Religion Compass 9/8 (2015): 254–261, 10.1111/rec3.

12158

Christianity and Empire1

Joerg Rieger*
Southern Methodist University

Abstract
Despite many connections and tensions between Christian traditions and empire, scholars of religion and
theology have rarely ref lected on them. What was lost in the process was not only a clearer understanding
of how the forces of empire impact Christianity, consciously or unconsciously, but also a sense for how
Christianity can never quite be absorbed by empire altogether and which of its resources push beyond
empire.

The Starting Point

The Roman Empire was the context of the earliest beginnings of Christianity, and most of its
subsequent major developments are located somewhere within the force fields of empire as
well. As a result, Christianity cannot be understood apart from empire. Nevertheless, despite
the many connections and tensions between Christian traditions and empire, scholars of reli-
gion and theology have rarely ref lected on them. These connections were either taken for
granted or simply overlooked. What was lost in the process was not only a clearer understand-
ing of how the forces of empire impact Christianity, consciously or unconsciously, but also a
sense for how Christianity can never quite be absorbed by empire altogether and which of its
resources push beyond empire. One of the key purposes of the study of Christianity and
empire has to do with a search for that which cannot be co-opted by empire and thus inspires
alternatives to empire, based on what I have called a ‘theological surplus’ elsewhere (Rieger
2007, introduction). But these alternatives can only be seen in light of a clearer awareness of
the impact of empire on Christianity.
Those who took the connections of Christianity and empire as a given often identified
Christianity with empire in one of two ways: some welcomed this identification and assumed
that it was positive, not least because it seemed to underscore and reinforce the greatness and
the power of Christianity; others saw these connections of Christianity and empire as the proof
that Christianity was nothing but an epiphenomenon of a more powerful reality, namely
empire, and thus mostly a sell out. That both attitudes are deeply embedded in popular percep-
tions points to their pervasiveness. There is a widespread assumption among churchgoers that
the Roman Empire was mostly beneficial for Christianity, for instance, because it supported
the spread of Christianity through its infrastructures that included the roads on which mission-
aries like the Apostle Paul could travel in order to spread the gospel; it is part of this assumption
that Christianity was naturally poised to become the official religion of the powers that be. The
same groups often also tend to see contemporary empire as beneficial for Christianity and its
values, especially in its current embodiment in the United States of America.
On the other hand, there is a widespread suspicion that Christianity’s progress owed so much
to the politics of empire and was so inextricably related to it that it became simply another
function of empire. Supporters of this position cite as evidence the Constantinian turn, when
Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, and prominent historical events

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 Christianity and Empire 255

