When The Name Christian Meant Something
The Roman Origins of "Christian" And Why It Matters Today
I thought I’d share an insight from my research today. I think it helps us resist some of the ways “Christian” has become associated with racism, bigotry, and violence (i.e. with antichrist).
In my upcoming dissertation, I have a whole chapter on the label “evangelical” — what it’s meant, where it’s come from, how it’s been contested, and how it’s evolved. There, I argue “evangelical” is a shelter. One that shields leaders and entire communities not only from accountability or interrogation, but from Jesus himself. That’s another topic for another time.
In the Roman Empire, you didn’t call yourself a Christiani, you got called Christiani. It wasn’t an identification, it was an accusation.
What I want to focus on today is how my deep dive into the “evangelical” label turned into a broader study of the names used to identify “Christians”. That meant studying where the name “Christian” itself came from. Today, Stanley Hauerwas calls “Christian” an “identity without difference” meaning we don’t often know where being American ends and where being Christian begins.
Luke in Acts 11 says the label started to be used around the same time Paul served the church in Antioch. But there’s more to it than this. “Christian” doesn’t mean “little Christ” maybe like you heard in youth group. It wasn’t meant to describe a new group of people who looked just like the love of Jesus. It marked and “othered” people as subversive threats to the social order of Rome.
Christiani was a partisan word and public judgment
In Ancient Rome, people signaled their political affiliation to a city or a leader by adding the suffix “iani”. There were Augustiani for Caesar, Herodiani for Herod of Antipas, even Pompeiiani-citizens of Pompeii.
In this context, Christiani, or "Christ people”, was originally a partisan label. One you couldn’t just take for yourself as an individual. It was a term for a community, a political one, a fact that reflected the prevailing categories and values shared by Roman culture.
Christiani wasn’t a label invented by the church. It was applied to the church by outsiders. It was a public judgment, not a private or personal lifestyle brand. You didn’t call yourself a Christiani, you got called Christiani. It wasn’t a identification, it was an accusation.
It was a public judgment based on observable behavior and associations. You got called Christiani because who you associated with, who you invited into your home, and why you were seen walking back home after sunrise in the early morning on Sundays. All of this behavior was readily observable in the social world where proximity and intimacy weren’t veiled by modern society. To be called Christiani wasn’t based on private beliefs or morals but on public association.
Christiani wasn’t a label you could apply to yourself without radically altering your life. It also meant it also wasn’t something you could divest from either. It stuck, along with the reputation it was meant to convey.
In this context, to be called "Christiani" wasn't a good thing. It meant you were being associated with someone who was crucified by Rome, a punishment reserved for only the most radical insurrectionists and political subversives.
I suppose some of the racist and violent elements of “Christian nationalism”—those who confuse “white” with “Christian” and “Christian” with “American” — might feel a sense of solidarity with this meaning. That is until you realize they couldn’t be more opposed to the Cross itself. This doesn’t justify January 6 rioters, it actually exposes them.
The Cross of the Crucified One embodies the faith which conquers the world, not through subjugation and violence, but through sacrifice and peace. The Cross inaugurates a Kingdom predicated on weakness not strength, on solidarity with the world. It resists violence by suffering violence, rather than returning it.
This was the faith that led the earliest Jesus communities to begin to identify with the term. Even though it marked them as subversives, even though it came from outsiders. Even though it aligned them with real threats of persecution. Why?
Because it meant sharing in the apocalypse of Jesus’ faith, in his testimony to another Kingdom of peace, and in the communion of presence that was the church within and without the Roman Empire.
When Peter wrote to these sort of churches in the 1st century, "if anyone suffers as a Christian, do not be ashamed" he assumed their cultural context of a minority community, a community who were misunderstood and misrepresented. Today, so much false rage is manufactured by confusing this situation with the contemporary situation in the West. White Christians are not the persecuted minority in America.
When Peter wrote, “do not be ashamed if you suffer as a Christiani” he wasn’t assuming majority culture status, but a minority culture. He wasn't describing Christendom. And we ought to read this passage in that light, along with the way we narrate our contemporary moment.
In white US churches and communities, to be a "Christian" is confused with participating in and preserving majority culture. This is antichrist.
To be "Christiani" is to be identified with Jesus, a Jewish itinerate rabbi executed as an insurrectionist by the Imperium. Those who embrace that identification must do so not because of the cultural or social capital it represents, but as a theological confession that this man was the son of God, which carries with it political consequences that are reflected first in formats in a specific community called out to be distinct, not against the world, but for it.
For more, read:
Trebilco, Paul R. Self-Designations and Group Identity in the New Testament. Cambridge, UK
Taylor, Justin. “Why Were the Disciples First Called ‘Christians’ at Antioch? (Acts 11, 26).” Revue Biblique
Typo: inaugrates, should be inaugurates. Now that I've got that out of my hair...😇
Thanks for this excellent and timely article. I do a bit of gospel sharing online, and it hurts to see how many in the world are so skeptical of the gospel, not for the right reasons (sin, blood atonement, holiness, etc.), but for the wrong ones: "Oh, so you're a Trump supporter/racist/white nationalist/etc., hmm?" On the contrary, I am proud to be identified with Christ; I will never be identified with a mere mortal, especially one as morally corrupt as Donald Trump. It's unfortunately easy to forget, but a Christian is a Christian because of Christ, not other Christians. I'm afraid a great many modern American Christians have that reversed. They identify with people who are like them and just happen to call themselves "Christians" rather than the crucified Jewish rabbi who was and is the Son of God.