Reformed thinkers have recently been debating whether or not civil officials should endorse Christianity and promote and protect the church. James Baird’s King of Kings concisely assembles a biblical and historical case to prove that rulers can pursue the public good only if they promote true religion. Others contend that collaboration between church and state is a vestige of an outdated Old Covenant order. If God wanted civil rulers to promote Christian faith, how come the New Testament never says so?
Christopher Chen’s recent Evil Empire? has an answer: The New Testament does say so. Chen focuses on Luke–Acts and expounds passages where government officials appear as characters in the drama—soldiers, centurions, governors, proconsuls, the Ethiopian eunuch who serves in the court of Queen Candace. Chen takes the story into the patristic period, showing that Christians held posts in the Roman government long before Constantine, and then, unexpectedly, finishes with a chapter on China, where Christians have served as government officials, off and on, since the eighth century.
A few threads stand out. One key theme has to do with Theophilus, whom Luke addresses at the beginning of his Gospel (1:1–3) and Acts (1:1). Nobody’s sure who Theophilus was, but Chen makes a strong case that he was a Roman official. Luke addresses him as “most excellent” (kratiste), a word that appears elsewhere in Luke–Acts with reference to high-placed Romans: in Claudius Lysias’s letter to Felix (Acts 23:26), in Tertullus’s address to Felix during Paul’s trial (Acts 24:3), and in Paul’s own address to Festus (Acts 26:25). Luke’s prologue echoes through the narrative in other ways too. Luke promises Theophilus he will recount the events of Jesus’s life “accurately” (akribos), a word that appears three times in Paul’s trials before Roman officials (Acts 23:15, 20; 24:22). Same for asphaleia (“certainty, to secure”): Luke writes to “secure” Theophilus’s knowledge of Jesus (Luke 1:4), while Festus worries that he knows nothing “certain” about Paul that he can pass on to Caesar (Acts 25:26).
All that is of interest for identifying Theophilus. Of more interest is the light it sheds on Luke’s purpose: “Luke–Acts was addressed to a Roman official to demonstrate how he could become a proponent for the gospel,” Chen concludes. All the centurions, proconsuls, governors, and soldiers who crowd Luke’s narrative serve as object lessons for Theophilus. Luke–Acts is a “mirror of magistrates,” not incidentally, but by design; Luke writes political theology from start to finish. In his two-volume work on Luke–Acts, Robert Tannehill noticed the same thing: Luke demonstrates the cultural and political impact of the gospel, and informs readers that “those who control religious and political institutions must listen to Paul and respond in some way to him.”
Episodes in Acts lend support to Chen’s thesis. He’s right that Paul’s appearance before Sergius Paulus, proconsul of Cyprus, is “underappreciated.” Even before Paul arrives, Sergius Paulus has a Jewish magician named Bar-Jesus scampering around his court, evidence that he’s “open to various religious traditions, including Judaism.” Paul defeats the pretender in a battle of spiritual prowess, and Sergius is sufficiently impressed to receive the “teaching of the Lord” (Acts 13:12), thus becoming “the first convert among the upper echelon of the Roman government.” This incident stands at the very beginning of Paul’s first missionary expedition and thus sets a political trajectory for his entire ministry. Paul’s life also closes on a political note, with a lesson for rulers embedded in the yarn about Paul’s shipwreck (Acts 27): Julius the centurion “plays a critical leadership role by ensuring different parties on the ship—soldiers, sailors, prisoners, and Christians—work together. . . . In this way, Julius demonstrates how a Roman official could enable cooperation for the greater good in situations where Christians form a small minority.” Rome is a beast, but in Acts often a friendly one.
Evil Empire? also makes an important contribution to New Testament studies. For years, many scholars have said the New Testament presents a uniformly negative portrait of the Roman Empire. Rome is the Beast of Revelation and the harlot city drunk on the blood of saints. Jesus and his apostles proclaim the kingdom of God to launch a counter-imperial movement against the regime of Caesar. (Not coincidentally, many of these scholars are also vocal opponents of the twenty-first-century “evil empire,” the U.S.) Chen brings much-needed balance.
That said, anti-imperial New Testament scholars are onto something. At a fundamental level, the gospel challenges the claims of Rome—its soteriological pretense that Rome spreads peace and justice (see City of God, Books 1–10), its eschatological hope of imperium sine fine, and its blasphemous claim that Caesar is son of God, lord, and savior. A clash was inevitable, especially after Rome was enlisted as a minion of the Dragon (Rev. 12–13). Even beneficent beasts can turn and trample you.