like the Crusades in the Middle Ages and the Spanish Conquest of early modernity. To be sure,
this position is held not only by well-known critics of Christianity but also by Christians (present
and past, including for instance the Protestant Reformers of 16th century Europe), some of
whom would be quick to point out that there were other embodiments of Christianity that
refused to give in to the lure of empire. Unfortunately, however, both of these positions assume
fairly straightforward relations between Christianity and empire, an assumption that has
prevented deeper investigations.
There are, of course, also those who tend to overlook or blend out the relations between
Christianity and empire. Some assume that the two are totally incompatible because they are
located in different conceptual realms; in modern times, this attitude has often been tied to
the popular assumption that religion and politics have nothing to do with each other. Similar
assumptions are embedded in the disciplinary divisions of modern universities, which study
religion and politics in separate departments that rarely cross into each other’s territories. Work-
ing along these lines, scholars of religion and theology have sought for instance to isolate what is
political and what is religious in historical figures like the emperor Constantine or in historical
events like the Council of Nicaea, which Constantine convened and chaired; the assumption is
still prevalent that only if something can be classified as non-political can it be seen as legiti-
mately religious. Others assumed that empire and real Christianity were incompatible because
they embodied completely different realities and different ways of life. In this view, those
who practiced real Christianity were free to carve out their own spaces and live authentic
Christian lives; monastic communities or other intentional communities such as the Amish in
the contemporary United States are often referenced as examples. Unfortunately, the represen-
tatives of all of these positions assume fairly straightforward separations and distinctions between
Christianity and empire that cannot be sustained. When Constantine put his entire political fate
and the future of the Roman Empire in the hands of the Christian God, was this a political or a
religious decision? The separation of religion and empire, or more generally of religion and
politics, makes little sense in a situation like that, and even clear-cut conventional disciplinary
distinctions of the two categories must be called into question in light of this example.
Any study of Christianity and empire needs to take into account the fact that the relations of
Christianity and empire are complex. Christianity does not easily escape empire—understood as
massive concentrations of power which permeate all aspects of life and which cannot be con-
trolled by any one actor alone (Rieger 2007). This is one of the basic marks of empire through-
out history. Empire seeks to extend its control as far as possible; not only geographically,
politically, and economically—these factors are more commonly recognized—but also intellec-
tually, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, culturally, and religiously. The problem with
empire is, therefore, that no one can escape its force field completely. Nevertheless, at the same
time, empire is never quite able to extend its control absolutely. Whatever the extent of its
inf luence, no empire has ever managed to co-opt Christianity entirely.
The study of Christianity and empire is in its early stages. Major representatives of the
Christian traditions have hardly ever been considered in light of their deeper connections with
the empires of their times. Assuming a strict separation of religion and politics, it has long been
taken for granted that Jesus or Paul is a religious character, which could not possibly have been
concerned about politics. That Jesus did not engage in armed struggles of resistance like the
Zealots of his time has commonly been interpreted as proof that he was not concerned about
resisting the Roman Empire, as if armed struggle were the only form of resistance. That Paul
preached the message of the cross was interpreted in similar fashion, as if the symbol of the cross
in those days could have been separated from the fact that it was a colonial tool of execution for
political rebels from the lower classes. That Anselm of Canterbury’s notion of satisfaction
presupposed the world of the Norman conquerors of England was, if noted at all, played

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down as if Anselm’s references to feudalism were harmless sermon illustrations. Even if other
representatives of Christianity, like Bartolomé de Las Casas, were seen as opponents of
empire, their resistance was often seen as an ethical choice, and the deeper motivations were
rarely investigated.

Metamorphoses of Empire
Having defined empire as massive concentrations of power which permeate all aspects of life
and which cannot be controlled by any one actor alone, it is important to note that the power
of empire takes various different shapes and forms. Empires project their powers in many and
often contradictory ways. The forms of power that proceed by open conquest, through fire
and sword and other forms of open military aggression, always making use of the latest technol-
ogies of warfare in the process, are easily identified. The wars of conquest conducted by the
Roman Empire, the Normans in England, the Spanish in Latin America, and even by the British
in India (mostly fought vicariously through the East India Company) are not hard to spot, and
there will be little disagreement about the fact that in these examples empire deploys overbear-
ing power and that this power has coercive traits. No wonder, therefore, that in the United
States, the 21st century wars against Afghanistan and Iraq have unleashed a f lood of debates
about the U.S. Empire, a term that was previously suppressed. Even when empires are
expanded and stabilized by military means and by war, however, this does not mean that their
power is always deployed unilaterally. While the Roman Empire, for instance, knew how to
use its military force effectively, once its colonies were established, Roman power tended to
switch to economic, cultural, and even religious means of control; the latter embodied, for
instance, in the emperor cult, which was a phenomenon that went much deeper than has com-
monly been noted (Zanker 1988). In the aftermath of the Norman conquest of England, vio-
lence remained an effective means of control and was deployed strategically, but other forms of
power would soon become more prominent, including once again, cultural and religious ones.
Keep in mind that Anselm of Canterbury was only the second archbishop instituted by the
Normans after their conquest and that he had to negotiate some of this power firsthand. Like-
wise, U.S. military inventions should not make us overlook the fact that other manifestations of
U.S. power in economics and culture (often operating in combined fashion through the media,
including Hollywood movie production and the advertising industry) are often more successful.
When it comes to the massive concentrations of power deployed by empire, open displays of
power are commonly noticed, but there are many other forms of power that are much more
hidden and ambiguous. More than most other critics of empire, Bartolomé de Las Casas openly
opposed and deplored the Spanish conquest and the atrocities of the Spanish Empire in the New
World, fully aware of the genocide that led to whole regions being stripped of their original
inhabitants. At the same time, however, he did not entirely reject the rule and the authority
of the King of Spain and the Roman Catholic Church over the inhabitants of the Americas;
rather, he promoted more benevolent colonial models. In fact, Las Casas’ rejection of colonial
violence and straightforward exploitation helped set the tone for later 19th-century colonial
discourses in Middle and Northern Europe, allowing the Dutch and the English to congratulate
themselves for their benevolent colonialisms (Keen 1971). In the 18th and 19th centuries, the
Germans (who had been left out of the colonial race) would develop colonial fantasies that
appeared to be yet more enlightened and benevolent than those of their Dutch and British rivals
and that led to even more romanticized notions of colonial power. Such power, it was com-
monly held, was mostly interested in the welfare and betterment of the colonized (Zantop
1997). What was understood as the ‘spread of civilization’ was by and large exempt from the
suspicion of empire.

