In several theological disciplines, the introduction of Empire as a central category of analysis has been extremely generative. Empire has served historical studies in support of research that observes the development of Christian traditions alongside the progress of imperial forces. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza narrates how the study of empire reshaped biblical studies and the understanding of the formation of the Christian canon as well as its study in the present.[1] Similarly, Richard Horsley has amplified the study of early Christianity with a keen attention to how the context of the Roman Empire impacted the shape of a budding Christian identity, which often contradicted and resisted imperial forces.[2] A focus on empire has allowed theologians to scrutinize how theological categories have been shaped in political and social circumstances impacted by imperialism. As the authors included in the volume Empire and the Christian Tradition demonstrate, revisiting themes and figures in historical theology with the lens of Empire is a salient task that produces new perspectives in Christian thought.[3]

Theologians Néstor Míguez, Joerg Rieger, and Jung Mo Sung tease out the “spirit of Empire” to address the ethos engendered by imperialism. Its global reach “generates a ‘collective spirit’. . . that allows and approves of certain behaviours, reactions, feelings, and attitudes.”[4] Hardt and Negri’s claims about the subject-forming force of Empire invited theological reflections on how theological imaginaries often remain caught up in an imperial paradigm. In their view, “Empire presents its order as permanent, eternal, and necessary.”[5] The spirit of empire substantially shapes our visions of God and our ecclesial structures. From a theological perspective, that which is received in faith as a perennial truth ought to be investigated carefully so as not to be confused with imperial images being projected as coeternal. In terms of ecclesial structures, attention to Empire invites vigilance to scrutinize how power flows in the context of a global denomination. Empire seeks to be pervasive and all-controlling. No theology can claim immunity against these forces; no church can claim to be outside of the spirit of empire.

In Joerg Rieger’s concise definition, empire refers to “massive concentrations of power which permeate all aspects of life and which cannot be controlled by any one actor alone.”[6] Empire’s reach is therefore insidious but not all-consuming. While imperial forces amass significant power and aspects of life, their claims for omnipotence tend to fall short. For theologians engaged in empire studies and anticolonial theologies, this prompts the thought of new images of God that emerge in the cracks of imperial power. Rieger states, “One of the key purposes of the study of Christian theology in the context of empire has to do with a search for that which cannot be co-opted by empire, and which thus inspires alternatives to empire.”[7] Rieger refers to this as a theological surplus. The term speaks to the residues that empire seeks to suppress and that nevertheless show up, contrary to the policing efforts of imperial forces.[8]

But in its expansion and its global reach, in its impetus to shape all according to its image and likeness, it also fosters that which it cannot contain. A justice-seeking theology must continuously assess its premises, discern the spirits, and seek out the movements of God’s Spirit beyond the spirit of empire. For Keller, the imperial condition of Christianity might find its antidote in the interstitial, the sites where the inescapable reach of imperial forces nevertheless produces alternatives to Empire.[9] It creates the conditions for its own questioning, for its own potential dissolution. In its global aspirations, empire fails to completely create a world that replicates its models of power and its structure of authority. In its drive to globality, empire meets local stories that present a counter-story to the imperial vision of the “globe.”[10]

It is the both the opinion and the commitment of the authors in the book that the Methodist traditions have not been subsumed by imperialism. While not uncritical to the impact of imperialism on Methodism, the testimony offered by the chapters gathered in this volume is that there is a theological surplus that remains active in Methodist communities and their theologies. While imperial forces seek to control everything, God’s work exceeds the grasp of empire. The force and vitality of Methodism relies on its ability to encounter God’s grace in the interstices of empire.

The flow of power under imperialism is an everlasting vertical force that moves from the centers of power to its peripheries. Contributors to this volume detect several instances whereby Methodism obeyed this logic. Paying close attention to these imperial forces has a double significance. On the one hand, it trains Methodist leaders and theologians to acknowledge that the church is not immune to the forces of empire, even when it seeks to preserve itself from the involvement in geo-political matters. All ecclesial debates are political and, we must insist, the task of forming a global denomination ought to be situated in the context of American national and corporate expansionism in the twentieth century. On the other hand, paying close attention to imperial forces might create the necessary space to discern counter-hegemonic ways of being the church. This is the constructive task that we seek to embrace in this volume. We hope that readers will be able to recognize how Methodism also found ways of negotiating forms of power that are cultivated on the underside of empire and whose flow is horizontal, integrative, and democratic.