5. Oikos & Polis
Oikos - Household
Polis - State/Society/Public
Idion/Idiotes - inferior
Polis - superior and built on exclusion
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6. Worship Challenges this ‘Polis’
Private Religion/Autonomy of Public?
Public & Private are reconciled: Oikos and Polis
Worship resists totalizing of any one sphere
Modern world inversion: public is nothing, private is everything
Reflect: implications for Joe Myers?
Reflect: How are people you know living in these spheres?
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7. Whose body?
potentia vs potestas: who has control of our bodies today?
1 Corinthians 6:19: God possessed, not self possessed
Resurrection is ultimate claim over the body
What does consumerism do to our bodies and demand of us?
Reflect: what is happening with our ‘pop idols’, anthropology
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8. Reconciliation of Oikos & Polis
Absolute priority: discipleship to Jesus
Reflect: what are we disciples of today, which spheres?
Value of spheres: Jesus first & value for all spheres
No ‘super family’: church does not replace oikos & polis
Rather it reconciles them: how?
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9. The First Congregations
Ecclesia: contrast to households, associations, school, synagogue etc
Church catchment: people with no status in polis
New Humanity: heavenly citizenship
Gal 3:26: antinomies reconciled, not abolished, but new status
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10. Ecclesia as Polis
Ekklesia: greek term for assembly of polis
Ekklesia tou theou (assembly of God)
Ekklesia: multiple meanings, individual, household congregation, town,
nation etc
Ekklesia: not tied to one political concept
Ezekiel 43:2: New City seat of divine in temple
Rev 21:22: Temple missing, and no gates
Phl 3:20: politeuma in heaven & politeuesthe in public!
Citizenship: many facets/spheres
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11. Ecclesia as Polis
NT: division between iodotes and polites in the polis breaks down
paroikoi (foreigners) vs politeumata (full citizens)
Jews had own politeumata
NT: believers as foreigners/resident aliens
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12. Citizens & Resident Aliens
Paul’s Ministry: synagogues, wealthy homes of individuals, greek/
roman assemblies (Athens)
Connected: Public and household are connected
Christians: become ‘useless’ idiots (idios) of the oikos
Deranged & Dangerous
New identity: paroikoi gain new identity in 3rd space between oikos
and polis
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13. The Worship Life of Early Church
Worship: was how the church revealed it’s ‘form of life’
Reflect: how we worship reflects our ‘form of life’ and understanding
of spheres
Acts 2:42,44: Congregations reconcile of private & public
Origins of Early Church Worship: two origins
1. Synaxis(Assembly): synagogue reading, sermon, prayer
2. Eucharist: Private ‘household’ worship (not homes as we know)
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14. The Worship Life of Early Church
Synaxis precedes the eucharist: 4th century onwards they become
one event
Synagogue worship: until 4th century (Eastern)
Persecution: public worship becomes private until state support
Reflect: private worship by persecution or by consumer choice
Bassilicas: large private households outgrow those locations, new converts
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15. The Worship Life of Early Church
Public life: church takes on radical public life
Roman private worship: household god’s vs civic/public God’s
Scandal of Christian Worship: Private (Abba) taken into public, and
civic taken in to homes
Persecution: no wonder Christians were persecuted
Insulted: Household and civic gods were insulted by Christian public
worship
Real revolution: separation between oikos and polis was broken down
Reflect: today congregations as civic worship vs private pagan like
worship in homes
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16. The Worship Life of Early Church
1 Corinthians 6:1-7: Christian tribunals, church public life
Kiss of Peace: tribunal start week, public worship to show
reconciliation
Ekklesia: from Paul onwards is whole congregation in synaxis and
eucharist
Syneleusis: love meal (Ignatius Antioch c.100 AD), part of ekklesia but
not valid worship
Reflect: place of love meals as sole basis of worship today?