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The reasons for less violent forms of colonialism are many, but key among them is that some
of the more violent forms of exploitation were no longer needed in situations where power
differentials were more pronounced. The British settlement of Australia, for instance, had little
to fear from the Aboriginals. Moreover, there was no pressing economic need for slaves in this
situation, and thus, changing economic modes of production also contributed to the develop-
ment of less coercive and violent forms of colonization. The theological ramifications of this
particular form of colonization are interesting and can be observed in the work of German theo-
logian Friedrich Schleiermacher, whose imagination and curiosity was sparked by the British
settlement of Australia and who shared in the German fantasies of developing more peaceful
colonial relationships. Schleiermacher’s vision of the power of Christ is shaped by notions like
‘attraction’ and ‘persuasion’. There is no need for violent and more forceful images of power,
if Christ is envisioned at the very top of a colonial world that assumed it would not need
divine miracles in view of its ‘great advantage in power’ (Schleiermacher 1986, p. 450).
In general, 19th and 20th centuries Christianity ref lected a much more benevolent sense of
the goals of colonial systems, sometimes merely seen in terms of transnational trade, sometimes
classified as the promotion of the benefits of modern culture or of ‘civilization’. Unfortunately,
representatives of this Christianity were often lacking a deeper awareness that even the most
benevolent moves on the part of those in power continued to ref lect a system of empire that
was detrimental to the majority of those who were forced to endure it. While in the 20th
century, the work of Dutch theologian Hendrik Kraemer, whose life span covers the transition
from a colonial to a postcolonial world, shows more sympathies for the independence of the
colonies; Kraemer still tends to perceive of the colonial other from the safety of his own perspec-
tive and without inviting an attitude of mutual critique. Kraemer also maintains the need for
Dutch guidance in the independence process or, later, at least a sense of responsibility (Pranger
2007). As a result, Christian mission, one of the phenomena, which has traditionally been closest
to the benevolent exercise of colonial power, was not only not critiqued but continued to run in
the old tracks.
Terms like ‘Orientalism’ and ‘Occidentalism’, coined by Edward Said and Walter Mignolo,
respectively, capture much of what is at stake in modern forms of colonialism (Said 1979;
Mignolo 2000). Orientalism and Occidentalism refer to efforts (scholarly, literary, and other)
to describe and understand the East and the (American) West but which, in the process, shape
these places in their own image. As a result, empires used their grasp (a term that can be read
both metaphorically and literally in this context) of others in order to expand their own power
base and to boost their self-image. The problem is not just a lack of understanding the other but
an, often unconscious, exercise of power over the other that is inextricably related to the massive
concentrations of power of empire, which permeate all aspects of life.
Unfortunately, while even the more violent embodiments of empire were often neglected
by scholars of religion and theology, the softer forms of colonialism and empire are less ref lected
yet. For the most part, these forms of colonialism were not even recognized as such—no
wonder that despite the vast amount of research dedicated to the work of Schleiermacher there
are hardly any investigations of the colonial context of his work. Talk about ‘postcolonialism’
has at times contributed to this lack of awareness, especially if the term is misunderstood to mean
the end of all things colonial.

