Christ or Paul?

For quite a while I have been wondering about some of the more obvious differences between the teachings of Jesus Christ and those of Paul the Apostle; on the status of women and marriage, for example, or the question of meat eating. I have wanted to look at these issues, and more, in a little more detail, but other commitments on my time crowd in on me! We all know that problem!

I love serendipity. I'm pretty sure I've posted a blog on that some while ago now. Whilst I was at Occupy London last week, strolling around the tent city set up rather appropriately outside St Paul's Cathedral,(and St Paul was of course a tent maker by trade!),I picked up in their Tent City University Library a little booklet Christ or Paul, by The Rev. V. A. Holmes-Gore, written in 1946 but with a second edition published 1989. This challenges the emphasis that Christians place upon the authority of Paul - his work does after all take up a very substantial part of the New Testament and we seem to revere his word. And from my so far cursory speed reading of this booklet, Holmes-Gore makes some good points. This then led me to the website for Jesus' words only, set up by the author of a book of the same name which can be read on-line there, if your eye-sight can cope with that, or it can be bought at Amazon.

I hope over the next few weeks to delve deeper into both books, alongside my textbook (Ed. Alister McGraph) on Christian Theology, and of course MacCulloch's A History of Christianity, and hope to be back with some more detailed thoughts in the New Year.

All this is very apt in light of the recent news that Church of England Dioceses have overwhelmingly voted for supporting the appointment of Women Bishops.