Public worship was different to private worship and central to the early
church
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17. The Worship Life of Early Church
‘Households’: family, slaves, business partner, in congregational
spaces big enough for worship
Not the homes of modern day that we assume
Church growth: because of moving beyond the private, and being
public during persecution
Households: named in NT
Resisted pagan worship: of private home worship
Resisted: social model of polis, all people in household equal status in
worship!
Paul vs Peter excluding non Jews: private household worship
incompatible
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18. The Worship Life of Early Church
Households vs Paterfamilias
Reflect: worship in private and family vs church
Onesimus: Brother in new polis of the church
Paul Critique Lord’s Supper: about treating worship as private
1 Corinthians 11:22: “Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in’!
Reflect: Starbucks with my friends is not church or neutral space
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19. Integration: Household into
public
NT worship: did not belong to the sphere of the private cult, or public
civic worship
Households: made public, reconciling private and public
1 Cor 7:13: Those once excluded now have to act!
1 Peter 2:18-19: Christians slaves suffering the pagan cult worship of
Romans
Reflect: does our worship have more in common with Roman Civic
worship, or Roman Pagan cult household worship?
NT Household is integrated into political order
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20. Integration: Household into
public
Oikos: Does not disappear into church ‘super family’
Ephesian 2:19: Where once heads of households occupied two
spheres oikos and polis, all God’s household are freed to do so today!
Worship: and do so by their public worship
Human relationships: are now political and not private
Reflect: what anthropology is in current old and new worship spaces?
Escape: many people try to escape tension of public and private, by
withdrawal from both, or collapse into one
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21. Integration: Household into
public
Fewer Spheres: when all seems private, how do we worship?
Reflect: Can Congregational worship stands against private God
spaces
Reflect: Can Congregational worship stands against false 3rd space
Reflect: what would a real 3rd space, like early church, for worship
look like today, and how would it compare to what we have so far?
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Editor's Notes
-P118 Greek model of strictly separates spheres of public and private. The idion are the idiotes in private, deprived of public life
-The oikos is disparaged, to assert the superiority of the polis, that is open to the supreme few, mainly men with a Greek ‘body beautiful’ ideal
-Women, the ugly, the poor are excluded
-(me) This is ideal of society, of body beautiful built on undermining of the oikos
-P 120 Females allowed access in Greek model by being guardians, and avoiding conception and motherhood
-(me) New guardians of consumer society, of delayed parenthood, avoiding female roles to be like men and gain access to society through self enforced behaviours?
- Polis was about the exclusion of other spheres
-‘The worshipping congregation can neither confine itself to the sphere of private religion nor can it recognise the autonomy of political existence’ P125 bottom
-(me) E/C is about ‘private God spaces’ and privatised religion, that then wants concrete social justice…doesn’t happen
-Public, private come together in worship
-(Me) or they should!
-Worship should criticise the separation of living in separate spheres
-(me) Joe Myers books, fails to critique the spaces people belong seeing them all as spheres of society? When they are idion, oikos, and polis
-Worship is directed against any totalisation be that politics (me) or consumerism
-P 128 Ancient world’s investment of all of life into the polis is succeeded in western modernity by welfare state that provides for bored individuals who expect to give nothing to public life…and inversion takes place
-(me) And any one entering politics is seen to do so for power and themselves, because it’s the only reason we would do so!
-The more we claim private life as a closed of sphere, the easier it is to see the political as s sphere of it’s own
-P 132, potentia was classical idea of power of individual to dispose of his household as he wanted
-But in Christianity it was the freedom to give of self and household to other and the public, without serving the polis, due to God’s potestas
-P 132 pre-Christian view that state has full control of the body of humans for it’s own ends
-(me) Cavanaugh, and how this happens today by states with markets and consumerism etc
-Paul’s 1 Cor 6:19 body is temple of HS. We are not self possessed but God owned!
-God’s claim on our bodies, collides with that of any totalising regime P132 bottom
-It’s why the state put Christians to death, and yet resurrection was ultimate claim over the body!
