Marginal Christianity

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-taylor/the-apostle-paul-was-not-_b_1579802.html     Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "To be great is to be misunderstood." If Emerson was right, then the Apostle Paul might be one of the greatest men to ever live. Few religious leaders have been as grossly misunderstood as Paul. Unlike Jesus, who most people regard as a great moral teacher, Paul is routinely accused of the most egregious sins according to modern sensibilities: misogyny, classism, homophobia, anti-Semitism. The idea that Paul invented Christianity is so fashionable nowadays that many people take it as a given, as if it's obviously true. The irony in all this unexamined Paul-bashing is that fewer people today are taking the time to ponder the crux of his moral message: "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" -- a message that both society and the Church need to hear. Yes, there are passages in Paul's letters that would seem to paint him as pro-s...

May 24, 2012 By peteenns Leave a Comment No. Even when you account for 2000 years of cultural differences between Paul and Evangelicalism, the answer is no. Why? Because Paul didn’t treat the Bible the way mainstream Evangelicalism says you need to. The way Paul handled his Bible–what we call the Old Testament–would keep him off the short list for openings to teach Bible in many Evangelical seminaraies and Christian colleges. Heck, John Piper, John MacArthur, and R. C. Sproul probably wouldn’t let Paul lead a home Bible study, at least not without supervision. Here is the main reason why: For Evangelicals, the Old Testament leads to the Gospel story. For Paul, the Old Testament is transformed by the Gospel. For Evangelicals, the Old Testament, read pretty much at face value, anticipates Jesus. For Paul, the Old Testament is reshaped in order to conform to Jesus. For Evangelicals, the Bible is God’s final authority. For Paul, Jesus is the final authority to which the Bi...