Or maybe a Liberal Pharisee? A Progressive Christian? In this final post on Paul, I’ll make that surprising argument in the closing paragraphs. I’ll be drawing commentary from an excellent source, Paul: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2001) by E. P. Sanders. You are probably familiar with the VSI series by Oxford University Press. This is one of the better volumes in that series. Sanders was the key scholar in formulating a new view of Paul’s teachings, the New Perspective on Paul (NPP), a few decades ago. He packs a lot of good info into the short VSI book.
In simple terms, his NPP argument was that Paul thought in Jewish categories, not the Protestant ones that dominated Christian thinking about Paul, in particular the way that Martin Luther read Paul. Luther thought about salvation in terms of one’s personal struggle with sin and forgiveness. Paul (following Sanders) actually thought about salvation in terms of joining or becoming part of the people of God. Paul’s central point was that Gentiles, non-Jews, could become part of the people of God without first becoming Jews. Many passages in his authentic letters attempt to define and clarify the terms on which a Gentile could take that step, with special attention to “the Law” and its relation to faith in Christ or participation in the body of Christ.
So here are a few topics drawn from Sanders’ short book.
Your Resurrection Body. Sanders points out that Paul rejected two ways of describing the resurrection. It would not be a “natural” body, that is a revivified version of your current body: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:10). On the other hand, it would not be a ghost-like spirit, a pneuma. Paul called it a “spiritual body,” which seems to incorporate something of both rejected conceptions, but for him it was a transformed body, not just a revivified one. I think the LDS view, which envisions Mormon bodies jumping up out of the grave at some point, leans more toward the revivified natural body view. I’ll bet some of you have asked snarky questions in Sunday School class: How old will I be when resurrected? Will I be skinnier? Smarter? Is everyone the same age? Paul never addressed those details. I’m sure most of us will be happy to be resurrected in any form and to be headed for the Good Place, not the Bad Place.
Justification by Faith. Sanders spends two chapters on this important topic, one on Paul’s discussion in Galatians and one on his later discussion in Romans. First, the vocabulary problem. In English, the Greek term dikaistyne is sometimes translated as “righteousness” and sometimes as “justification.” The Greek term pistis is sometimes translated as “belief” and sometimes as “faith.” The different meanings and connotations of these terms in English can lead to misunderstandings for the English reader. Confusion is amplified by Paul himself sometimes using the Greek terms in different ways depending on the particular context or discussion. For Galatians, Sanders summarizes: “The subject-matter [of Paul’s discussion] is not ‘how can the individual be righteous in God’s sight?’, but rather, ‘on what grounds can Gentiles participate in the people of God in the last days?'” (p. 58).
Paul’s argument in Romans is somewhat softened and more detailed but substantially similar. Sanders uses two headings to summarize Paul’s thoughts in Romans. Membership: “Paul held that faith in Christ was the sole requirement for membership in the group of those who would be saved. Negatively, this meant that accepting the Jewish law was not necessary.” And Behaviour: “Christians should lead morally blameless lives. The idea of fictional, imputed righteousness had not occurred to him …” (p. 81).
Paul as a Liberal Mormon. Sanders addresses Paul’s view on the Jewish law in Chapter 9. The parallel in Mormonism is “the commandments.” Just as Paul tries to parse “the law” to declare which parts, if any, apply to Gentiles who have faith in Christ and join one of the small but growing Christian assemblies, likewise both lay and leadership Mormons parse “the commandments” to figure out which are obligatory or essential as opposed to other directives which are merely guidance; policy statements, not real commandments; cultural practices, not commandments; folk doctrine, not real commandments, and so forth.
Sanders rejects the distinction many Christian commentators make about the Jewish law between moral law and ritual law. Christians want to push rituals and practices aside and incorporate only the moral law aspects into a New Testament-based package of moral directives to Christians. Paul doesn’t see “the Law” as having this moral versus ritual split. Here’s what Sanders proposes that Paul actually did in sort of an ad hoc way:
With the aid of hindsight, however, we can now supply a heading for the laws which he opposed in Galatians and which he either opposed or held to be optional elsewhere: those which, in the Diaspora, separated Jew from Gentile: circumcision, rules governing eating, and observance of the sabbath (“days”). Further, these were the points of the Jewish law which most often drew negative comments from Gentile authors. (p. 106)
So Paul was trying to remove obstacles to full Gentile participation in the early Christian communities that were a mix of Jews and Gentiles, but also remove points of conflict or tension between Gentile converts and those around them in pagan society, whether family, friends, or local officials. Paul would have said something like this: Worrying about where the meat from the butcher came from or whether gathering wood for the fire on the sabbath is permissible for a Gentile Christian is just a distraction, an obstacle for Gentile investigators and converts who are interested in much more important things: having faith in Christ and joining our Christian communities as fully accepted and participating members. If the Law prevents Gentiles from coming to Christ, so much the worse for the Law, at least the parts Paul did not see as essential.
