Apocalyptic beliefs enter the Hebrew Bible only once, and very late, in the Book of Daniel. Early Christianity inherited each of these traditions, and has stressed them in varying ways throughout its history. Such beliefs were clearly counter to the larger culture - and issued in the various forms of disobedience early Christians practiced regarding larger social norms.
King notes early Christian opposition to infanticide and gladiatorial contests.
More dramatically, early Christians also disobeyed the occasional requirement of worshiping the Emperor as a god - and, for three centuries, Christian men refused to enter the Roman army, on the grounds that killing violated God's law and Jesus' example. The price of such disobedience was often torture and death. But it is precisely the courage and conviction of these early Christians that King appeals to in the Letter , arguing for an analogous, contemporary disobedience of the unjust laws of segregation. In particular, over against the radical gender equality of the first generation Christians, 4th ct. The Christianity they criticize, the Christianity of slaveholders and segregationists, is, by contrast, largely apocalyptic Christianity - i.e., one stressing individual salvation in an afterlife .