Pauline Christianity or "Paulism" Is More Common Than Many Think [View all]

[MineralMan]

If you're a Christian, or even if you're not, this is worth thinking about. Many Christian churches spend much more time teaching what Paul wrote in his letters to early churches and Christians in many places. Often, Paul's writings are stressed far more than the "red letter" words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels. In fact, Paul's letters make up the subjects of a majority of sermons in many churches.

Why? Well, when the Biblical New Testament Canon was assembled from whatever documents were available, the youngish Christian church and its nascent hierarchy was centered in Rome. It grew by attracting Gentiles to this new religion, and Paul's letters were primarily written to early churches made up of Gentiles. Thus, those letters make up a sizable portion of the New Testament.

In some cases, Paul's words in his epistles are clearly contradictory in some ways to the supposed teachings of the actual Jesus. But, since Jesus was talking to Jews and Paul was writing to non-Jews, the focus is more or less a natural one. So, when you hear Jeff Sessions justifying cruel treatment of migrant families and separation of children from their parents, you hear him quoting a letter from Paul to the Romans.

However, what that letter was talking about was real and sometimes deadly persecution of early Christians in Rome. He was advising them to follow Roman laws carefully so as not to be singled out for punishment. That's not what Jeff Sessions was talking about when he took one verse out of context. Not even close.

Want to know more about Paulism and Pauline Christianity? Start by reading this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Christianity