Cross and Community: Philippians as Pauline Political Discourse
By Jeph Holloway, Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics
East Texas Baptist University, Marshall, TX

The story is told of a village in which many citizens were struck by a mysterious illness so severe that it rendered its victims in a condition indistinguishable from death. In fact, the worry arose that some might have been inadvertently buried alive. The people of the village assembled to discuss the issue. One group advocated drilling a hole in the lid of the coffin through which a pipe might be inserted leading to the surface over the grave. In case of mistaken burial, fresh air might circulate in the coffin and a revived loved one might call for help. Another group offered a different approach to the situation—affix a spike inside the lid of the coffin about chest high so that when the coffin lid is closed, any question of the person’s death would be settled. Obviously the two groups were answering two different questions concerning the same situation. The first group sought to answer the question, “How can we make sure that we do not mistakenly kill someone?” The second group sought to answer the question, “How can we make sure that the people we bury are dead?”[i]

What decisions we reach and what actions we take depend very much on what questions we ask. Of course, what questions we ask reflects our way of viewing the world and discloses what really matters to us and how we see our place in the world. What questions we pose of the Bible, for example, and what questions we think various passages in the Bible might address, too often predetermine what we might draw from our engagement with Scripture. As well, what questions we take to Scripture also says much about us.

For instance, when we raise questions about the political stance and practice of Christians, all too often our questions reflect a set of options that already predetermine what answers we might derive from Scripture and even narrow the scope of biblical materials we consider appropriate for our inquiry. For many, the primary passage for investigating the relationship between the people of God and governing authorities is Romans 13. Current research, however, suggests that an even wider array of materials in the Pauline corpus needs to be read in light of the basic issue of the political stance and practice of God’s people in the world. The Book of Philippians, for example, long considered simply a letter of thanks for the financial gift of Philippian believers to Paul, might be fruitfully engaged as a document of political discourse providing a narrative pattern disclosing a way of life for believers facing a world of competing political claims.

Several observations make such an inquiry of Philippians appropriate. First, there is the growing recognition that apolitical readings of the Bible reflect more the modernist notion of a separation of politics and religion than was conceivable in the Greco-Roman world. To say that Philippians is about religion while Plato’s Republic or Aristotle’s Politics are about civic concerns is to draw a line of distinction the ancient world would not have recognized. Whether we think the privatization of religion and its removal from the public arena is a good thing or a bad thing, it is a relatively new thing and a modern contrivance that requires the assignment of many features of Christian faith and experience to the realm of the purely personal and private. Those who decline to ask what political significance the Book of Philippians has might have located themselves in a modern arena which has predetermined the limited role Christian faith has for issues of public import.

The flip side of any recognition of a modernist split between religion and politics is recognition of the pervasive presence and influence of the Roman imperial cult in the precise area where the Apostle Paul focused his church planting efforts. New Testament scholarship of an earlier era saw emperor worship as a late development of the First Century, only becoming a significant challenge for Christians in the time frame reflected by the Book of Revelation. More recent analysis notes that the imperial cult was both a tool of political control and a vehicle of civic fealty beginning from the days of Augustus.[ii] “It is even argued, not only that imperial religion and politics are inseparable, but that the imperial cult . . . was the very form by which imperial power relations were constituted.”[iii] To refuse to inquire into the political dimensions of Paul’s letter to the Philippians is to read the letter from a different location than that of Philippian believers whose confession of Jesus as Lord placed them at considerable risk in an empire that demanded that their political loyalty find expression in the imperial cult.

