Is the Apostle Paul a Jerk?
Sixteen of us crowded into our Friday night living room and kitchen at 6:00 pm. We ate dinner together with the awkward pauses that are normal when strangers first meet. We sputtered and struggled for conversation. It wasn’t long though before the first brave person risked their tears.
By 9:00 pm we left and came back the next morning to eat breakfast together. Breakfast conversation was lively as the awkwardness of the previous evening gave way to relational safety. By lunch, we’d all said our goodbyes and returned to our Saturday lives. But we did so as those who’d laughed, cried, questioned, been angry, differed, paused and risked together.
Most felt that they had more questions as they left than when they first arrived. But we’d found something rare together. A hospitable space to earnestly ask and honestly doubt in the presence of others who differed with us but likewise wanted to seek wiser ways oriented around Jesus.
What Bothered Us About Paul?
Our topic this time was the Apostle Paul and the shared feeling that his words are the cause of so much church hurt and cultural oppression. I shared my honest affinity for Paul as a follower of Jesus but made clear that no one need share my affection or gratitude for Paul as we spent time together.
Nearly everyone attending disliked Paul. As one said so plainly:
I can hear Jesus as gentle even when I don’t know what to make of him. But I have a hard time hearing Paul as gentle or anything other than a religious man who is harsh and arrogant.
Most nodded their heads in agreement with this perspective. Each had a story of pain to tell. By Saturday mid-morning, those stories were finding voice amid the emerging confidence that maybe this group is safe enough, to try risking our actual discomforts and questions.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. We began our conversation by sharing our personal experiences with Paul’s teachings. The basic complaint about Paul sounded something like this.
· Paul calls wives to submit to their husbands (Patriarchal. Paul seems to sanction and embolden the mistreatment of women)
· Paul tells slaves to obey their masters (He seems to sanction and embolden the institution of slavery and the injustices perpetrated on the human beings who were enslaved)
· Paul talks about “fearing the Lord.” (He perpetuates intolerant, exclusive, harsh views of God)
· Paul writes and speaks as if he is an authority to speak for Jesus (Who does Paul think he is?)
· This leads some to a reasonable conclusion: Jesus and Paul are nothing alike. Paul isn’t following Jesus.
· Paul is single and celibate and assumes marriage as wife and husband (homophobic or prudish regarding heterosexual or homosexual norms)
What Pleasantly Suprised us about Paul?
Then we watched a video of an other-than-Christian historian, Tom Holland (not the actor from Spider-Man but the author of books such as Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the Word) who surprised us by his highlighting and honoring the importance of Paul as it relates to the most fundamental values Westerners hold dear. (See, Tom Holland and N.T. Wright, How Saint Paul Changed the World https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlf ULB26cU, minute 8:15 ff AND Tom Holland, “Why I Was Wrong About Christianity” The New Statesman, September 14, 2016)
Then I shared a personal story. I said:
Once when I visited Israel, our Israeli guide shared his daily morning prayer.
Blessed are you Lord God, King of the Universe, who has not made me a Gentile
Blessed are you Lord God, King of the Universe, who has not made me a Slave
Blessed are you Lord God, King of the Universe, who has not made me a Woman[1]
I winced. I did some study. Turns out, this misguided prayer has a long history not only in Judaism but within Western Philosophical traditions. “Both Thales and Socrates, that is, the earliest as well as the most famous of Greek philosophers, are credited with saying the following:
‘I thank Tyche that I was born a human and not a beast, a man and not a woman, a Greek and not a barbarian. [2]
Within that historical light, I said, let’s read Paul’s words from one of his earliest letters.
‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3:28)
After we read Paul’s words as a group, I said something like: “It seems that Paul directly and boldly opposed prevailing perspectives on human dignity. Paul doesn’t remove, diminish or dismiss being Jewish or Gentile or require us to no longer delight in one’s cultural heritage. Nor does Paul suggest that he has now stopped being a man or that women no longer exist. But it sure looks as though,
Paul scandalously and courageously protests unequal treatment of persons because of their ethnicity (Jew or Gentile), class labels (slave or free) or gender (male or female). Dignity in Christ precedes and takes precedence in human treatment. How did that happen?
One Thing We Discovered that We Could Agree On
With that, I asked: “What if we orient our conversation together around this idea. Whether we ultimately believe what Paul believes about God or persons or the world could we imagine agreeing on the basic assumption that historically, Paul is an unusual person? What if we organized our conversation together around this basic assumption? Not as a conversation stopper—but as a conversation starter?”
· Historically, Paul is a Jewish Man out-of-step with his fellow Jews (Neither Jew nor Gentile)
· Historically, Paul is a Roman Citizen out-of-step with his fellow Roman citizens (neither slave nor free)
· Historically, Paul is a human man out-of-step with men everywhere who see women as inferior (neither male nor female)
· Historically, Paul is a human being out-of-step with Jewish and Gentile religions, philosophies and political thought (all are one in Christ Jesus)
With compass points like these, and willing hearts, by the time we parted late Saturday morning, one said, “Well, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m eager to reread Paul’s words again” and another echoed the sentiment. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to interact with Paul. I have to admit, I’m surprised. But I feel like after this time together I could maybe try with Paul again. We’ll see.”
Not everyone felt ready to reconsider Paul but amid our differences, the one takeaway almost all of us agreed upon was this:
Whether agreeing with Paul’s ideas or not, alot of our complaint turned out to be a moral outcry about how Paul’s words had been misused by preachers or Christian family members to control or manipulate or demean—rather than with Paul himself. In fairness to Paul, if we were to disagree with him, we wanted to make sure it was Paul himself, and not the use of him made by others that we agreed or disagreed with.
We also agreed that whatever one makes of Paul it is historically observable that Paul saw himself, not at odds with Jesus, but in submission to Jesus as a wretched man whom Jesus had forgiven and changed.
What Is Your Experience with Paul?
As you look at the list of what bothered the group about Paul would you add any from your own experience?
As you think about the unusual man Paul was historically what pleasantly surprises you?
What do you think about the conclusion we came to together as a conversation starter not a conversation stopper? Could you step that far?
Do you have an experience with Paul you’d like to share that throws his teachings into doubt or dislike for you? I’d welcome hearing your story.
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[1] Current Morning prayer for men from the Siddur, Jewish Prayer Book
[2] William David Davies, William Horbury, Steven T. Katz, The Cambridge History of Judaism, Vol. 2 The Hellenistic Age (Cambridge University Press, 1984),184-185.