Ambivalence
Although the pressures of empire are upon it, Christianity has produced alternatives to empire.
Such alternatives are always located in the midst of ambivalence, which is a witness to the limits
of empire. Postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha notes how this ambivalence is disturbing to

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colonial discourse, which intends to eliminate ambivalence and how it ‘poses an immanent
threat to both “normalized” knowledges and disciplinary powers’.2 The challenge, he argues,
is a ‘double vision, which in disclosing the ambivalence of colonial discourse also disrupts its
authority’.3 An investigation of empire and Christianity needs to take into account the element
of ambiguity.
Even those forms of Christianity that provided alternatives to empire often did not directly
oppose issues of empire and colonialism; more often than not, these issues were not even
addressed. Of course, some representatives of Christianity did pursue more direct challenges
of empire, including the apostle Paul, Bartolomé de Las Casas, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but
these persons often felt the repercussions of empire and had to bear the consequences of their
critique: Bonhoeffer, and most likely Paul as well, was put to death for it. Those who remem-
bered Jesus’ injunction that ‘no one can serve two masters’ (Matt. 6:24) stand out from the
crowd as the ones who remained faithful to Jesus’ own resistance to the powers that be in a
special way, following him all the way into death. At the same time, the notion of ambivalence
helps to remind us that the empire never managed to suppress completely even the work of
some of those forms of Christianity that do not openly resist empire, which are far more
common.
What should we be looking for in the relation of Christianity and empire? In some cases, it
takes a fair amount of effort to read between the lines in order to see the contours of empire
in a particular form of Christianity. In other cases, the evidence is right at hand, although it
has been overlooked for the longest time. Two prominent examples take us back to the begin-
nings of Christianity: the life and ministry of Jesus, and the developments that found expression
in the early councils of the church, particularly the Council of Nicaea and the Council of
Chalcedon.
Already before Jesus’ birth, we can observe the complex relations of religion and empire as
they are ref lected in the various gospels. Joseph’s and Mary’s travels to Bethlehem before Jesus’
birth, reported in the Gospel of Luke, are set in the context of the Emperor Augustus’ efforts to
increase his tax base. The f light to Egypt, reported in the Gospel of Matthew, had to do with
the efforts of King Herod to get rid of even the slightest potential challenge to this rule by mur-
dering all infant boys in Bethlehem. The Gospel of Mark tells us that already during the earliest
days of Jesus’ ministry the Pharisees and the power brokers of Herod began to plot together to
get rid of him (Mark 3:6). Even the temptations of Jesus, often interpreted in strictly religious
terms, give us a glimpse of the temptations of the power of the empire, for instance when the
devil offers Jesus unlimited power over all the countries of the earth, an offer that is unambig-
uously rejected (Matt. 3:8–10, Luke 4:5–8). And despite all other efforts to explain the cross, it
was ultimately the Romans who nailed Jesus to the cross. The Jewish masterminds who were
also involved were closely connected to the Romans—the high priests, for instance, collected
the taxes for the Romans and were selected either by Herod or by the Roman governors—
and it seems to have taken a good deal of agitation to rally the common people against Jesus
(Mark 15:11). It can be concluded that Jesus’ life and ministry was most likely too much of a
challenge for the empire and its beneficiaries, summarized in statements that have lost nothing
of their radical ring even today, such as that the last shall be the first (Mark 10:31, Matt. 20:16),
that the gospel implies the liberation of the oppressed (Luke 4:18), that no one can serve two
masters (Matt. 6:24), and—expressed by Mary, Jesus’ mother—that the hungry are being filled
with good things and the rich sent away empty, to say nothing of the fact that the lowly are be-
ing lifted up, while the mighty are brought down from their thrones (Luke 1:52–53).
By the fourth century, Christianity was ready to be the official religion of the Roman
Empire. At this time, it seems as if empire had completed the process of assimilating the radical
traditions of Jesus and early Christianity. The most important councils of the early church, such