You can see where I’m going with this. If there were a Latter-day Paul, I suspect he would argue that dropping the requirements to abstain from coffee, to wear LDS garments 24/7, and to avoid work and play on Sunday are just distractions, obstacles to developing an LDS testimony and joining an LDS congregation as a fully participating member. These are not essential commandments, he might say, just customs that have become normative. If Paul, who after all was a dedicated and observant Pharisee who no doubt had high regard for all facets of “the Law,” could make his big leap, it shouldn’t be hard for a Latter-day Paul to make a similar leap. Pare down the whole Mormon package to make it easier to join and participate in Mormon congregations. Call it what you want: cafeteria Mormonism, progressive Mormonism, minimal Mormonism, reasonable Mormonism. I think Paul would endorse it. A lot of younger Mormons already endorse it. Maybe at some point leadership will endorse it.
I might do one more post on Romans (I have a good source to use), then if I continue with intermittent New Testament posts there would be one on Acts, a few on the gospels and the historical Jesus, and then something on Revelation (the End of the World being a fairly timely topic).
- What do you think of Christian and Mormon misreadings of Paul? I say that in light of NPP, which argues that Christians have been energetically misreading Paul for almost 500 years.
- Why do the letters of Paul, so central to the doctrine of most Protestant denominations, get so little attention in LDS curriculum and doctrine? Surely Paul’s concern with “membership” and “behaviour” are topics of central interest to LDS doctrine and discussion.
- If you were a Latter-day Paul, what features of “the Mormon Law” would you relax or drop?
Running List of Sources on Paul
Marcus J. Borg, The Evolution of the Word: The New Testament in the Order the Books Were Written, HarperOne, 2012.
Taylor G. Petrey, Cory Crawford, and Eric A. Eliason, eds., The Bible and the Latter-day Saint Tradition, Univ. of Utah Press, 2023.
E. P. Sanders, Paul: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford Univ. Press, 2001.
Thomas A. Wayment, The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints, revised edition, Greg Kofford Books, 2022.
Marcus J. Borg’s List of NT Books in Chronological Order (with links to earlier posts)
1 Thessalonians
Galatians
1 Corinthians
Philemon
Philippians
2 Corinthians
Romans
Mark
James
Colossians
Matthew
Hebrews
John
Ephesians
Revelation
Jude
1 John
2 John
3 John
Luke
Acts
2 Thessalonians
1 Peter
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
2 Peter
Wheat & Tares 
Thanks, Dave B., for this insightful post. I agree that, using today’s language, Paul would be seen as more progressive, with James and the Judaizing Christians seen as conservative, or even maintream. But Paul was right: there was no requirement to become Jewish before one became Christian. Rather, some made up and maintained that there was such a requirement, and Paul fought against it. Peter had already made this clear with his dealings with Cornelius and the vision of the unclean animals, but the conservatives or traditionalists opposed Peter, effectively undermining him.
Do we think that God would rather have an obedient person in his pews, or a loving person? We measure righteousness by obedience, even exact obedience, but I think that God measures righteousness by one’s belief. At least that is Paul’s argument. Abraham wasn’t counted as righteous because of his many good deeds. God counted Abraham as righteous, and imputed righteousness to Abraham, because Abraham believed that God would deliver on his promise to give him progeny in this life. That faith is the source of Abraham’s righteousness, and it should be the source of ours, too. We need to believe that Christ who rose from the dead conquered sin and will redeem all of us who believe in Him. Good works are the fruit of faith, as Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount and as James tells us in his epistle. Good works are important, but only if they sring naturally from faith in Christ: if we love me, keep my commandments.
