Paul Democracy and the Corinthians

In this short and remarkable book L.L. Welborn outlines the complex and contested nature of ‘democracy’ in the Greek cities of the Roman East, where the apostle Paul established Christ groups, showing that writings of Paul and the development of Christianity reveal a strong and radical form of democracy that holds ever-greater relevance in today’s contentious political landscape. Welborn begins by showing how, paradoxically, language around the concept of democracy is largely absent from political thinkers in the first century. By contrast, we learn that Paul’s Corinthian correspondence is full of vocabulary associated with democracy, not only the term we know as “Church” (ekkesia) or “people’s assembly”, which the Christ-group adopted as a self-designation, but other terms with a democratic history and resonance such as eleutheria (“freedom”), paressia (“freedom of speech”), koinomia (“partnership”), isotes (“equality”). Moreover, as Welborn shows, several passages give evidence of democratic practices, such as voting (2 Cor. 2:6-8). Especially significant is the revelation that women were praying and prophesying in the assembly (1 Cor. 11:5), enacting a radical extension of the democratic-egalitarian ethos. In these chapters Welborn assesses the complex evidence of Paul’s Corinthian epistles in an attempt to answer the question: How “democratic” was the assembly of Christ followers at Corinth? If, as Welborn suggests, the answer is exceptionally “democratic,” at least in comparison with the political regime of first-century Roman Corinth, what consequence might this discovery have for those who are concerned about the failure of democracy today?