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as Nicaea and Chalcedon in the fourth and fifth centuries, were convened by the emperors and
in part shaped by them. The emperor Constantine suggested the famous term ‘homoousios’,
which made its way into the creed, holding that the first and second persons of the trinity are
‘of the same being’. While Constantine’s conversion to Christianity has often been considered
superficial because it was inextricably tied to the politics of empire, it seems that Constantine put
great faith in the Christian God and in the process was greatly impressed by what he identified as
the power of this God at work. Efforts to separate religion and politics can only appear artificial
in this case. The problem here is not primarily with the relation of politics and religion but with
what kind of politics is supported by religion and whether or not the politics of the Christian
God supports the politics of empire. In this context of empire, it comes as a surprise that the
Council of Nicaea rejects a hierarchical understanding of the relationship of father and son
and that the Council of Chalcedon rejects a hierarchical relationship of Jesus’ divine and human
natures, despite general support for political and metaphysical hierarchies.
Reading between the lines, we might thus find a latent tension between Christianity and
empire, although it can be argued that this potential tension was not really dealt with until much
later. The ambiguity contained in this tension harbors a possible correction to classical theistic
notions of God, which are based on absolute hierarchies. The reception of Jesus into the divin-
ity, that is, the claim that Jesus was truly God, ultimate leads to challenges of empire and empire
theology of which the fathers of the church were hardly conscious; it may be no accident that
Constantine later reverted back from this position to his earlier appreciation of the Arian subor-
dination of Jesus under God. Themes like divine omnipotence and immutability, which are
only too easily applied to the politics of empire, can now be seen in a new light. And if equality
is at the heart of the Godhead, on what basis can hierarchies in the world (or in the church) be
justified? In addition, both Nicaea and Chalcedon left open many questions, a fact that might
well be seen as another example of resistance against the kind of imperial control that cannot
tolerate ambivalence. 4

Christianity and Empire Today

As the classical empires have withered away and formal colonial relationships have by and large
ended as well, it is sometimes assumed that empires are a matter of the past. Nevertheless, new
forms of empire have arisen. In the United States, there is a long tradition that rejects the notion
of empire. The policies of the administration of President George W. Bush have led to new
debates about the United States as empire. Supporters of Bush and even members of his admin-
istration have taken up the notion of empire and given it a positive spin. The administration’s
declaration of war against Iraq pointed to renewed imperial commitments, especially since
the threat of weapons of mass destruction originally claimed as the main reason could never
be verified and was most likely never investigated with the required care. Some forms of
Christianity in the United States opposed this war, despite widespread initial support among
the population.
Yet Christianity that rejects war often overlooks that the methods of empire have changed
dramatically. War is not the only manifestation of empire and perhaps not even the primary
one. Empire is often more effectively at work through hidden economic and cultural powers,
which drive broad processes of globalization. The goal of the Iraq war, for instance, was not
the establishment of traditional colonial relationships like those pursued by 18th and 19th cen-
turies Europe; neither was it a conquest, such as the one pursed by Portugal and Spain in the
16th century. In the changed conditions of empire, direct U.S. rule in Iraq is not necessary; even
the oil continues to be owned by the nation of Iraq. Empire in this case is embodied in ‘produc-
tion sharing agreements’ (PSA), according to which, the oil remains in the possession of the

