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The observation that Luke–Acts contains a political component is, of course, not new. More than 250 years ago C. A. Heumann argued that Luke's two volumes were written ‘as an apology for the Christian religion’ to be presented to a Roman magistrate named Theophilus. Through the ‘storm center’ and ‘shifting sands’ of recent Lucan research this aspect of Luke's writing has remained a strong rampart. Though the analysis and interpretation of the political material in Luke–Acts has varied from scholar to scholar, the premise that Luke has presented an apologia pro ecclesia is constantly in the background. Those who are uneasy about the content, context, and objective of Luke's political apologetic conclude either that Luke has made an inconsistent apologia pro ecclesia or that apologetic concerns did not motivate him at all.
Like others, I struggled with the problems raised by the Lucan apologia until it occurred to me that perhaps the premise was ‘upside-down’; I had been reflecting on Acts 17:6 at the time. Could Luke rather have presented an apologia pro imperio to the early church? Reading Luke–Acts with this perspective in mind does clear away many of the problems consistently encountered in the traditional understanding of Luke's political apologetic.
In this book I shall review the development of the traditional perspective (Chapter 1), then raise three questions (Chapter 2): If Luke presents an apologia pro ecclesia, why does he include so much material that is politically damaging to the Christian cause?
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