Taussig argues that the sharing of the meal in these largely Roman contexts, the church engaged in a Christly version of the symposium and embodied a distinctly political activity because it countered the claims of empire in their pledging of loyalty to a god other than Caesar. They believed that their participation in the activity enacted the bringing into their bodies the Christ to whom they were pledging loyalty.
Further, when the meals of the Kingdom were convened and celebrated, they were a haven for those marginalized or oppressed by the ways and identities of empire. The meal became an expression of the people’s new allegiance born in the midst of the pledge to a new politic, that of Christ the King. It was a way to “imagine social alternatives” against the totalitarian claims of empire, while similarly expecting God’s full presence as an incarnational reality in their