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260 Joerg Rieger

nation, but the fields are operated by U.S. companies, a deal that is ultimately more lucrative for
the companies.5
At first sight, talk about a ‘postcolonial empire’ appears to be a contradiction in terms, since
empire and colonialism are frequently seen as synonymous. But empire can exist without col-
onies, without stark violence, and without absolute, unilateral power. Empire today is more
attuned to the approach of Las Casas and the softened kind of power as attraction, conjured
up by Schleiermacher, than to the strict hierarchies of the Medieval and Roman Empires.6
Christianity’s links to these developments can perhaps best be seen in the history of Christian
mission. While some of the problems of 19th-century missions have been identified, especially
as they relate to colonialism and its clear structures of power, there is very little critical ref lection
about the current situation. Yet while power differentials may be less visible, they are still key.
Plans that promote the ‘development’ of other countries or that call for ‘social programs’ remind
us that we continue to assume the inferiority of the other if the goal is to make them more ‘like
us’. This is true even for well-meaning notions such as the ‘inculturation’ of the gospel in foreign
cultures that are often promoted by more progressive missionary circles, because it assumes that
this has already been accomplished at home. Such a (hidden) sense of superiority does not need
colonies or the traditional kind of empire where the rulers pull all the strings. Economic and cul-
tural structures are sufficient to maintain the differential of power, and those structures continue
to back up even our most benevolent moves.
Conclusions
If the power of empire is as widely dispersed as argued here and if these powers are expanding
not only geographically and politically but also on many other levels, which include religion,
the investigation of Christianity and empire can no longer be optional for scholars of religion
and theology. At stake is not only an accurate record but also the identification of the alternative
contributions of Christianity in a world dominated by empire. The purpose of studying the
relation of Christianity and empire is not to assign blame, whether to Christianity or to empire.
On the contrary, the purpose of this study is to identify what is different about Christianity and
what accounts for the fact that it has the potential to shape alternative images of God and the world.
Short Biography

Joerg Rieger is Wendland-Cook Professor of Constructive Theology at Perkins School of

Theology, Southern Methodist University, and author of numerous books, including Occupy
Religion: Theology of the Multitude (with Kwok Pui-lan, 2012), Globalization and Theology
(2010), No Rising Tide: Theology, Economics, and the Future (2009), and Christ and Empire: From
Paul to Postcolonial Times (2007).
Notes

* Correspondence address: Joerg Rieger, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75243,
USA. E-mail: jrieger@smu.edu

1
This essay is based on an argument presented in Empire and the Christian Tradition: New Readings of Classical Theologians,
edited by Kwok Pui-lan, Don Compier, and Joerg Rieger, copyright © 2007 Fortress Press, admin. Augsburg Fortress.
Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved.
2
For the notion of ambivalence, see Bhabha (1994, p. 86). Bhabha connects this term with his more famous notion of
‘mimicry’: ‘the discourse of mimicry is constructed around an ambivalence’ (emphasis in original). By repeating colonial
images with a slight difference, rather than representing them accurately, mimicry establishes a challenge to the colonial
narcissism and fiction of self-identity (Bhabha 1994, p. 88).

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 Christianity and Empire 261
3
Bhabha (1994, p. 88). While Bhabha sees this ambivalence of mimicry as a surface effect and does not want to see this as too
closely related with the Freudian notion of the ‘return of the repressed’, I do not think that these matters are mutually
exclusive. For an effort to read Bhabha’s work in relation to the notion repression, see my essay (Rieger 2004).
4
For a more detailed account of the councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon, see Rieger (2007, chapter 2).
5
Revenue is first used to pay the company—sometimes at inflated cost—and then split 60/40, 60 percent for the state and
40 percent for the company. The contracts last for 25 to 40 years, which is the life expectancy of an oil field; Iraq has the third
largest oil reserves in the world, after Saudi Arabia and Canada in People’s Weekly World ( January 7–13, 2006, p. 13).
6
I would argue that the initial scenario of empire developed by Hardt and Negri (2000) still captures these moves better than
the more recent (Hardt & Negri 2004).

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