Today’s “Ask a Progressive Christian” with ProgressiveChristianity.org Co-Executive Director Rev. Dr. Caleb J. Lines: What’s the Deal with Paul?
FaithandReason® is bringing you a 4-part “Advent Podcast Series” with special guest John Dominic Crossan! Once a week for the next four weeks, we will interview Dr. Crossan about “The First Christmas,” the book by Crossan and the late Marcus Borg.
Paul is one of Christianity’s most impactful, yet most debated and misunderstood figures. In “The Challenge of Paul,” John Dominic Crossan gives us the benefit of his lifelong search for the Paul of history to create a new understanding that sheds new light on Paul and why he is more relevant than ever today.
Accepting that the world has a beginning and an end leads to a dismissive view of poverty, pollution, warfare, and social classes. While everyone certainly has a right to their personal beliefs about life after death, Muslims, Christians, and Jews must focus on the life that we know and to root our faith in what we can see in front of us. The early church was so confident that Jesus was coming back soon that they ignored many important matters of ethics. We cannot afford to make that mistake.
For thousands of desperate refugees, the dangerous first step on their journey to Europe could be their last. Samaritan's Purse teams are stationed at several primary stops across Europe distributing necessary supplies.
For Luke (1:26-38), the Divine enters the world of the poor, of political refugees, where there is manure on the ground and where people give birth in the back seat of a car with no working heater….because these things cannot be ignored or accepted as a permanent state of affairs.
Matthew and Luke tell completely different (and contradictory) accounts of the birth of Jesus. Neither are meant to be taken literally. They were writing a theological message (sermon) to introduce their gospels. Where the two agree is that the Jesus they were going to describe was a messenger who would turn the world upside down, casting down the rich and powerful in favor of the weak and poor. There is our real Christmas story, a story of liberation and justice.
The sermon is based on a performance of the lectionary reading from Galatians and other central texts that tell the story of Paul in his own words: Galatians 1:1-17; 2Corinthians 12:1-12; and 1Cornthians 15:1-11 with short quotes from other letters as well. As this Early Christian practice was supposed to be unscripted and is mostly based on Paul's own words, there is no written version of the sermon on the website. You are invited to watch the video recording of the performance.