Church and Community Conflicts: The Relationships of the Thessalonian, Corinthian, and Philippian Churches with their Wider Civic Communities

CRAIG STEPHEN DE vos, Church and Community Conflicts: The Relationships of the Thessalonian, Corinthian, and Philippian Churches with their Wider Civic Communities (SBLDS 168; Atlanta: Scholars, 1999). Pp. x + 332. $39.

The author of this book examines the nature of the conflict between early Christians and their wider civic context in three locales: Thessalonica, Corinth, and Philippi. Part 1 of the study is largely methodological. Following an introductory chapter, de Vos develops a preliminary social-scientific model (chap. 1) based on a theory of "culture of conflict," suggesting that "the incidence of conflict varies according to society's particular combination of psycho-cultural and social-structural factors" (p. 301). The model is then tested against social-scientific data from the Greco-Roman world, including psycho-cultural dispositions such as socialization, norms, values, and beliefs (chap. 2) as well as socio-structural factors such as social relationships, allocation of resources, and legal and political structures (chap. 3). He concludes that conflicts between a Christian community and the wider community of its civic context would center on the norms, values, and beliefs of the wider community. A lower incidence of conflict can be expected in contexts where there is a crossing of status or ethnic boundaries, particularly when this is supported by a hierarchical politico-- legal system.

In part 2, de V uses...