Apart from wider contextual issues, explicit features of Paul’s letter to the Philippians themselves suggest that matters of imperial politics must be considered in any reading of the book.[iv] Paul writes the book from within a highly charged context in which issues of state power have come to full force. Paul is in prison under imperial guard “for the sake of Christ” (1:13). In addition, Paul indicates that the Philippians face conflict of a sort similar to his own: “the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me” (1:30). Since the only conflict the Philippian believers had both seen in Paul (when he was at Philippi, see Acts 16:19-40) and had of late heard about concerning Paul was at the hands of Roman authorities, the conflict mentioned in 1:30 likely has something to do with imperial relations. There are no indications that Philippian Christians were being imprisoned for their faith or were facing official harassment directed by Rome itself. As de Vos says, though, it is likely that they were suffering at the hands of the wider civic community due to their “withdrawal from the traditional Greco-Roman cults, especially from the Imperial cult.”[v] Because of their confession of Jesus as Lord, the Philippian believers refused to demonstrate their loyalty to Rome in the prescribed manner of Caesar worship. Such a refusal would have been seen as a threat to community well being and relations with Rome. Economic sanctions, strained social relations, and even censure from local authorities were likely consequences of the Philippian believers’ commitment to “stand firm in the Lord” (4:1; cf. 1:27) in the face of demands for social and religious conformity for the sake of civic interests.[vi]

Such a setting helps make sense of language in Philippians only rarely used by Paul. Paul begins the letter by admonishing the Philippian Christians, “Let your civic conduct (politeuesthe) be marked by your commitment to the gospel of Christ” (1:27). He signals the end of the letter by reminding his readers that their citizenship (politeuma) is in heaven from which they await “a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (3:20). The polit- word-group is used only here and one other place in the Pauline corpus (Eph. 2:19). Further, nowhere else does he bring together the explicit titles of Savior (soter) and Lord (kyrios) with reference to Jesus as Messiah (itself a title with political weight). But these terms were regularly used in the imperial cult as designations for the great benefactor of Roman order and peace—the Caesar.[vii] It is reasonable to think that Paul in Philippians is concerned that the civic stance of believers toward the wider community be characterized by a prior commitment to Jesus and the gospel. This commitment supercedes and qualifies all other claims, even and especially the claims of Caesar as displayed in the imperial cult.

Other aspects of the letter take on a different hue and tone when read in light of the assumption that Philippians is an expression of Pauline political discourse. The considerations detailed so far—suspicion of apolitical readings as anachronistic, the religious dimensions of Roman power, reference to conflict in the civic arena, and distinctive lexical features of Philippians—suggest such an assumption is appropriate. It remains to indicate how this assumption illuminates major features of the letter.

In his letter Paul calls the Philippian church to embody an explicit theo-political alternative to the larger Greco-Roman world, a world that was itself a hierarchically stratified society of patrons and clients, overseen by the divine Caesar, and ultimately secured and maintained by Rome’s power to crucify. As an alternas civitas the Philippian believers are to prove themselves to be “blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom [they] appear as lights in the world” (2:15). As lights providing a distinctive witness to the gospel, Philippian believers are to relate to one another not as superiors and subordinates, but as those united in concern for the mutual interest and well being of fellow members of the fellowship. They enjoy the presence of Christ in their midst, the Christ who’s cross symbolizes not the power to threaten and dominate, but the full measure of humble service on behalf of others and the willing renunciation of claims to status, privilege, and control (2:1-8).[viii] In this way the Philippian Christians will “work out” their salvation in fear and trembling, that is, give public expression and significance to their confession of Jesus as their exclusive Lord (2:12).

As a Roman colony Philippi likely had ample exposure to the claims of Roman poets and orators to the effect that with the spread of Roman power and control came the spread of Roman peace and prosperity. Propagandists of the empire such as Virgil, Horace, or Seneca announced to the world the advent of a new era of order, law, peace, and justice.[ix] Of course, this golden age was won at the expense of the vanquished. As Wengst says of Pax Romana, “Peace produced and maintained by military force is accompanied with streams of blood and tears of unimaginable proportions.”[x] If Roman peace came through the vehicle of Roman legions, it was often maintained through the Roman cross. Crucifixion, the “supreme Roman penalty,” was the ultimate expression of Roman power and domination, serving as “a means of waging war and securing peace, of wearing down rebellious cities under siege, of breaking the will of conquered peoples, and of bringing mutinous troops or unruly provinces under control.”[xi]

