Both the crucifix and the ichtus appeared a long time after Paul. And he never says that following what Jesus said to do is unimportant; he just preached a liberation from the need to try to be perfect, to follow moral rules literally, exactly the contrary to what mega-pastors do today.
Paul has a bad name because he was recuperated and deformed by evangelicalism.
He overcorrected, and yeah we have evangelicalism now. But even in his day, he had the seed of it in him. Sure, this guy who was just persecuting Christians miraculously had a vision that just so happened to conflict with the actual disciples. Dude was always a mega-pastor at heart.
Let’s say that Paul’s letters contain the seeds of things that can lead to very problematic theologies. But Paul himself, with his emphasis on freedom and his rejection of moral sanctity and literalism, isn’t so bad. His main problem, in my opinion, is his almost pathological fear of scandal, which leads him to accept too many things from his society in order not to offend anyone.
Eh, the moral sanctity of faith > works? Paul was selling. He wanted to be the guy, so he massaged the message a bit to make it more marketable. You can make an argument for moving away from the stricter OT observances, but again the result was an overcorrection.
Both the crucifix and the ichtus appeared a long time after Paul. And he never says that following what Jesus said to do is unimportant; he just preached a liberation from the need to try to be perfect, to follow moral rules literally, exactly the contrary to what mega-pastors do today.
Paul has a bad name because he was recuperated and deformed by evangelicalism.
He overcorrected, and yeah we have evangelicalism now. But even in his day, he had the seed of it in him. Sure, this guy who was just persecuting Christians miraculously had a vision that just so happened to conflict with the actual disciples. Dude was always a mega-pastor at heart.
Let’s say that Paul’s letters contain the seeds of things that can lead to very problematic theologies. But Paul himself, with his emphasis on freedom and his rejection of moral sanctity and literalism, isn’t so bad. His main problem, in my opinion, is his almost pathological fear of scandal, which leads him to accept too many things from his society in order not to offend anyone.
Eh, the moral sanctity of faith > works? Paul was selling. He wanted to be the guy, so he massaged the message a bit to make it more marketable. You can make an argument for moving away from the stricter OT observances, but again the result was an overcorrection.
If you put intentions on people, it’s easy to dismiss any idea.
And if you ignore all the evidence, it’s easy to dismiss obvious intentions.