Performance Criticism As Critical Pedagogy‪.‬

Few themes have so dominated contemporary New Testament interpretation in recent years as the Roman imperial context of those writings. Whether interpreting the Gospels, Pauline letters, or Revelation, New Testament scholars have shown how the "empire of God" announced and embodied by Jesus and his followers offered an alternative to the Roman Empire. This paper asks not about the empire that ruled then, but about how power dynamics like those employed by Rome continue to rule today. Let me pause for a moment of confession regarding this challenge. Sharing the abundance of anti-imperial interpretations opens my university students' eyes to dynamics they had not seen in the texts. Yet, and here the confession, I often suspect that I am promoting anti-imperial ideas through an imperialistic mode of teaching. I struggle within the restraints and possibilities of the twenty-first century higher education classroom to nurture learning as a liberative process for my students. I don't merely want to deliver ideas about transformation and reciprocity, I want us to experience these virtues in the classroom. I fear that the unintended irony a student offered me rings true. He wrote, "Your understanding of freedom captivates me." This current struggle is an old friend; as a parish pastor I longed to help my congregation members to interpret the Bible, yet often ended up teaching them my already defined interpretations.