We can’t measure faith very well, so we measure obedience to the Law–a Law that we have imposed upon ourselves, that is heavy and onerous, a burden to bear. We cannot study Paul in our church because we want our 21st century equivalents of circumcision, kosher food, not more than some set number of steps on the sabbath. We teach exact obedience, when Jesus and the New Testament writers taught us to believe and to trust God to make it right. Paul’s message is that God’s love is so great that it will include those of us who believe, and who want to believe; our message is that God’s love is for those who do, do, and do. Well, one can do, do, and do again without love, which makes me think of sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. Wait, isn’t that Paul again? Paul taught love of God and love of fellowman grounded in faith in Christ, with salvation a promise and a gift that cannot be earned. Paul taught us to believe when it was hard to believe, and to hope against all hope, that Christ would deliver us, just as God gave Abraham and Sarah Isaac, when both were well stricken in years and when both were well past their bodies’ ability to make a baby. Abraham believed, and this (not Abraham’s deeds) was imputed to him for righteousness, according to Paul.
I think that Paul wouldn’t care one whit about Saints drinking Coca-Cola, or paying tithing on a net v. gross (or some other basis), or paying bills before paying tithing (because for Paul, to fail to take care of one’s family makes one worse than the infidel). Paul would not insist on wearing church clothes to clean the chapel (my good wife does this). Paul would not make ministering interviews painful and embarrassing; he would build and edify, and he would minister to me, and thus I would learn to be a better minister to others. Paul wouldn’t worry about an 8 year old boy riding a bicycle in his neighborhood wearing no shirt and therefore being immodest, showing what will one day be covered by garments. He wouldn’t care about families playing with face cards. I don’t think that Paul would insist on thee/thou/thy/thine language in prayers. But Paul wouldn’t be all easy. He would be tough on moral issues. Faith in Christ is what matters, and Him resurrected. If Paul were here today, he would talk about Christian liberty in the 21st century: all things are allowable, but not all things edify. We don’t understand that doctrine very well today, and I think that he would help us there.
I had a conversation with a former bishop about how Jesus was a liberal. He said it would be impossible to label Christ that way. I thought it was sad that he wouldn’t engage in this discussion and I think in part it was because he knew that Jesus was a liberal who cared about the “little people” and it went against his strongly republican senses because he said politics and Christ could not be equated. Personally I feel that if you can’t equate politics with religion than you don’t really understand either because politics is an extension of your views about religion put into action. When you seperate politics from religion is tends to propagate what’s happening now in our society where an evangelical right can justify their views against minorities, health care, etc.
I am blown away by this post! Thank you!
Dave, I find you post to be very intriguing. I do think however that Paul’s prickliness when it comes to his authority as an apostle and his utter loathing for rival Christian missionaries, would make him fit right in with the very authority-sensitive Q15 today. Maybe many of his other positions do, but I don’t think that an obsession with authority fits very well in the “liberal” category.
That’s a bit too fundamentalist for my taste, Dave B. — to pit the words that one dead apostle might say against the words of what twelve living apostles do say.
Jack, that’s not taking it far enough. If the words of living leaders are worth more than the words of part leaders, the words of future leaders must be even more important. That’s why I only follow what church leaders will say in 100 years.
Jack, it isn’t pitting a dead apostle against the living ones. It is doing what the Bereans did, which Luke praised, by the way: comparing what then living apostles (at that time) said that day against what was written in the scriptures (meaning then what we call the Old Testament). Several prophets in our time have told us to compare what they say against what has been recorded in the standard works, for the standard works are the standard against which we measure truth and error. Remember all that Bruce R McConkie said about why Blacks couldn’t get the priesthood, and if they did make it to the celestial kingdom it would only to be servants to the white people there? That was not in line with the standard works, who told us that we were all the same, God is no respecter of persons, no black and white, bond and free, etc. And guess what: McConkie’s explanations, and his father-in-laws, are now rejected by the church. There is wisdom is aligning ourselves with the standard works, and measuring the current leaders against what is there. If we need to add to the standard works, there’s a way to do that (canonization). Words of the apostles and prophets in general conference are not canon, and for good reason. Yes, they’re good men, but we are not a cult of personality.
Tygan,
Fun! Even so, in one direction we run the risk of failing to reach the mark. And in the other–to look beyond it.
Georgis,
I agree that the ancient canon is important–almost indispensable. Nevertheless, it doesn’t say much about garments or the Word of Wisdom or Sabbath observance (for us moderns). We have modern leaders to help us deal with modern questions. Let’s prioritize what twelve living prophets *do* say over what one dead prophet *might* say.
