To begin: Why is it argued that Luke was seeking to show that the Jesus movement was politically inoffensive to the Roman Empire? Beyond Luke/Acts having a generally favorable take on Roman centurions (cf. Luke 7.1-10, 23.47; Acts 10), it mainly has to do with the final chapters of Acts.
After his arrest in Jerusalem in Acts 21 the narrative parades Paul before a series of Roman officials who offer official Roman assessments of the Jesus movement. It starts with Claudius Lysias (Acts 23), goes to Felix (Acts 24), and then to Festus (Acts 25). We could also include Agrippa (Acts 26) as a Roman surrogate.
And as Paul makes appearances before these Roman officials what is the assessment of Imperial Rome regarding the Jesus movement? Summarizing their verdicts:
Claudius Lysias (Acts 23.29):
"I found that the accusation had to do with questions about their law, but there was no charge against him that deserved death or imprisonment."
Festus (Acts 25.25):
"I found he had done nothing deserving of death, but because he made his appeal to the Emperor I decided to send him to Rome."
Agrippa (Acts 26.31-32):Felix doesn't offer a summary judgement, but it's clear from Acts 24.22-27 that he's in agreement with these other assessments. In short, Rome has nothing to politically fear from the Jesus movement. This conclusion is supported by Paul's own words regarding the relationship between Jesus and Caesar:
After they left the room, they began saying to one another, "This man is not doing anything that deserves death or imprisonment." Agrippa said to Festus, "This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar."
Paul (Acts 25.8):
Then Paul made his defense: "I have done nothing wrong against the Jewish law or against the temple or against Caesar."
Based on this evidence -- that in the book of Acts the Christian movement is repeatedly vindicated in the eyes of Imperial Rome -- it is argued that Luke is wanting to show that the Jesus movement is politically inoffensive and innocuous. It is argued that Luke is wanting to show how confessing "Jesus as Lord" poses no political threat to Caesar.
So that's a sketch of the consensus view. But is it correct? Is it too simplistic a political reading of Acts? Is it missing something?
As Rowe points out in World Upside Down, the political story told in Acts is a bit more complex. While it is true that Paul is vindicated by Imperial Roman officials, it's also true that wherever the gospel spreads in the book of Acts there is violent social upheaval, much of it centered on economics. In these texts the gospel isn't politically neutral but observed to be highly disruptive, something that, well, something that turns the world upside down.
To illustrate this upheaval, Rowe works through a series of collisions in the book of Acts, locations where the gospel crashes into the pagan culture. In each case we see a conflict between the Jesus movement and the culture of pagan idol worship. But before we go on, a clarification is in order regarding idolatry.
The issue here isn't just about religious observance. Idolatry was an entire way of life. It was a cultural worldview that sat at the foundation of social life -- morally, socially, politically, and economically. Leaving idol worship wasn't just a matter of changing where and how you worshiped. It wasn't just about a change of church addresses, going to the house meeting of the Way rather than to the Temple of Zeus. In turning from pagan idolatry an entire way of life would be upended, with drastic social, economic and political consequences. As Rowe states:
The turning away [from idols] ... was not simply an epistemological act -- "knowing better," as it were. Rather, the removal from pagan religious practices, so Luke tells, was a public act with economic and political consequence. [In the story of Acts] to follow the Way is to inhabit the world in a manner fundamentally disruptive to the practices inherent to the present religious order. That such a disruption unfolds economically is but a necessary consequence of the inseparability of ancient religion from economics, or, to put it more along Luke's lines, the primacy of the identity of God for a comprehensive pattern of life.Rowe tracks the collision between these "comprehensive patterns of life" through the narrative of Acts, with particular attention to the events in Lystra, Phillipi, Athens, Thessalonica and Ephesus. The events that transpire in Philippi and Ephesus nicely illustrate of the conflation of religion/idolatry and economics.
In Acts 16.16-24 Paul performs an exorcism on a slave girl who is a soothsayer. Upon learning of the exorcism, the owners of the slave girl are thrown into a rage. Why?
When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, "These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice."
Another example comes from the riot that breaks out in Ephesus in Acts 19. Magic was big business in Ephesus. Spells, charms, amulets, statues, totems and magic scrolls were used for almost everything -- from blessing a business venture to healing disease. But as the Way established itself in the city the following happened:
When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.
That's 50,000 silver coins worth of magic stuff going up in smoke. A drachma was about a day's wage. Some historians place the value of a drachma (in current USD currency) at $41. If that's right then over two-million dollars worth of magic paraphernalia was burned in Ephesus.
A two-million dollar bonfire was bound to panic the markets, as they say. Soon after, the economic anxiety spills over into violence as a riot breaks out:
About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way.
A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said:
"You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty."
When they heard this, they were furious and began shouting: "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" Soon the whole city was in an uproar. The people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia, and all of them rushed into the theater together.In reviewing episodes like these in Acts, Rowe points out in World Upside Down that Luke seems keen to describe the social, political and economic disruption caused by the Way. Time after time in the book of Acts, when the Christians show up a riot breaks out.
Those who are eager to point out the disruptive and interruptive political implications of the Kingdom just love these stories in Acts. But it presents us with a puzzle in light of the material in Acts reviewed just a minute ago.
