“Regimes of truth” and the “word of truth” is the subject of chp 6 in Walsh and Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed. The chp begins with this statement: “The Colossian Christians had trouble on both sides. To many Jews they were heretics, and to the empire they were seditious” (96).
OK, I’ve pushed back on this enough but I just want to say that I’m not so sure the Roman empire saw the Christian churches of the apostle Paul as seditious just quite yet. There are some indicators of opposition to Christianity, namely the expulsion under Claudius in 49 AD, but being seen as “seditious” can be true (Christians can be problematic) or inaccurate (official enemies of Rome). And again I’ll mention that starting out this way sets the reader up for a chp shaped by such an idea. The chp, however, focuses on “truth.”
W-K have a nice survey of “truth” in Colossians (1:5, ;9, 10, 21, 25, 28; 2:2-3, 8, 23; 3:1-4, 10, 16; 4:5-6). This leads to Colossians as worldview.
Colossians provides a worldview for Colossian Christians. Worldviews are knowledge maps, praxis maps, and they are totalizing. Any variant perspective, including the Roman one, is “deviant and disruptive” (they are quoting Walter T. Wilson’s technical book).
Postmoderns, they are quick to point out and serious about thinking through, struggle with totalizing worldviews. Postmoderns take totalizing worldviews and convert them through deconstruction into cultural products.
What are we to make of Colossians as a worldview text? Tomorrow.