by Peter Rollins

Paul the apostle famously wrote, ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’.

This verse brings us to the heart of what can be called “Paul’s universalism”. In theological terms this universalism has been understood in two dominant ways. In the first it is argued that Paul is claiming that, compared to being a Christian, all these other differences have no meaning. 

All other differences are thus subsumed under the one supreme difference: that of Christians and non-Christians. It is because of this that Christianity was originally baptised as the Universal religion par excellence. Whereas religions such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are particularistic (having a belief system that acknowledges the place of those outside their system), Christianity seeks global dominance: the only important distinction being whether you confess Christ or not. 

Hence Christianity has been critiqued for exhibiting a totalising narrative that condemns those who do not embrace it to eternal death. 

In contrast others interpret Paul’s universalism as referring, not to the limited scope of salvation, but rather to its operative reach. Here it is claimed that Paul is saying that all these other distinctions will eventually be subsumed into Christ. In this way Christianity is viewed as universal insomuch as its soteriological power reaches everything and everybody. At the end of the day everyone will come to see that the Christian religion was right after all.

However both these positions fail to inscribe the very difference between “Christian” and “non-Christian” into the distinction Paul makes. What both these positions agree upon is that Paul held there to be one primary identity that trumps all the others, an identity that is superior to all other identities.

What I would like to suggest, following Slavoj Žižek, is that these two positions fail to go far enough in their arguments. 

Instead of raising one concrete identity above and beyond all the others should we not follow this logic to the end and place the very distinction between “Christian” and “non-Christian” alongside all the others?

In other words, when we identify as followers of Christ we are not laying down all our other identities (republican or democrat, rich or poor, gay or straight) in order to affirm only one as truly important. Rather we lay down every identity, enacting what, in theology, is called kenosis. This is where we partake in Christ who became nothing, divesting himself of everything to become a servant.

Here we do not lay down our identity only to pick up our new identity in Christ. Rather it is in laying down all our identities that we directly identify with Christ.

In this Pauline approach something truly new and beautiful arises in a world defined by who we are and what we do. Here the fundamental antagonism is not located between various distinctions but rather between those who lay all distinctions down and those who hold onto them. Christianity marks the opening of a movement where the only insiders are the outsiders, the ones without position or location.

In the economy of the world our identity is vital. What we do, what we earn, what we have accomplished. In the kingdom economy all of this is what Paul called shit (skubala). 

Within the church we are to engage in a radical subtraction by which we see through these identities (no longer allowing them to define the scope and limitations of our world). In this move we lose everything, and in that moment discover our souls.