74 Dimensions of Baptism
Acts of the Apostles appear at two crucial crossroads of the Gentile mis-
sion in order to demonstrate the incontrovertible geosocial progress of the
mission and especially to show how the mission thus established the
household as the new culture center for the people of God. In employing
the expression 'culture center', I am following Clifford Geertz's defini-
tion: an active center of social order, consisting in that point or points in a
society where 'its leading ideas come together with its leading institutions
to create an arena in which the events that most vitally affect its members'
lives take place'.^8 A culture center, for Geertz, is inherently sacred and
serves to develop, maintain, and broadcast that world-order that comes to
its loftiest, most undefiled and unimpeachable expression within its
borders. I am employing Geertz's work in a parodic way, however, since
each of the instances of household baptism appears in the Lukan narrative
at points where the 'household' is masterfully juxtaposed with what one
would normally regard as the authentic 'active center of social order',
those institutions that serve a world-ordering function, exemplifying and
radiating divinely sanctioned dispositions and behaviors—namely, Jerusa-
lem (for the Jewish world) and Rome (for the oiKou|jevTi). In short, I will
argue that the effect of Luke's narration of household baptisms is to
subvert the ideologies of Jerusalem temple and Roman empire, replacing
both with the house church—an institution generated in the episodes in
question through household baptism, and that embodies and heralds the
commitments and practices of the people of God.^9 After a few introduc-
tory comments concerning the presence and importance of the data on
household baptisms in Acts, I will turn to an exploration of two sections of
the narrative of Acts, 10.1-11.18; 16.11-40.
- Clifford Geertz, 'Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics
of Power', in his Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology (New
York: Basic, 1983), pp. 121-46 (122-23). - Although at some points his analysis needs further nuance, John H. Elliott has
demonstrated well how Luke contrasts temple and household ('Temple versus House-
hold in Luke-Acts: A Contrast in Social Institutions', in Jerome H. Neyrey [ed.], The
Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson,
1991], pp. 211-40; that Elliott has exaggerated the economic import of the temple for
the Lukan narrative, cf. Joel B. Green, 'The Demise of the Temple as Culture Center in
Luke-Acts: An Exploration of the Rending of the Temple Veil [Lk. 23.44-49]', RB
101 [1994], pp. 495-515 [510]). Many ofElliott's observations are equally relevant to
the Lukan portrayal of the synagogue, though he does not develop this point.