Caesar and the Sacrament, R. Alan Streett - Fall 2020
Book: Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism, A Rite of Resistance
Author: R. Alan Streett
Publisher: Cascade Books; Eugene, Oregon - 2018
Format: paperback, 181 pages.
I was taking a slow, peaceful stroll through NT Wright’s 987-page “The New Testament in Its World” (currently on page 366) when I saw Matthew Bates (author of “Salvation by Allegiance Alone” and “Gospel Allegiance”) suggesting this book. It looked like a perfect snack-sized vacation from the giant tome I’ve been working on, so I picked it up and knocked it out in two weeks.
Thesis:
in the New Testament Church, Baptism served as a boundary crossing ritual where believers sided with the kingdom of God and rejected Rome’s dominant narrative that it alone possessed a divine right to rule the world. (pieced together with words from page 10).
Streett contends that this anti-imperial, sociopolitical dynamic of the sacrament of baptism has been wrongfully forgotten by the Church to its detriment:
The Church has lost consciousness of baptism as a rite of resistance. It has forgotten its kingdom mandate to embrace and exhibit an alternative ethic in the midst of a culture of domination. Baptism’s subversive significance has been muted… The church has exchanged its camel hair for a scarlet robe. (page 11)
Notes:
There were a couple really interesting claims made and defended by Streett in this book that I’d like to highlight:
Streett contends that the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove at the baptism of Jesus is best understood as an “avian sign or omen from heaven that pointed to Jesus as Yahweh’s choice as king.” (P.57) Streett points out that avian signs were commonly given attention in the roman world, especially as they related to the designation of a ruler or leader. The science of observing and translating avian signs was the practice of an “augur” in the roman world. They played an important role in giving credibility to various rulers by declaring that they had been shown to have received the favor of the gods (fun note: we find this word “auger” imbedded in the English word “inauguration” meaning the coronation of a king/leader - p:56). Street sees the form of the peaceful dove contrasting the avian signs related to Roman rulers which would typically involve an eagle. Streett really leans on Luke’s account which adds “in bodily form” to the account of the dove, and totally has me sold that this (a royal sign of augery) is the significance the synoptic authors wished to convey when they describe the descent of the Spirit at Jesus’ baptism.
Streett emphasizes the role of “sacramentums” in the ancient world. A “Sacramentum” in the age of the roman republic & empire was a soldier’s oath of obedience. It bound the soldier in allegiance to his emperor and it was required of each soldier. Throughout the whole book, Streett is constantly making the connection between this practice and Christian baptism ; nowhere so clearly as in his note on 1st Peter 3:21, which expressly makes this connection in God’s word.
Peter then explains what baptism is and is not, only in reverse order. He says it is “not… a removal of dirt from the body” like a Roman bath or Jewish ceremonial washing, but something of a completely different nature. Rather baptism is “an appeal (NIV 2011: “pledge”* to God for a good conscience,” thus positioning [baptism] in the category of a sacramentum. It is like a soldier’s sincere oath to serve Lord Caesar and the Empire even to the point of death. The word [translated “appeal” or “pledge] in that passage carries the meaning of keeping up one’s end of a contract, a pledge of fidelity. (James)Dunn calls this verse the closes thing to a definition of baptism found in the New Testament. (Page 150)
Joel’s Oppinion
I think the idea of this book is better than the book itself. Too much of this book is a rather boring and surface-level retelling of Roman, Jewish, and New Testament history at a level that will put the well-read to sleep. Streett does this so in order to inject or highlight several instances where these histories and surveys point towards an anti-imperial understanding of the Gospel, reading of the New Testament, and significance to baptism. These connections each land with varying degrees of success, I believe that I’ve highlighted the most effective and insightful above. For a reader that opens this book with a disposition to see the New Testament in an anti-imperial light (as I possess) Streett’s thorough retellings are old-hat. I fear that a reader without such a disposition will see many of these connections as too far fetched. I would have read fewer anti-imperial features of baptism & the New Testament, more thoroughly established, and I would wish the New Testament survey feel of this book to be removed.
With that said, R. Alan Street is 100% right. The sacrament(um) of baptism is a rebellious matter of allegiance and a kind of border-crossing entry mechanism into the control or rule of a new Lord. The Church would be blessed and enriched to rediscover this dimension of the rite. Let every baptismal candidate know, and every baptized believer hear that the baptismal waters hold a declaration, a pledge of fealty - Christ shall be their Lord, and every other claimant be drowned.
Baptism is our point of entry into the kingdom. It delivers us out from under the powers and principalities of the world and transfers us into God’s family. The church must return to its roots, preach the pure gospel of the kingdom, and call on all to make God’s story their story. As Walter Brueggemann poignantly observes and challenges, “The waters of baptism are the path to freedom, so do not keep your feet dry” (Page 158 - the closing words of the book).