A new perspective on Paul
The Pope has declared that the pastor of Ars year will begin on June 19 this year. This means the Saint Paul year we have been celebrating is coming to an end. In recognition thereof, all the seminarians here worked on an aspect of St. Paul’s life, writings, teachings and his impact on Christianity throughout the ages. As for me, I have delved deeper into what has become known as the new perspective on Paul.
What is this new perspective? It is in fact a shift in the way our protestant brothers and sisters see St. Paul in their theology. This ‘new perspective’, in short, means that Luther’s doctrine of justification in which the individual stands before God, was erroneously based on the writings of St. Paul, without taking into account the social structures of first century Judaism.
The conflict surrounding St. Paul’s justification has remained a relevant subject since the 16th century. The new perspective holds that the rejection of ‘all good works’ is in no way a correct interpretation of the letters of Paul. As true as it may be that someone cannot earn his salvation before God, this was not what Paul was trying to say. By studying Paul’s letters in their historical context and social structures of the time, we can appreciate that the letter to the Romans was meant for the first century Christians in Rome: a church that found itself in the midst of an ethnical and social conflict, in which issues such as circumcision, Jewish holidays, meat that was sacrificed to heathen gods, etc. all played a very real role.
This means that when Paul speaks about the ‘works of the law’, he does not mean you should not perform them because of your faith and out of fear you would take pride of them and not Gods grace. He was in fact speaking about the heathen Christians who had begun to observe the Torah so they could become part of the chosen people of God. According to Paul, one was already part of this covenant if one had accepted the redemption through Christ, the Messiah, and not because of the works of the law, such as circumcision. Once one was part of the covenant, however, one was still obliged to remain in it by performing good works. Not in the way the Pharisees did, but from Paul’s anthropology, that the things you do come from the person you are.
I have written a little article about the new perspective for those of you that are interested. You can download it here. I would especially enjoy comments (through my contact page) regarding spelling and grammer issues with the text, as I am thinking about sending it in for publication somewhere. Enjoy!
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