Chapter 2

Paul’s Dualism

In stark contrast to the modern church’s obsession with growth and expansion, there is a continuous absence of the church growth compulsion in Paul. He was in competition with no one, even refraining from baptizing due to the shallowness of the people who began to keep score between, Peter, Paul and Apollos, numbering converts and lauding the men God used in the gospel work.[1] The quality of the work was in no way to be assessed by counting bodies. Paul exalted over a hundred or so converts from his life long missionary labors, never pressing the churches with expansionist rhetoric as is so prevalent in modern Christianity. The quiet, unassuming sharing of the gospel, deferring the results to the Father who alone can reveal the Son and the Son who alone is able to reveal the Father,[2] has been replaced by dramatic, emotional appeals during “altar calls” or mass evangelism programs featuring high impact entertainment designed to be culturally relevant and exciting, especially for attention deficit, fun-obsessed youth. These programs frequently end with a well-intentioned show of hands and a corporate prayer for salvation. Paul gives us no precedence for these practices. The Christian religion in its modern institutional forms has become one of the most effective tools to spread propaganda and control people. Wily politicians manipulate ego-centric clergy to further their political objectives. There has not been a political empire that has not manipulated the power of religion to empower and perpetuate itself. [3]

The difference between political bureaucracies and church organizations is often indiscernible. The competition between institutional churches betrays a spirit and attitude unsupported in scripture and foreign to the spirit of Christ. Billboard ads with glamour shots of pastors, newspaper ads on Saturday and especially the week of Easter shamelessly displaying the objective of the churches to out promote one another. Neither Christ nor the Apostles would be party to the carnal inanities of modern churches in competition.

The market for politicians and religionists is massive in an age of pandemic soul sickness.  The message from the centers of power and control is “you are not whole; let us make you whole.” They make themselves the arbiters of what man should be; mentally, emotionally, physically and most important, spiritually. Paul had much to say to his gentile disciples regarding the connection between personal peace, possession of things, and business relationships. What he says is informed by a radical kind of faith that free ranges across the human experience. What about one-upmanship and the obsession with competition? What about profiting at the unfair expense of others?  Does he have something to say about chronic discontentment, envy, jealousy, covetousness?  Paul relentlessly pushes himself and others toward the practice of a heart and will faith.[4] The heart is the real person, not a persona, not a script. Paul cuts to the heart and then enjoins his followers to command their wills to live out their confessions of faith in spite of circumstances; inward or outward. He championed a faith that was otherworldly, based totally in future realities and the supernatural value of things invisible. Our physical bodies are temporal vessels made of earthly elements that change form and disintegrate.[5] Our bodies are viewed by Paul as vessels of clay designed for the purpose of embodying the real person, the spiritual person, in a body comprised of earthly elements. This is the dualism of Paul which provides the basis for understanding many difficult passages in his letters as well as a framework for apprehending an accurate conception of human spirituality and specifically Christian spirituality. After all, what is spirituality? A simple Pauline definition would be: That which pertains to things that continue on as opposed to things that do not.[6]

Paul is a realist. He sees and understands the predicament human beings find themselves in, and has consequently often been mischaracterized as negative, pessimistic, even misanthropic. Much to the contrary, Paul is a lover of people and unlike the Pharisees and their Catholic-Protestant offspring who perpetually exclude the uninitiated, Paul values all men, suspends judgment, and has a vision of God that transcends, yes, overcomes the enemies of love.[7]

The love of God will prevail in every case —– time will tell. It was no easy transition for Paul, the once Pharisee of Pharisees, the neurotic intellectual, self-possessed, harsh, judgmental religionist, now the champion of never-failing, undefeatable love —— the forgiven and the forgiver. He has been released from the relentless, continuous tension produced by always missing the mark; always falling short of perfection, always dying.[8] He now possesses a profound and unshakable knowledge of being inwardly perfect in the present moment and seeing others as potentially, indeed, ultimately perfect as well. His unwillingness to judge anything before the time reflects a hope that takes away shame.[9] Even the specter of death has been drained of its humiliating, fear-inducing sting; no longer an obstacle to the progress of the offspring of God.[10]