N.T. Wright & Michael F. Bird, Jesus and the powers: Christian political witness in an age of totalitarian terror and dysfunctional democracies, p. 64:
On speaking truth to power
We should note that for the early Christians, as indeed for Jews of the period, the critique of worldly powers had nothing to do with how the present rulers had attained their position. People became rulers through conquest, wealth, murder, inheritance, appointment by some other power (Herod the Great was nominated as 'king of the Jews' by Augustus simply because he was the most successful local warlord), and in many other ways. How they got there was not the point. The modern Western democratic ideal, in which the winner of an election receives political power that goes unchallenged because the people have voted for it, would have made little sense. The early Christians, like the Jews, focused their critique not on how the rulers had become rulers but on what the rulers then did with the power they now had.
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npub1cxâŚm7yr8
2026-10-02 09:35:27 UTC
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npub1cx5js2ma5gf7fqn7yv8sjtezvg3agfth7yyxhwywtqypkat493ksjm7yr8Published at
2026-10-02 09:35:27 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "N.T. Wright \u0026 Michael F. Bird, Jesus and the powers: Christian political witness in an age of totalitarian terror and dysfunctional democracies, p. 64:\n\nOn speaking truth to power\n\r\nWe should note that for the early Christians, as indeed for Jews of the period, the critique of worldly powers had nothing to do with how the present rulers had attained their position. People became rulers through conquest, wealth, murder, inheritance, appointment by some other power (Herod the Great was nominated as 'king of the Jews' by Augustus simply because he was the most successful local warlord), and in many other ways. How they got there was not the point. The modern Western democratic ideal, in which the winner of an election receives political power that goes unchallenged because the people have voted for it, would have made little sense. The early Christians, like the Jews, focused their critique not on how the rulers had become rulers but on what the rulers then did with the power they now had.",
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