It's a pity Arendt isn't around to read this post, as I think you might soften her opinions about the anti-political nature of Christianity. (She was otherwise quite sympathetic to other aspects of it.) Your wonderful recapitulation of all these interesting theologians' work keeps reminding me how inadequate my own reading of Scripture has been. Gratitude!
Arendt's reflections on the political insights of Abraham, Jesus, Paul, and Augustine, particularly, have helped me a lot. In her thorough (and if she had lived long enough, unending) exploration of the political, she had no problem conducting raids into what we have walled off as religious. Those raids, and her occasional exasperation with another walled-off clan of institutions--the academic house of political science--give me a lot of nerve.
Like you, I've often wondered about her attribution of the "freedom from politics" to the early church and, of course, to Christianity in general. Despite her insights into the thought of religious leaders, I think in her attribution of "freedom from politics" to Christianity she was influenced more by how the Western church in general understands early Christianity than by how early Christianity understood itself. I wish she were around to have been influenced by the likes of the New Perspective on Paul movement. What fireworks that might have produced!
Indeed—and what a lively exchange that would have been. Arendt’s “raids” into theology were never mere trespass; they were acts of reclamation, recovering the political imagination within faith. You’re right that her reading of early Christianity owes more to its later institutional heirs than to its own insurgent beginnings. The New Perspective on Paul might have persuaded her that “freedom from politics” was never the Gospel’s aim, only its tragic misreading.
You make clear that Jesus’s feasting is not frivolity but theology in action—the banquet as revelation. His table dissolves the social into the political, the private into the public, the exclusive into the inclusive. He parties, as you show, because celebration itself is covenantal: an enacted critique of Hobbes’s fear and Arendt’s privatized society, and a foretaste of the Kingdom where no one dines alone. - Thanks, as always, Bryce.
It's a pity Arendt isn't around to read this post, as I think you might soften her opinions about the anti-political nature of Christianity. (She was otherwise quite sympathetic to other aspects of it.) Your wonderful recapitulation of all these interesting theologians' work keeps reminding me how inadequate my own reading of Scripture has been. Gratitude!
Arendt's reflections on the political insights of Abraham, Jesus, Paul, and Augustine, particularly, have helped me a lot. In her thorough (and if she had lived long enough, unending) exploration of the political, she had no problem conducting raids into what we have walled off as religious. Those raids, and her occasional exasperation with another walled-off clan of institutions--the academic house of political science--give me a lot of nerve.
Like you, I've often wondered about her attribution of the "freedom from politics" to the early church and, of course, to Christianity in general. Despite her insights into the thought of religious leaders, I think in her attribution of "freedom from politics" to Christianity she was influenced more by how the Western church in general understands early Christianity than by how early Christianity understood itself. I wish she were around to have been influenced by the likes of the New Perspective on Paul movement. What fireworks that might have produced!
Many thanks.
OK, now you've got me curious about the New Perspectives on Paul! For your next post...
Indeed—and what a lively exchange that would have been. Arendt’s “raids” into theology were never mere trespass; they were acts of reclamation, recovering the political imagination within faith. You’re right that her reading of early Christianity owes more to its later institutional heirs than to its own insurgent beginnings. The New Perspective on Paul might have persuaded her that “freedom from politics” was never the Gospel’s aim, only its tragic misreading.
Yes, indeed--acts of reclamation! So much injustice involves long-forgotten thefts. Reclamation, like redemption, is a kind of restorative justice!
You make clear that Jesus’s feasting is not frivolity but theology in action—the banquet as revelation. His table dissolves the social into the political, the private into the public, the exclusive into the inclusive. He parties, as you show, because celebration itself is covenantal: an enacted critique of Hobbes’s fear and Arendt’s privatized society, and a foretaste of the Kingdom where no one dines alone. - Thanks, as always, Bryce.
Your kind and gratifying note is the perfect expression of what I hoped to get across with this post as I was writing it. Thank you so much, William.
I’m really glad it came through that way—thank you.
Well said, again. !