The order won through Roman power was a system through which the exchange of goods and services was regulated through an imperial network with Caesar at the top and slaves at the bottom of a pyramidal structure of asymmetrical patron/client relations. Favor and benefit, bestowed from above, were secured by knowing one’s place and by showing proper loyalty and honor to those in power. In the imperial context this meant subject people demonstrating proper honor and fidelity toward Rome so that Roman power might be directed in beneficial ways toward a community. Cities of the Roman Empire vied with one another to express their loyalty and allegiance to Rome in hopes of gaining advantages that only Caesar could bestow. The most overt and immediate way in which such loyalty could be shown was through the imperial cult. Both among “the more prominent families within particular cities and among the cities of a province, intense competition emerged to honor the emperor with festivals, temples, and monuments.”[xii] It hardly needs to be stressed that Roman benefits would not be dispersed in an equitable manner. There were winners and losers in all such transactions. Fierce competition for imperial favor meant elaborate building programs, special embassies to Rome, and a whole series of honors—temples, priests, games, statues, sacrifices, and decrees. Through these the leading citizens of a city would seek honors for themselves and enhanced status in their city by sponsoring the various mechanisms of emperor worship.[xiii]

Paul, however, is unwilling to call this Roman order secured by the cross a golden age. Christians in the Roman colony of Philippi live, he insists, “in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation” (2:14) and are called to live as witnesses to a different order, though one also shaped by the cross. Paul’s exhortation in 3:17 encapsulates the main concerns of Paul’s political discourse in Philippians. It serves as a point of entry for discussing this different order shaped by the cross of Christ: “Join together in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and observe carefully those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.”[xiv] In this summary admonition Paul draws together several of the letter’s main concerns—his concerns for the Philippian believers 1) to enjoy and show a united front as a distinctive community, 2) exhibiting in their fellowship a way of humble service supremely expressed in the cross of Christ, which 3) demands the joyful renunciation of all claims to status, prerogative, and privilege in confidence that any ultimate reward or glory rests in the hands of God.

A pervasive concern for unity among the Philippian believers marks the entire book. From the concentrated use of pas language in the introduction (1:1-8) to the explicit admonitions of 1:27-2:4 to the personal exhortations to Euodia and Synteche (4:2), Paul expresses his concern for a Christian community in which each and every member knows the encouragement, comfort, and fellowship of a people united in mind, love, spirit, and purpose. In 3:17 the hapax legomenon symmimētai—“join together in imitating”—voices again this emphasis for united effort on the part of the Philippian believers. The way of life embodied in the lives of Paul and others provides the model not just for individual believers but is the single pattern (typon) for the collective witness of the whole Christian community.

Paul’s concern for the unity of the church at Philippi certainly expresses his basic vision of the character of the church in general. But it also indicates a specific concern for how the Philippian believers respond to the conflicts between themselves and the wider civic environment occasioned by a Christian confession that entailed withdrawal from the imperial cult.[xv] The opening admonition for their civic conduct to be marked by their commitment to Christ (1:27) is coupled with the first explicit call to unity in the letter, itself couched in military language and imagery (“stand firm in one spirit, contending together for the faith of the gospel”). Paul encourages the united front as the appropriate tactical response to the opposition and enmity experienced by the Philippian believers in their relations with the wider populace of Philippi—“in no way being intimidated by those who oppose you” (1:28).

That Paul issues his call to unity (1:27; 2:1-4) in connection with his account of the conflict and opposition faced by the Philippian church (1:28-30) suggests another possible relationship between the unity of the Christian community and conflict with the wider civic environment. Such unity, securing group boundaries and fostering group identity, is certainly an appropriate response to the social displacement experienced as a consequence of disengagement with the imperial cult. But Paul’s call to unity also suggests that the initial response by the Philippian believers to the conflict occasioned by their Christian confession was disunity.[xvi] De Vos argues that various strategies had emerged among the Philippian believers for negotiating their situation. One strategy was that of an effort by some to assume the status of Jews (e.g., by becoming circumcised) so as to gain exemption from the expectation to participate in the traditional pagan religious practices such as emperor worship. Paul challenges this option in 3:2-11. Another temptation was that of continued involvement with traditional pagan religious practices with the outlook that even involvement in the imperial cult need not be seen as in conflict with Christian confession. In 3:18-20 Paul draws a clear contrast between Christ as Savior and Lord versus the bogus claims concerning Caesar and uses the sharpest invective possible (“enemies of the cross”) to describe advocates of idolatry. This option too is out of bounds for those whose “citizenship is in heaven.”

