More on Mancow-Lennon Theology (Jesus vs. Paul)
As I said when quoting this:
[Mancow] would like to write a couple of books on religious subjects. One about the legendary Spear of Longinus, the weapon supposedly used to pierce Jesus' side as he hung on the cross. The other book would be about St. Paul, who Mancow believes may have been the anti-Christ. (It's a long story.)...
Well, it turns out this belief isn't solely held by deejays and musicians. Take Davis D. Danizier:
Paul (originally as Saul of Tarsus) was an admitted persecutor of Christians who might have found a more effective way to undermine the followers of Jesus. Perhaps he infiltrated their ranks and taught a doctrine that opposed Jesus on several fronts, replacing Jesus' selfless teaching of universal compassionate action with a selfish teaching of desire to gain a "free gift" of salvation based only on faith and completely devoid of any behavioral requirement or obedience to law, and distracting us from the selfless teachings of Jesus.
Jesus teaches that BEHAVIORAL requirements (works/deeds), rooted in an internal change of spiritual growth within the person (not external or apart from the person, though the gift of teaching and techniques to achieve this personal change are a gift of grace not earned or deserved by us, but requiring ACTIONS [deeds] to implement), are integral to salvation. While perhaps it is not possible for us to "earn" the "free gift" that Jesus DID give -- a teaching of the universal compassionate love by which the evil within us CAN be transformed into a more holy kindness of love -- Jesus clearly includes a behavioral component to his requirements for "salvation." While he does not say that this satisfies any "debt," he still requires it; perhaps he is demanding merely a small partial "payment" as a gesture of "good faith." (In fact, James suggests this by his comments in James 2:26, that we demonstrate our faith -- if it is genuine -- BY our works or deeds.)
Edgar Jones:
The following statements from Paul's letters are symptomatic of deep differences between the doctrines of Paul and Jesus -- much as a fever is symptomatic of an infection in the body. You can read a discussion of their differences in Paul: the Stranger, my book that exposes Paul as a liar and a false prophet who did not know Jesus. The most significant difference is in their salvation doctrines as derived from their interpretations of the crucifixion. In these fundamental areas, Paul's errors and false gospel are obvious to anyone who follows Jesus as teacher and listens carefully to Jesus' words. Very seldom does anyone in Christendom so listen to Jesus as to receive his Word of Truth, even though the gospels repeatedly quote his Word. The reason? The churchmen get to everyone first with false Pauline doctrine, which then stands between them and Jesus, blocking the Light. His words come through but not his message. My hope is that this list will motivate you to remove the blindfold and see the Good Shepherd as he is. Your eternal salvation depends on it!...
And the Progressive Blog Alliance takes the side of the Communists vs. the Baby Seal Clubbers:
Conservative Christians have one thing in common, they all put heavy weight on the letters of Saint Paul. This is because Saint Paul is a very conservative writer. For example, if you wonder why conservatives allow other ideas to supercede the teachings of Jesus you will find the answers in the letters of Saint Paul.
The Price of Liberty continues to cast things in a political light:
Jesus was a countercultural revolutionary of his time. In fact, he would probably be a countercultural revolutionary in our time as well, since human culture hasn't really advanced very much in the last two millenia.
In contrast, The Apostle Paul was a counter revolutionary, who twisted the legend and doctrines of Jesus completely around so that they served counter revolutionary rather than revolutionary ends. There is evidence for this even in the legend of Paul himself. According to this legend, Saul was an persecutor of the early Christians. Then, a miracle happened, Saul became Paul and he was converted to Christianity himself. I don't believe in miracles and I don't believe that legend. What I believe really happened was that Paul figured out he he could use twist the Christian myth for his own counter revolutionary ends (after he had sufficiently crushed the first Christians...).
And Sherry Shriner, whose site coincidentally mirrors the lyrics of a Lennon song, says the following:
Just as Judas was indwelled by Satan to betray Jesus, Paul was indwelled by Satan to destroy Christianity! Paul taught ANOTHER Gospel! Why else did Constantine and the Pagan leaders take out the books of the disciples and put in Paul's! To lead YOU away from the truth and into a FALSE Gospel!
Well, since this is my blog, I'll give the last word to J. Gresham Machen:
But in recent years there is a tendency to dissociate Paul from Jesus. A recent historian has entitled Paul "the second founder of Christianity." If that be correct, then Christianity is facing the greatest crisis in its history. For—let us not deceive ourselves—if Paul is independent of Jesus, he can no longer be a teacher of the Church. Christianity is founded upon Christ and only Christ. Paulinism has never been accepted upon any other supposition than that it reproduces the mind of Christ. If that supposition is incorrect—if Paulinism is derived not from Jesus Christ, but from other sources—then it must be uprooted from the life of the Church. But that is more than reform—it is revolution. Compared with that upheaval, the reformation of the sixteenth century is as nothing.
At first sight, the danger appears to be trifling. The voices that would separate Paul from Jesus have been drowned by a chorus of protest. In making Paul and not Jesus the true founder of Christianity, Wrede is as little representative of the main trend of modern investigation as he is when he eliminates the Messianic element from the consciousness of Jesus. Measured by the direct assent which he has received, Wrede is a negligeable quantity. But that is but a poor measure of his importance. The true significance of Wrede's "Paul" is that it has merely made explicit what was implicit before. The entire modern reconstruction of primitive Christianity leads logically to Wrede's startling pronouncement. Modern liberalism has produced a Jesus who has really but little in common with Paul. Wrede has but drawn the conclusion. Paul was no disciple of the liberal Jesus. Wrede has merely had the courage to say so....