In short, is the Kingdom socially, politically and economically disruptive or not? Acts seems to be telling two different stories. Rowe describes the seeming paradox of the narrative as a pendulum where, depending upon the story you want to tell, you can grab material in Acts to support either view. Do you want a politically tame and accommodating Christianity? Grab the material above. Do you want a politically disruptive Christianity? Grab the other material. Rowe summarizing this pendulum swing:
What is remarkable about the exegetical basis for these diametrically opposed interpretations of Acts is that all the different texts to which appeal is made are part of the same narrative ... [This creates] something of a pendulum effect, in which the reader of the scholarly literature swings to and fro between passages of putative political innocuousness and purported social disruption.Is the Jesus movement politically innocuous or disruptive? Acts seems to argue for both. So what is going on?
Is there a better way to view the book of Acts? A way that doesn't pick and choose material from Acts but endorses the entire narrative? Phrased another way, might Luke be presenting a coherent political theology rather than a confused and paradoxical one?
Rowe contends that Acts really does want to portray the gospel as socially, economically and politically disruptive. For Rowe, the key text comes from Acts 17. According to Rowe, the events in Thessalonica are a key to Luke's political theology:
Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ." And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.
But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, "These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus."Luke really does want to say that King Jesus turns the world upside down. The Kingdom of God is socially, economically, and politically disruptive.
So then why does Luke show officials of Imperial Rome vindicating the movement of "King Jesus"?
According to Rowe, Luke is keen to ward off accusations that, in claiming Jesus to be King, that the Christians were violent insurrectionists. The gospel is socially, economically and politically disruptive -- it turns the world upside down -- but it is not calling for the violent overthrow of the government. In light of all the violent rioting caused by the spread of the gospel in the Roman world Luke, Rowe argues, was worried that Imperial Rome would get the wrong idea about what the Christians were up to. Luke wants to be clear that Christians, though proclaiming loyalty to King Jesus rather than to Caesar, were non-violent. And yet, while keen to make that claim Luke doesn't want to suggest that the gospel wasn't highly disruptive. Just the opposite in fact. Hence all the rioting in the book of Acts.
Rowe summarizing this argument:
[T]he Christian mission as narrated by Luke is not a counter-state. It does not, that is, seek to replace Rome, or to "take back" Palestine, Asia, or Achaia. To the contrary, such a construal of Christian politics is resolutely and repeatedly rejected ...
Basic, then, to Luke's portrayal of the state vis-à-vis the Christian mission is a narratively complex negotiation between the reality of the state's idolatry and blindness -- its satanic power -- and the necessity that the mission of light not be misunderstood as sedition.
The satanic nature of the state is revealed in the insanity of how Imperial Rome evaluates and then treats the Christians. As narrated by Luke, the officials of Imperial Rome repeatedly say that Paul (and the movement he represents) has done nothing "worthy of death". This is the same verdict that Pilate gives to Jesus. And yet, Rome crucifies Jesus. And the same fate will come to Paul. Thus the insanity. Though declaring the Christians innocent the Empire will still kill them. This fulfills the OT prophecy Luke quotes in Acts 4.24-26:
"Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed."
Though he is innocent, the kings of earth rage against King Jesus. And what happens to Jesus in the gospel of Luke happens to Jesus's followers in the book of Acts. As Rowe summarizes, "Christians do not deserve death and yet the gentiles rage".
And yet, isn't claiming Jesus to be King an act of treason? We recall the accusation of treason against Jesus in John 19.12, the same accusation against the Christians in Acts 17: "Everyone who claims to be a King sets himself against the Emperor". So isn't the proclamation of "King Jesus" seditious and treasonous?
According to Rowe, Luke argues both yes and no.
According to Rowe, the problem Luke discerns in the John 19.12 and Acts 17 accusations is that it makes the theological assumption that Jesus and Caesar are on an equal playing field, competitors for the same throne. But according to Luke, Jesus is "Lord of all" (Acts 10.36). Jesus is not a political rival for Caesar's throne. If so, Jesus's followers would be seeking a violent overthrow of the government. The situation is, rather, quite the opposite. The case isn't that Jesus is a rival for Caesar's throne, but that Caesar is idolatrously seeking to be Lord in the place of King Jesus. The theological problem, as Luke narrates Luke/Acts, isn't that the followers of King Jesus are seeking to place Jesus on Caesar's throne (that would be sedition) but that Caesar is usurping Jesus's throne.
The problem isn't that Christians are seditious but that Empire is idolatrous.
Rowe summarizing his argument:
... Luke's theological move requires us to reverse the customary thought patterns about Jesus and Caesar in NT scholarship ... Jesus does not challenge Caesar's status as Lord, as if Jesus were somehow originally subordinate to Caesar in the order of being. The thought -- at least in its Lukan form -- is rather much more radical and striking: because of the nature of his claims, it is Caesar who is the rival; and what he rivals is the Lordship of God in the person of Jesus Christ ...
From the perspective of the Graeco-Roman world, therefore, things are indeed upside down: Jesus's lordship is primary -- ontologically and, hence, politically -- not Caesar's.