In light of competing strategies as to how to deal with conflict and opposition with the wider civic community, Philippian believers had themselves become divided. Paul’s concern for unity among believers is directed at fostering the necessary sense of community that will provide the encouragement and social identity needed in the face of external conflict; at the same time he is concerned to challenge the divisions within the Philippian church. And yet another concern also likely drives Paul’s concern for unity in the Christian fellowship at Philippi—the church’s task of bearing witness to a social order that stands in contrast to that represented by Rome. The formation of a fellowship of unity is not simply for the sake of the Philippian believers themselves, but is essential to their task of shining as lights in the world, of holding out the word of life to a crooked and perverse generation (2:14-16).

Philippian believers are to join together in displaying a model of social existence that stands in sharp contrast to the order of the dominant society in which they live. But such a model is not simply one of unity. A community can be unified in many different ways and for many different ends. The Roman Empire exhibited a unity formed through violence, threat, and idolatry for the purpose of securing the Roman vision of social order. Paul makes it clear that the key to unity for the Philippian church is a life of humble service that takes Christ’s obedience on the cross as the ultimate pattern for life. In 3:17 he speaks of one pattern that finds instantiation in several exemplars: “observe carefully those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.” While there are many exemplars—Timothy’s service on behalf of others (2:19-22) and Epaphroditus’ willingness to risk death for the sake of ministry (2:25-30)—the primary model is Christ Jesus who emptied himself and took the form of servant and humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (2:7-8).[xvii]

The Roman cross is central to the formation of the social order called for by Paul, but in a way quite different from how the cross functions for Rome. Instead of the cross as the ultimate means of safeguarding the power, status, and privilege of those benefiting from Roman patronage, the cross is the symbol of and standard for a humble outlook that prioritizes the interests of others and refuses the sense of self-importance and privilege that otherwise can create conflicts that threaten community well-being. Instead of the cross as the tool of oppression and terror that insures Roman order with the divine Caesar seated at the pinnacle of power, the cross of Christ serves as the pattern for the Christian community’s practices of service and ministry. This is the cross of the one who took the form of the slave, the one who ranks lowest in the Roman order of things. This is the cross of the one who, although he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God a means of self- aggrandizement or personal advantage.[xviii] The cross of Christ defines the character of the unity of the Christian politeuma as one sustained by loving fellowship, mutual deference, and sacrificial service. The cross of Christ defines and shapes a community of believers who are to live in sharp contrast to the Roman world and who in so doing will “appear as lights” in the midst of a “crooked and perverse generation” (2:15).

Paul asks much of the Philippian Christians. He asks that they find their social identity first and foremost not in terms of their wider civic environment, but in terms of Christian faith and fellowship. Their civic identity must be marked by their faithfulness to the gospel; their citizenship has its locus not in Rome but in heaven; their savior and lord is Jesus Christ, not Caesar. They are called to live as a distinct community marked by their common commitment to Christ and the way of the cross; and yet they live this commitment out, not in some reclusive and withdrawn manner but as lights in the world. They are “saints in Christ Jesus”—God’s holy people defined by their relationship with Christ. But they are saints in Christ Jesus “who are in Philippi” (1:1)—called to embody a way of life of overt contrast to a culture of competition, power, domination, violence and idolatry.[xix] It is no wonder that the believers at Philippi were experiencing the same sort of conflict as suffered by the Apostle Paul.

In the face of this conflict Paul calls on the Philippian believers to strengthen the bonds of Christian fellowship, to avoid any attitudes or actions that threaten the unity of the fellowship, and to display a way of life that takes the Roman cross not as the symbol of domination and control, but of humility and service. Such a way of life stands the Roman order on its head and names as its lord the Christ who embraced the cross for the sake of others, not the Caesar who wields it for the purpose of power and privilege. Clearly, for the saints in Philippi to embody this vision for the church means placing themselves at odds with a system that rewarded those who honored the Roman pattern of patronage and veneration of Caesar. The losses incurred in such a move could be considerable and it is understandable if the Philippian believers differed among themselves as to how to negotiate their situation.[xx] Yet Paul will not let the threat of loss of status, privilege, or even heritage come before the integrity of Christian confession.

