1 Corinthians 15: 19–28
Much of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians addresses concerns and controversies that were likely brought to Paul in a letter from the Christ-followers in Corinth. Many scholars argue that Paul is addressing ideologically based social hierarchy rooted in Greco-Roman philosophies which divide the Corinthians into “weak” and “strong” classes. Throughout the letter Paul sarcastically admonishes the “strong” and identifies with the “weak,” using and upending the hierarchical logic.[1] The penultimate chapter addresses a concern Paul is bringing to the strong; he has heard that they deny the bodily resurrection of Christ. Here Paul again both appeals to and upends the Greco-Roman philosophies held by the Corinthians in a couple ways that might be interesting to the abolitionist.
First, Paul begins this section with language that admonishes the Corinthian “strong” and endears him to the “weak.” In verse 12 he writes, “So if the message that is preached says that Christ has been raised from the dead, then how can some of you say, ‘There’s no resurrection of the dead’?” (CEB). The term “resurrection of the dead” might be better translated as “raising of the corpses.” This phrase would have offended the sensibilities of the well-educated, philosophically nuanced “strong.” It would have been familiar and more easily accepted by the “weak” who may have sincerely relayed stories about risen corpses and had concerns about suffering bodily in this life and the after-life. According to Martin, philosophies acceptable to the strong might have argued that there is no life after death or that the soul was liberated from the body. Populist beliefs on the other hand, “betrayed a fear of death… a belief that death was somehow unnatural and undesirable.”[2]
Paul begins by unequivocally affirming the concerns of the weak, using imagery (the raising of corpses) that would offend the strong’s sensibilities. Paul affirms the problem of death, which certainly was a more salient concern for lower-class “weak” Corinthians. The well-educated philosophers would have seen this fear of death as a maladjustment. They believed people should accept death as a natural part of life: leading to a release from worldly concerns and an end to suffering. The people who were looked down on in Greco-Roman hierarchy found the persistent specter of death insufferable and not remedied by its completion. Paul sided with these people. Abolitionists must do the same, unequivocally affirming the concerns and hopes of those suffering under mass incarceration and the specter of death represented by prison and policing. Later in chapter 15 Paul describes the resurrected body in a way that would be intelligible to the strong, but not before admonishing them and clearly aligning himself with the weak.
The second thing Paul does is articulate a view of salvation that is cosmic and participatory. Salvation from Paul’s perspective cannot be understood as individual moral or intellectual achievement. Salvation is accomplished by the destruction of powers and principalities that are governed by sin and death. In his letter to the Romans Paul is clear that while law (ethical and social norms that govern relationships) is not bad in itself, it perpetuates sin when it is enforced by the threat of death.[3] Paul hints at this same idea in 15:46, though it is not as well developed and argued in this earlier letter. Those who were less connected to the ongoing threat of death might be able to function in such a system, but they are left “in sin” just as much as the ones who are, as Daniel Oodshorn puts it, “left for dead.”[4] The strong in 1 Corinthians judged the weak’s plight as an individual (or social group based) constitutional, moral or intellectual failure rather than an indictment of the whole social and political system, which is governed by death. Paul insists that the whole system needs to be transformed by Christ’s death and resurrection. This removes the threat of death and power of sin, not by affirming or using death, but by overcoming it. This opens the possibility for people to enter into spaces vulnerable to death without either fearing or affirming the violence death represents. Only in this way can we commune with one another in a life giving way: first by communing with Christ (overcoming fear of death in vulnerable solidarity with those who are “left for dead,” yet live) and then by becoming the “Christic body” that extends this communion to others.[5] It is placing faith in and participating in the life of Christ that the whole world is saved.
Likewise, the abolitionist interpreter will note that there is a right and wrong way to talk about overcoming the fear of death. The wrong way, represented by the Corinthian strong, overcomes “fear of death” by some kind of personal intellectual and moral achievement that accepts death (or even lauds it). This can be likened to a particularly insidious form of CBT therapy offered in many prisons and re-entry programs called “Moral Reconation Therapy.” MRT insists that the problems leading to incarceration lie solely within the prisoner. The system does not need to change, just the individual’s beliefs. For example they say, “Suffering and unhappiness are to be expected sometimes right? WRONG. Unhappiness was and is a part of your life because you choose it,” (caps and bold are theirs).[6] The right way, represented by Paul’s cosmic vision, is to see that there is, altogether, a system perpetuating suffering and unhappiness, our embeddedness in that system, and the possibility of putting our faith in another way that is neither governed by the system’s threat of violence nor affirms it. We are liberated from death-dealing systems when we participate in relationships that show us how to communally overcome such systems even while we are still living within them. This is the work of abolition and building new systems of transformative justice. This is also what Jesus’ death and resurrection accomplished from Paul’s perspective. Christ’s resurrection provides the confidence we need to participate in the vulnerable, salvific relationships of the “christic body.” This confidence is not in one’s own personal salvation, but in the transformation of the entire cosmos, where our loving, life-giving God becomes “all in all.”
Sarah Lynne Gershon (she/her) is an MDiv/MTS student, DOC pastor, and lives at the Bloomington Catholic Worker.
[1] See Dale Martin, The Corinthian Body, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).
[2] Ibid, 114.
[3] See Theodore Jennings, Outlaw Justice: The Messianic Politics of Paul, Cultural Memory in the Present, (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2013) for more about how Paul understands Christ’s relationship with the law.
[4] Daniel Oudshoorn, Pauline Eschatology: The Apocalyptic Rupture of Eternal Imperialism, Paul and the Uprising of the Dead, V. 2, (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2020) 134.
[5] See Yung Suk Kim, Christ’s Body in Corinth: The Politics of a Metaphor, Paul in Critical Contexts, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008) for more insight into how I’m using the term “christic body.”
[6] Gregory Little and Kenneth Robinson, How to Escape Your Prison: A Moral Reconation Workbook, Memphis, TN: Eagle Wing Books, 2016), 2.