17 July 2004

That scoundrel, Paul A few months ago, on a forum I frequent, a bit of controversy erupted over the claim that Saint (or otherwise) Paul, that old scoundrel, was a false apostle. One participant, hitherto a convinced Pauline universalist, went so far as literally to cut Paul from the pages of his Bible. The subject has recently resurfaced. A poster comments: My current feeling is that believers have elevated Paul to a position above Jesus. Oh, people will quickly deny that but they should just listen to preachers' sermons, Christians and even their own words. Paul is mentioned and cited more than any other "Apostle" (no, I don't think Paul was really an apostle, at least not on a par with the original 12 or 13). Most Christians can quote the alleged words of Paul easier than they can quote the alleged words of Jesus. Obviously, since we have more "words" attributed, wrongly I believe, to Paul, that fact needs to be taken into account. But, even at that, in my opinion what we have today is better described as Paulianity with Jesus serving as Paul's co-redeemer or assistant. I have grown increasingly critical of Paul myself in the last few years, as a natural extension of my willingness to question Scripture. What I have read of the anti-Pauline arguments tend to be extremely partisan (generally from Zionists whose main beef is that Paul is not OT-Jewish enough), but still their polemics throw up lots of interesting questions that I'd like to investigate. If you're new to this debate, check out this guy for starters. (But don't say you weren't warned of its highly partisan slant!) Dave 7:57:21 PM    Join the conversation [] Making deals with God The Internet Monk has penned an interesting piece on what Robert Farrar Capon calls "transactionalism". The Monk aka Michael Spencer writes: I no longer believe in [transactionalism] ... The dictionary defines a "transaction" as "a communicative action or activity involving two parties or things that reciprocally affect or influence each other." Transactionalism would be a belief system that involves a transaction- actions on our part and results- between God and a human being. All based on reciprocal actions. Put that way, I hope you will recognize that the typical evangelical is awash in a sea of transactional language, images, explanations, sermons, and songs. Evangelicalism is often one huge system for "getting God to do stuff." I'm out of that business with God, because I don't think God was ever in that business. He puts forth some ideas about atonement that are very close to the way I have been considering the atonement in the last couple years: In my language, the atonement as the ultimate space-time expression or fulfilment of God's eternal self-giving and accepting-into-himself the evil, sin and suffering of the world; or, in Spencer's language (following Capon), a window into the eternal reality of God's forgiveness, a "sacrament" that offers participation in the world on the other side of the window. He also shares a few thoughts on the nature of the proclamation of the gospel message: It's not an invitation to do a business transaction with God (do x, y and z and God will accept you), but rather an announcement of a new order ... [The Emperor] isn't opening a business and looking for customers. He's informing his subjects of what the future will be like. Spencer's site (well, actually, he has at least three websites I know of -- Boar's Head Tavern, MichaelSpencer.us and Internet Monk) is worth a look round. He appears to be coming from a fairly conservative Reformed standpoint, but at the same time isn't content merely to toe the line. I like what I've read so far. Dave 2:19:42 PM    Join the conversation []

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