In determining whether Paul was a disciple of Jesus, the whole Paul must be kept in view—not the theology apart from the warm religious life that pulses through it, and not the religious emotion apart from its basis in theology. Theology apart from religion, or religion apart from theology—either is an empty abstraction. The religion and the theology of Paul stand or fall together. If one is derived from Jesus, probably the other is also....
If Paul was dependent upon Jesus, the fact may be expected to appear in direct statements of Paul himself, and in the attitude of his contemporaries toward him. Did Paul feel himself to be an innovator with respect to Jesus; and was he regarded as an innovator by the earlier disciples of Jesus?...
There were undoubtedly some men in the primitive church who combatted Paul in the name of conservatism. These were the Judaizers, who regarded Paul's doctrine of Christian freedom as a dangerous innovation. The Jewish law, they said, must be maintained even among Gentile Christians. Faith in Christ is supplementary to it, not subversive of it....
What was the relation between these Judaizers and the original apostles, who had been disciples of Jesus in Galilee? These are among the most important questions in apostolic history. They have divided students of the New Testament into hostile camps. F. C. Baur supposed that the relation between Judaizers and original apostles was in the main friendly. The original apostles, though they could not quite close their eyes to the hand of God as manifested in the successes of Paul, belong nevertheless inwardly with the Judaizers rather than with Paul....
This reconstruction of early Christian history was opposed by Albrecht Ritschl. According to Ritschl, the conflict in the apostolic age was not between Paul and the original apostles, but between apostolic Christianity—including both Paul and the original apostles—on the one side, and Judaistic Christianity—the Christianity of the Judaistic opponents of Paul—on the other....
If Baur was correct, then Paul was probably no true disciple of Jesus. For Baur brought Paul into fundamental conflict with the men who had stood nearest to Jesus. But Baur was not correct. His reconstruction of apostolic history was arrived at by neglecting all sources except the epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians and then misinterpreting these. He failed to do justice to the "right hand of fellowship" (Gal. 2:9) which the pillars of the Jerusalem Church gave to Paul. And the account of Paul's rebuke of Peter in Antioch, apparently the strongest evidence of a conflict between Paul and the original apostles, is rather to be regarded as evidence to the contrary. For Paul rebukes Peter for hypocrisy- -not for false opinions, but for concealing his correct opinions for fear of men. In condemning his practice, Paul approves his principles. Peter had therefore been in fundamental agreement with Paul....
It was the life, not the teaching, of the original apostles which appeared to support the contentions of the Judaizers. The early Christians in Jerusalem continued to observe the Jewish law. They continued in diligent attendance upon the Temple services. They observed the feasts, they obeyed the regulations about food. To a superficial observer, they were simply pious Jews. Now, as a matter of fact, they were not simply pious Jews. They were relying for salvation not really upon their observance of the law, but solely upon their faith in the crucified and risen Christ. Inwardly, Christianity was from the very beginning no mere continuation of Judaism, but a new religion. Outwardly, however, the early church was nothing more than a Jewish sect. And the Judaizers failed to penetrate beneath the outward appearance. Because the original apostles continued to observe the Jewish law, the Judaizers supposed that legalism was of the essence of their religion. The Judaizers appealed to the outward practice of the apostles; Paul, to the deepest springs of their religious life. So long as Christianity was preached only among Jews, there was no acute conflict. True Christians and mere Jewish believers in the Messiahship of Jesus were united by a common observance of the Mosaic law. But when Christianity began to transcend the bounds of Judaism, the division became apparent. The apostles, true disciples of Jesus, attested their own inward freedom by accepting the outward freedom of the Gentiles; the Judaizers, false brethren privily brought in, insisted upon the observance of the law as necessary to salvation.
Paul, then, was not the founder of universalistic Christianity. In principle, Christianity was universalistic from the very beginning. In principle, the first Christians in Jerusalem were entirely free from the Judaism with which they were united outwardly by observance of the Temple ritual. If Paul was not the founder of universalistic Christianity, what was he? What was his peculiar service to the Church? It was not the mere geographical extension of the frontiers of the Kingdom. That achievement he shares with others. Paul was perhaps not even the first to preach the Gospel systematically to Gentiles. That honor belongs apparently to certain unnamed Jews of Cyprus and Cyrene. The true achievement of Paul lies in another sphere—in the hidden realm of thought. When Christianity began to be offered directly to Gentiles in Antioch, the principles of the Gentile mission had to be established once for all....
The original apostles, through their intercourse with Jesus upon earth, and their experience of the risen Lord, had in principle transcended Jewish particularism. Inwardly they were free from the law. But they did not know that they were free. Certainly they did not know why they were free. Stich freedom could not be permanent. It sufficed for the Jewish Church, so long as the issue was not clearly drawn. But it was open to argumentative attack. It could never have conquered the world. Christian freedom was held by but a precarious tenure, until its underlying principles were established. Christianity could not exist without theology. And the first great Christian theologian was Paul.
In championing Gentile freedom, then, in emphasizing the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, Paul was not an innovator. He was merely making explicit what had been implicit before. He was in fundamental harmony with the original apostles. And if he was in harmony with the most intimate disciples of Jesus, the presumption is that he was in harmony with Jesus himself....
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