In 3:17 he exhorts the Philippian believers, “Join together in imitating me.” The pattern for imitation provided by Paul is analogous to that of Timothy’s, Epaphroditus’, and especially Christ’s.[xxi] But specific features of Paul’s own experience of following Christ bear a particular significance in this setting. Paul had known status, privilege, and a worthy heritage as a Hebrew of Hebrews, as a Pharisee, and with respect to the Law. But all of this Paul counted as loss for the sake of knowing Christ Jesus (3:5-8). Whatever things had been gain to Paul he now consigns to a forgotten past and focuses instead on what lies ahead, “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (3:14). Paul’s own model is that of willing renunciation of all claims to status, prerogative, and privilege in confidence that any ultimate reward or glory rests in the hands of God.

Paul understands that confessing Christ as Lord rather than Caesar and displaying to the world a model of unity based on humility and service rather than competition for honor means the formation of a community likely to be considered subversive and a threat to the Roman order of things. It would not be long after Paul wrote Philippians that Nero would consider Christians as easy scapegoats for the burning of Rome, since Christians were of “a class hated for their abominations” and known in turn for their “hatred against mankind” (Tacitus, The Annals, 15.44). Such an account suggests wide recognition that Christians had placed some distance between themselves and the surrounding culture by their refusal to engage in the conventional practices of Greco-Roman society, including the imperial cult.[xxii] That the believers in Philippi were already experiencing the same sort of conflict as that known by Paul (1:30) suggests that they had also become known as “a class hated for their abominations” in light of a Christian confession that prohibited their involvement in everyday features of civic life.

But if such a situation accounts for the suffering and opposition experienced by the Philippian believers, it in no way permits a compromise of their Christian confession by either assuming the identity of Jews exempt from emperor worship or by participation in idolatry persuaded that there is no real harm in such. The cross of Christ is not only the measure of humble service that sustains a fellowship of unity and love, it is also the sign of renunciation of status and privilege that is concretely embodied in Paul’s own willing renunciation of his status and credentials for the sake of knowing Christ (“I regard all things to be loss”). The Philippians are to join together in imitating Paul—who imitates Christ—and maintain their loyalty and faithfulness to Christ even if it means suffering the loss of status, positions of power in the community, or even their privileges as inhabitants of a Roman colony. Scholars debate whether Paul calls for the Philippian believers to actually renounce their Roman citizenship.[xxiii] But such debate might be beside the point. Neither citizenship is anything, nor non-citizenship, but steadfast loyalty to Christ lived out in a community shaped by the narrative of Christ’s cross, even if it means suffering loss.

Whatever the consequences, “Paul is warning them not to compromise their allegiance to Jesus, and to be prepared, by refusing to take part in cultic and other activities, to follow their Messiah along the path of suffering. . . .” And yet, as 3:20-21 indicates, Paul also assures them that loyalty to Jesus is loyalty to “the one true Lord, . . . the true Savior who would rescue them and give them the only glory worth possessing.”[xxiv] Paul encourages the Philippian believers to join together in following his and Christ’s model of willing renunciation of all claims to status, prerogative, and privilege in confidence that any ultimate reward or glory rests in the hands of God.

If we read Philippians as an expression of Pauline political discourse several important observations follow. First, the point made long ago by John Howard Yoder can be affirmed and furthered: “The New Testament speaks in many ways about the problem of the state; Romans 13 is not the center of this teaching.”[xxv] Yoder also points to Revelation 13 and the Gospel of Luke as important resources to contextualize Paul’s call for “revolutionary subordination” in Romans 13. But if we have accurately detected the political character of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, then Paul himself cannot be read simply as the New Testament representative of an “ethic of subordination.”[xxvi] Rather, we must understand any Pauline ethic of subordination in light of his call for the church to embody its own socio-political alternative. Such does not mean overt, specifically armed, resistance to the power of Rome, but it might mean following the path of Christ onto a Roman cross when alternative visions of the good order of community collide.

