The Radical Middle

Elevate the Discourse Blog

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Special to United Methodist Insight | June 17, 2025

In the first century, there was no concept of equality, neither in the philosophical or legal sense nor in how modern Western societies assume it to be self-evident. Deeply entrenched hierarchies existed that were both strict and sacred. The Roman Empire thrived on these hierarchies. Jews lived within them, while Greeks rationalized them. Slaves were born to serve, and women were expected to obey. Ethnic boundaries were firm and, for most, unchangeable.

When a former Pharisee named Paul writes to a group of Galatians, mostly Gentile converts, and says, almost in passing, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus," it’s easy to overlook what’s happening.

He isn’t arguing for equality.

He’s assuming it, and that changes everything.

This is a story about intellectual sleight of hand. The kind where the most disruptive ideas don’t arrive with fanfare. They’re not framed as manifestos or demands. Instead, they slip in through the side door, disguised as something obvious, even inevitable. They operate beneath the level of debate and shift the terms without announcing that a shift has taken place.

That’s what Paul does in Galatians.

In one sentence, he provides no rationale, historical context, or footnote. He presents the new reality and moves on, as if everyone already knows it. As if the notion that slaves and free people are spiritual equals isn’t revolutionary, but routine.

Why?

Because the moment you argue for equality, you imply it’s up for discussion. You concede that inequality has standing and that it deserves to be considered. If you assume equality, you treat the old categories as relics. You rob them of their power, not by confronting them directly, but by refusing to speak their language.

We’ve seen this before.

Rosa Parks wasn't launching a debate when she stayed seated on that bus in Montgomery; she was acting as if the question of who belonged and where had already been settled. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t march to ask whether Black Americans were fully human. He marched as if the matter was already beyond question. They acted with the determined logic of individuals who had stopped granting legitimacy to systems that never deserved it.

Presumption is a strategy.

Paul understood it long before the civil rights movement.

It’s also a bit like that Seinfeld episode where George gets fired from a real estate company, but instead of accepting his fate, he shows up to work the next day as if nothing happened, with no explanation or apology. George acts like the rules don’t apply to him, and for a brief moment, it works, because no one’s quite sure how to respond. That’s Paul in Galatians. He doesn’t ask for permission to dismantle centuries of ethnic, social, and gender hierarchies. He walks into the conversation and starts talking like those divisions are already obsolete. It’s theological audacity disguised as normalcy. Like George, he’s betting that if you act like you belong, eventually people stop questioning whether you do.

Here’s where things get interesting.

Paul didn’t derive his presumption from reason, law, or experience. It wasn’t based on human rights or political philosophy; it was theological. He believed that a single unifying event had redefined identity: the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In that event, the barriers between people came down, not because society had evolved, but because something deeper had changed.

Paul didn’t argue that Jews and Gentiles should get along. He wrote as if they already were family. He didn’t explain why slaves and free people had equal value. He wrote as if everyone already knew they did.

And if they didn’t know?

They’d better catch up.

There’s a name for this kind of rhetoric. In psychology, it’s sometimes called “priming.” You introduce an idea not with fanfare, but with familiarity. You plant it in someone’s mind so that they forget it was ever new. Over time, it starts to feel like common sense.

Paul was doing just that, not by preaching revolution, but by writing letters; not by demanding equality, but by assuming it so confidently that his readers had to either go along with it or expose how radical they were.

Did Paul dismantle slavery? No.

Did he ordain women? No.

Did he create a legal doctrine of equal rights? Also no.

But that’s not how real change works.

Real change starts with the assumptions people stop questioning. It begins in the realm of imagination, then filters into behavior, and only much later arrives in law. Paul’s genius wasn’t in what he fought against, but in what he refused to acknowledge as legitimate. He left the old world behind without bothering to burn it down.

Malcom Gladwell calls this “thin slicing”, the ability to make snap judgments based on limited information. Paul’s letter to the Galatians is a kind of theological thin slice. He sees through the scaffolding of race, gender, and status. He notices something deeper is already happening and writes like it’s always been true.

There’s something quietly subversive about that.

Revolutions don’t always start with thunderclaps. Sometimes, they begin with a single sentence, so understated that we forget how dangerous it really is.

The Rev. Richard Bryant is an elder in the North Carolina Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. This post is republished with permission from his blog, Elevate the Discourse.