-(me) Again what does consumerism do to our bodies and demand of us?
-(me) What anthropology is at work in consumerism, with our ‘pop idols’?
-The de-totalising of any political realm come about due to another absolute priority, discipleship to Jesus Christ
-(me) What are we disciples of in Consumer society, that we bolt Jesus onto?
-(me) Do we end up with separate Jesus communities from the world, how are we in both spheres?
-Primary identity is in Jesus but with value for other spheres P133
-Early church avoided presenting itself as a ‘super family’ to replace the oikos and polis
-Wayne Meeks compares Pauline ecclesia with Greco-roman households, voluntary associations, philosophical school, and Jewish synagogue, and it is very different!
-P135 early catchment for church was socially downgraded, and people not roman citizens caught without status
-Church reconciled with God through the cross is the new humanity ( Eph 2:16 & 4:13), that people find their new identity in!
-(me) What identity do we have as consumers compared to this?
-Gal 3:26 jew-greek, male-female, freeman-slave, antimonies are reconciled, not by abolition, but in terms of political realm
-New citizenship in which they are relativised, but still realities in social and public realms
-(me) But aren’t some to be undone permanently outside the ecclesia?
-NT uses language of citizenship and family use around it contextually
-Ekklesia greek terms for assembly of the polis P138
-Ekklesia tou theou (assembly of God), take’s it’s meaning from q’hal el (the end time gathering of god’s community)
-Ekklesia could mean individual, household congregation, town/area congregation, church of nations even!
-Ekklesia is not tied to one political concept
-P 140 in Ezekiel (43:2) the new city has it’s seat of the divine in the temple, but in Rev (21:22) the temple is missing, and there are not gates to block entry to the city
-Paul can talk about being politeuma (polity) in heaven (Phil 3:20), and that we are to be good citizens politeuesthe, worthy of the Gospel in public
-Many faceted and strands of citizenship
-Before NT times absolute division between iodotes and polites in the polis had broken down
-Group called paroikoi, foreigners, permanent residents, but not citizens had emerged
-Unlike Jews who had their own politeumata P141
-NT takes up this notion of difference between full citizens strangers, to describe the condition of believers
-(me) Resident aliens
-Paul had public ministry in synagogues, and wealthy homes of individuals (me) and greek/roman assemblies (Athens), public and household connected
-(me) vs. house church movement, that disable public life, and public state church that disable private life and society life
-Acts 4:32 Christians possessed nothing of their own (idion), but had everything in common (koina)
-*** Christianity pronounced the ‘useless’ idiots (idios) of the oikos within the greek/roman system as full citizens in a new commonwealth. No wonder they were seen as ‘deranged’ and/or dangerous!
-The paroikoi gain new identity in 3rd space between oikos and polis
-‘The church’s new form of life was rooted in the practice of worship’ P146
-(me) The way we worship will reveal the form of life our community
-Acts 2:42,44: In worship congregations experience the ‘reconciliation of antithesis’, or private and public
-P147 Dom Gregory Dix thesis that Christian worship in early church had two origins:
oPublic worship in synagogue: The synaxis (assembly) with reading, sermon, prayer
oPrivate household worship: The eucharist
-Synaxis precedes the eucharist, from 4th century onwards they become one event
-Christians participated in Jewish worship until 4th century and had their own synagogues
-Worship was public but then became private over 3 centuries under persecution until it could come out in public once supported by the state
-It came out in public from large private households into bassilicas due to large numbers of converts
-Church worship does not jut take on the form of the culture it finds itself in the early church! P148
-***It takes on a public life of it’s own, that is radical!
-Romans had household god’s for private worship and civic ones for public with festivals
-Christians did not worship in homes like Romans did they took the Abba into public, and undermined the civic worship and home, no wonder martyrdom was inevitable!