“Paul held that faith in Christ was the sole requirement for membership in the group of those who would be saved. ”
This is correct, but is complicated by the fact that most people don’t understand what Paul was referring to when he used the term “faith”. There are non-dogmatic biblical scholars who have studied the context in which Paul uses “Pistis” throughout his writings and have come to the conclusion that his definition includes all of the following three things: (1) a firm conviction, producing a full acknowledgement of God’s revelation or truth (assurance, certitude), 2 Thessalonians 2:11,12; (2) a personal surrender to Him (allegiance, loyalty, faithfulness) John 1:12; (3) a conduct inspired by such surrender (godliness, uprightness, righteous behavior) 2 Corinthians 5:7. It is these three things, in total, that I believe Paul means when he says that individuals are saved by faith.
Will post a more serious comment later but wanted to share a favorite movie* line: “The Apostle Paul was a life-long bachelor.”
I snuck that into my latest lesson with the adult Sunday School class.
*from the film “Bernie” (2011) with Jack Black, Shirley Maclaine, Matthew McConaughey
Jack – Modern prophets to address modern questions, sure, but by your logic, it’s just a matter of time before current prophets so called “revelation” is deemed irrelevant by
the next Prophet. This essentially makes prophets worthless, accept during the time they are alive.
It’s not just a matter of ‘which laws’ to drop or deemphasize – it’s a matter of context for any laws. LDS is very much a legalistic culture with mere lip service to grace. Yes, natural/divine laws are important for living a Christ-like life but NOT to avoid punishment and Hell. The context of Christ’s love should be an unconditional concern for ‘the 1’ (leave the 99), the prodigal son, who never leaves you (psychological safety ESPECIALLY IN SIN). This requires sincere, caring relationships between leaders and members, not managerial dominance and control over behaviors. Heart, spirit, emotions, and mind must be transformed through grace and love (relationships). The behavioral obsession with laws in LDS land is discouraging to human beings striving to grow AND making mistakes along a developmental path. It leads to all-or-nothing thinking, perfectionism, discouragement, quitting, and seeing God as a bottom-line corporate HR manager. During my worst of days in LDS land, I was shunned, not embraced, judged, not understood, socially cast out, not unconditionally loved, and helped. When members lack strength, awareness, will, motivation, self-confidence, and capacity to lead their unique lives, they need a physician – not a criminal justice system. Love must be felt and experienced, seen. It’s mostly all talk imo. Regardless of law, LDS is sorely lacking in true grace and the infinite love of Christ.
So many members in prominent jobs and positions are doing the work of top leaders – Dan Judd from BYU Religious Studies (and others) have shown the direct relationships between LDS perceived legalism and mental health problems. Grace is his proposed solution!
https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/grace-legalism-and-mental-health-among-the-latter-day-saints/
LDS coaches are also helping members trying to quit porn – instead of shaming and blaming, they emphasize the underlying emotions of loneliness, self-doubt, and shame (no need for heaping more through labels). What do leaders do? Shame the behavior and reduce good people to one struggle causing discouragement, more self-hate, and adding to the very shame underlying many escape (soothing) behaviors. Horrible. But, these are inspired men who don’t even know basic psychological principles or human nature – they sure know the law though!
It’s out there but leaders from the legalist culture with legalist mindsets are afraid to embrace grace out of fear of being ‘cheap grace’ or permissiveness. They lack the capacity, imo, to just love people and practice the Pygmalion Effect – see potential, not behavior.
It’s a dysfunctional system for many members which is why many are leaving. I didn’t experience Christ myself. Just men is suits protecting the ‘good name of the church’ more than representing the very BIG, eternal God.
Todd,
The instructions that Noah (or Nephi) received to build a boat aren’t worth much to us today. But the fact that they we’re instructed by the spirit of revelation *is*. And all things that they received (by that spirit) having to do with the timeless precepts of the gospel — that are recorded in the canon — are precious to us. So there are many things taught by ancient prophets that are generally instructive to us today. And, on the flipside, there are many things that are not–those things that are tailored to a specific situation or purpose.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Jack, the system you seem to be endorsing is that current leaders do what they want to do when it is in line with existing scripture, and cite scripture for support. Or they do what they want to do when it is contrary to prior scritpure, in which case they just ignore problematic scriptural precedent. In other words, scripture and prior precedent is all for show. You are basically throwing out scripture without acknowledging you are throwing out scripture.
Dave B.,
I’m trying to stick to my three comment limit–but I hope it’s OK that I respond to your comment since it’s, well, you. 😀
All I’m really saying is that there can be a hierarchy of inspired counsel–especially with respect to things that are most expedient. Though I consider scripture to be vital I give precedence to the words of living prophets over those of dead prophets vis-a-vis what it is that we should be doing in the here and now.