In addition, a political reading of Philippians deepens any suspicion that we can treat religion and politics as distinct and separable spheres. A reading of Philippians in light of the political context facing Paul and believers at Philippi renders a coherent understanding of the book and perhaps makes sense out of features that have otherwise been problematic for some (e.g., why the “sudden” shift in chapter three to a concern with features of Jewish practice). If such a reading is sound we find in Paul a powerful voice resistant to the Enlightenment insistence that “Christians and other religious people . . . treat their religious convictions as publicly irrelevant.”[xxvii] Instead we have the astonishing insistence that practices such as humility, selflessness, and the willingness to lose status, power, and prestige carry political weight as they bear witness to an alternative social order. The honoring of Jesus the slave, the exaltation of Christ of the cross, provides a profound challenge to a world where the imperial cult sanctioned and served self-interest, competition, and the pursuit of honor at the expense of subordinates.

If it is Paul’s concern to describe the formation of a social order shaped by the cross in a way distinct from how the cross serves the interests of Roman order, at least one other important implication remains for consideration. In his The Goodness of God, D. Stephen Long observes: “A consistent theme in the church’s political theology has been that Christianity does not assume that violence and warfare constitute the true polis. Thus, warfare does not signify a truly human nature; it does not constitute politics.”[xxviii] Of course, other voices had insisted that the public arena is essentially conflictual and in such a way that leads inexorably, indeed, naturally to violence. If such is inevitable then it stands to reason that the best that can be done is to determine ways in which such violence can serve the good ends of public order. Doctrines such as “Just War” theory have functioned to control and legitimize what is construed as an essential aspect of the human condition in its social embodiment.

Yet Paul envisions a community of a different social order. Competition, strife, and hostility are not necessary for the social order defined by the cross of Christ. Instead the demands of mutual love, humility, sacrificial service, and a willingness to suffer loss rather than require it of others provide the “constitutional framework” for this alternative polis. While Paul is certainly aware that conflicts arise between believers, it does not follow that conflicts necessarily come to violent expression. The church is to model in the world a set of practices that demonstrates God’s intentions for human community. When the saints at Philippi embody the practices of humility and love that serve to undergird the unity of fellowship, they are to the world the sign of what God intends and makes possible for public life. To deny this is either to deny that the church is corporate or social in character or it is to assent to the inevitability of violence in the Christian community. Neither option seems to be in keeping with Paul’s political discourse in Philippians.

Can the Philippian believers, however, actually take Paul seriously when he argues that the embodiment of this distinctive social order is the means by which the church expresses its public significance? Are there not more overt and concrete means by which believers shine as lights in the world? Can the witness of a community united in humility and service, of a polis defined not by competitive grasping but by willing renunciation, effectively challenge the attractions and security of the Roman order of things? Paul seems to think so.

Paul has been at pains throughout the letter to establish a pattern of similarity between himself, his own experience, and the Philippians and their own experience (see 1:7, 30; 2:17-18; 3:17; 4:14). One significant feature of Paul’s experience of suffering and imprisonment is that it has “turned out for the greater progress of the gospel” (1:12). Indeed, he closes the letter with the subtle assurance that witness to the gospel has the capacity to challenge and subvert the received order of things, even within Caesar’s own ranks: “All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar’s household” (4:22). “Paul either has found or has made disciples of the ‘Lord’ Jesus among members of the imperial household, who are thus on the Philippians’ side in the struggle against those who proclaim Caesar as Lord.”[xxix] The apparently indomitable Roman Empire already has been penetrated by a successful witness at its very core.

Since the Philippian believers partake of grace with Paul (1:7), experience the same sort of conflict as he does (1:30), share his joy (2:18) as well as his affliction (4:14), they can also share his confidence that their situation also will turn out for the greater progress of the gospel. They can be confident that by the witness of a community united in service, humility, and selfless concern for others that they present a civic witness worthy of the gospel of Christ and appear as lights in the world, even in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.