-Household and civic gods were insulted by Christian public worship
-(me) and separation between oikos and polis was broken down, which was revolutionary
-(me) Collapse of worship into the oikos, set against the polis with alt worship and private God spaces today
-(me) Church in public has reduced Christianity to Roman civic God, whereas house church etc has reduced Christianity to household Gods
-P 149 1 Corinthians 6:1-7 Paul sets up Christians tribunals, separate to law courts, congregations take on political form
-(me) All we know how to do is consume, and leave, where is this way of life in our congregations today?
-Kiss of peace was at weeks end, after Christian tribunals as incentive to reconcile, and as a real act for public worship!
-From Paul onwards ekklesia means the formal assembly of the (whole) congregation, in it’s synaxis and eucharist.
-P 149 bottom there was another kind of meeting the syneleusis, a religious but informal meeting, for edification, without liturgy, and with a love meal
-These were seen as part of life of ekklesia but not as replacements for public worship, by Ignatius’ time
-(me) E/C and al worship collapses worship into syneleusis!
-Public worship was different to private worship and central to the early church
-P150 It was common for heads of households to bring all family, slaves, and business partners into their religion, and they gave congregational space for early church, with locations large enough for meetings
-Vital part of growth of early church, beyond private households!
-These types of households named in NT P151, the ekklesia in so and so’s house.
-But these worship gathering congregations in households did not practice the roman household cult worship, or social model of the household instead they practiced as ekklesia of the new oikos of God
-Pauls’ attack on Peter for treating non jews like jews was not just about fellowship between Jew and Gentile, but was also about how Jews encouraged worship of non Jews in outer courts of synagogues but excluded them from Jewish households!
-So Paul is criticising Peter for now allowing non Jews into the oikos for public worship, that private household worship was not compatible with the new oikos of God
-P 152 the open households for congregational worship, were centred around Jesus and not the paterfamilias!
-When Paul sends Onesimus back as a ‘bother’ he does so as ‘brother’ in the new Polis, and the new oikos. The notion of family and polis has changed in the churches public worship
-(me) Yet we are collapsing worship into the oikos of post-modernity, and losing the public, and setting up a separation of private and public again
-P153-154 Paul’s criticism of Lords supper in Corinthians, not just about greed, but about people treating worship as private world affair, it is not private but public!
-*** 1 cor 11:22 ‘don’t you have homes to eat and drink in’?! house congregations are not served by the laws of the private household
-(me) Starbucks with my mates is not worship!
-(me) Worship in homes is a matter of public and politics
-(me) 1 Cor 11:29 discerning the body is then not about sacred and profane, but about the political locus of the body of Christ rather than our own representations of the body, and incarnational reductions
-NT worship did not belong to the sphere of the private cult, or the civic worship
-It was even in households public, breaking up private and public, disturbing both worlds, and reconciling them
-P 156 1 Corinthians 7:13, the household is brought into public, such that people once excluded now have to act, wife’s of non christians, slaves etc.
-1 Peter 2:18-19, slaves suffering is not just being a slave but being in non christians household that practiced pagan cult worship
-(me) Barna’s new book (and others) may have more in common with pagan worship than the churches he describes?
-P 157 the household in NT and early church is integrated into the political order
-But the oikos doesn’t disappear in it’s own right
-P157-158 Eph 2:19 whereas only head of households occupied two spheres of oikos and polis now everyone in God’s household, occupies both spheres
-(me) and does so by their public worship
-Human relationships are now political, not private
-(me) The anthropology of E/C that is about private formation, and how much of renewal of liturgy is for the individual, and not the reconciled private and public?
-P 159 many people try to escape the antagonism of private and public by withdrawal from both.
-(me) Withdrawal from church and public life, into private God spaces
-There are fewer spheres for church to meet in, as everything has collapsed into eh private
-(me) In UK congregational worship is vital, it stands against private god space, and invades public space, whereas 3rd space starbucks is not 3rd space at all, but private household worship that lacks any political form
-(me) need for rule of faith to order the spheres of our lives compared to the order of consumer culture, and others religions
