What follows is a chapter from Jim Palmer's book, Inner Anarchy. It is about the writings of Paul in the New Testament. If I were a better writer, I would have written these same words. Here are a few clips from it that I particularly liked followed by Palmer's chapter
Christianity as we know it is the product of a long historical development, and no individual shaped that development more than Paul.....Western Christianity, whether Catholic or Protestant, is fundamentally Pauline in its assumptions and structure.....Perhaps Paul's most consequential move was interpreting the Roman execution of Jesus through the lens of sacrificial atonement. The Jewish image of the Passover lamb became the model through which Jesus was understood as the Lamb of God whose blood removed the sins of humanity.....Yet none of this requires hostility toward Paul. He was not attempting to create an infallible religion for future civilizations.....The problem is not Paul. The problem is what later generations did with Paul. It was the Church, not Paul, that elevated his correspondence into the infallible Word of God.
Here is Palmer's writing in full.
Modern Christianity is largely Pauline Christianity.
That statement is not an attack on Paul. It is simply a recognition of history. The central creeds of Christianity contain remarkably little of the ethical teaching of Jesus. They are overwhelmingly concerned with metaphysical claims about his nature, death, resurrection, and cosmic significance.
The Sermon on the Mount, the parables, the radical inversion of power, the critique of religious authority, and Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God occupy surprisingly little space within the doctrinal architecture that eventually emerged. You cannot pin Christianity on Jesus. Christianity as we know it is the product of a long historical development, and no individual shaped that development more than Paul.
Paul's letters were written before the gospels and became the earliest documents of the New Testament. It is entirely possible that the theological categories Paul employed influenced the writers of the synoptic gospels themselves. By the time orthodoxy emerged, Paul's interpretations had become woven into the very fabric of Christian thought. Western Christianity, whether Catholic or Protestant, is fundamentally Pauline in its assumptions and structure.
I suspect Jesus and Paul would have had profound disagreements. Jesus was a brown-skinned Jewish teacher announcing the Kingdom of God and overturning conventional notions of purity, power, and religious status. Paul, shaped by his own Pharisaic training and his encounter with the risen Christ, developed an elaborate theological framework that interpreted Jesus' death through sacrificial and redemptive categories. Jesus himself might have been astonished by much of the mythology and theology eventually attached to his name.
Perhaps Paul's most consequential move was interpreting the Roman execution of Jesus through the lens of sacrificial atonement. The Jewish image of the Passover lamb became the model through which Jesus was understood as the Lamb of God whose blood removed the sins of humanity.
Over time Christianity became organized around the cross itself. In this sense, Paul helped transform Christianity into what might almost be called Cross-tianity. Significantly, the earliest followers of Jesus did not go around wearing crucifixes or carving crosses. The cross as a dominant devotional symbol emerged centuries later. The first known crucifix imagery appears only many generations after Jesus and Paul were gone.
Yet none of this requires hostility toward Paul. He was not attempting to create an infallible religion for future civilizations. He was writing occasional letters to struggling communities attempting to sort out practical and theological questions. He found himself in the strange and unenviable position of becoming the resident expert on Christianity. One could reasonably ask, "Who died and made Paul pope?" Nobody did. History simply placed him there.
Nor did Paul work in a vacuum. Like every human being, he drew from the raw materials available to him. His Jewish upbringing, his education, his experience, and the intellectual world of the first century all shaped the way he interpreted Jesus. Under similar circumstances, none of us would likely have done any better. Paul did what human beings always do. He made sense of experience through the conceptual tools he possessed.
The problem is not Paul. The problem is what later generations did with Paul. It was the Church, not Paul, that elevated his correspondence into the infallible Word of God. It was later communities that assumed his ideas had descended directly from heaven rather than emerged through the ordinary processes of human reflection and interpretation. That burden belongs to us, not him.
A healthy approach to Christian theology begins with a simple principle: consider the source. Historical context matters. Cultural assumptions matter. Personal formation matters. Every source deserves careful examination, including Paul. One can appreciate his genius and his contributions without deifying his writings.
I find it curious that nearly every Christian creed, from the early ecumenical councils to Roman Catholic and Protestant confessions, is largely a list of doctrinal affirmations. One can recite the Nicene Creed without encountering much of what Jesus actually taught. They tell us what to believe about Jesus far more than they invite us into the way of life Jesus embodied.
This does not make Paul a villain. He deserves compassion rather than condemnation. How could he have imagined that letters dashed off to address disputes in Corinth, Galatia, or Rome would eventually become sacred texts for billions of people? Paul did the best he could with the understanding available to him and within the limitations of his own spiritual development.
The larger responsibility belongs to us. Every religion deserves critical examination. Every theology bears the marks of history, culture, personality, and power. Christianity is no exception.
We painted Jesus white, clothed him in layers of Greek metaphysics and Christian doctrine, and gradually transformed a first-century Jewish prophet into the centerpiece of a vast theological system. Somewhere beneath those layers remains the brown-skinned Middle Eastern Jew who wandered the dusty roads of Galilee, turned religion upside down, and invited people not to worship a doctrine, but to participate in a radically different way of being human.
Jesus did not get lost.
we lost sight of him.
... this devotion is part of a series on my spiritual deconstruction. Click here to read more.
