Religious Minority in the Majority’s Ideology

This article analyses how Christian communities in Asia Minor, including Ephesus, respond as religious minorities to the dominance of the Roman imperial family ideology through a study of the Epistle to the Ephesians, specifically the Haustafel of Ephesians. I argue, using an Indonesian postcolonial perspective, Christian communities described in the Epistle to the Ephesians, categorised as minority religious groups, engaged in political discourse with the imperial ideology of family through three strategies. First, Christian communities in Asia Minor adopted the imperial family ideology to support social harmony, namely by making this a part of Christian teachings and by recognising the important position of the paterfamilias in the family. Secondly, they adopted imperial ideology to affirm communal identity by adding an element of Christ and placing it in the context of the ekklesia . Thirdly, Christian communities in Asia Minor critically engage imperial ideology, namely by reducing the power of the paterfamilias and by making weak parties in the family agents of action. These three strategies show how minority groups may survive under a dominant majority ideology.