Is Paul a Liar? The Pauline Corinthian Conflict and the Need for Reform in the American Church

The ability to change a listener/reader’s belief is largely based upon the speaker/writers ability to effectively persuade (Rybacki & Rybacki 2008:4). Christian doctrinal conversion is not exempt from the art of persuasion; rather, it directly depends on how compelling the speaker/writer is (Matt. 28:19, Luke 14:23, 2 Cor. 5:11, Rom. 12:1, Acts 26:28). Aristotle gave three proofs to aid in one’s ability to persuade (a) ethos, (b) pathos, and (c) logos. The Apostle Paul was successful in persuading many to believe in Christ, and as one reads the New Testament Canon the reader can identify when Paul employs all three proofs: ethos (ethical-creditability appeal), pathos (emotional appeal), and logos (logical appeal). As it pertains to dataset for this research (i.e., 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians and Colossians), Paul mainly employs the ethos appeal especially to the Corinthian Church since the Corinthians’ logos appeal to understanding God conflicted with Paul’s intent to gain credibility among them (1 Cor. 1:19; Welborn 2010: 212-13, 15, 20).

Recent scholarship posits that Paul struggled with gaining legitimacy in and control over the Corinthian Church (e.g., Welborn 2010: 220, Brakke 1994: 398). In 1 Corinthians, Paul struggled with the doctrinal issues initiated by Apollos and the Greek’s logical approach to understanding scripture and Christ Jesus; while in 2 Corinthians Paul struggled with the accusation of embezzlement (Welborn 2010: 212). Paul was human and like any human, he made mistakes; however, the ramification of Paul’s mistakes is that American Christian doctrine is based upon both his valid and invalid conclusions as it is viewed as inspired by God, infallible, and or trustworthy1. What invalidates some of his conclusions is a faulty premise, which in most cases is a miscontextualized Septuagintal reference (his ethos appeal).

Paul’s ethos appeal suggested that the Corinthians remove their emphasis on logic (1 Cor. 1:19, 22). It appears that when logic is valued among believers (i.e., Humanistic/Academic Christianity), church leaders begin to emphasize obedience to and the infallibility of Church authority, even to the extent of miscontextualization of the scripture in hopes to avert behavioral and theological insurgency (Brakke 1994: 405, MacCulloch 2010: 609). The assumption of this behavior is that true belief in Christ cannot coexist with a logical mind (1 Cor. 1:19). The goal of this study is to determine if a 21^st Century reformation is in order to correct the miscontextualization not only in the scriptures, but also in doctrinal teachings based upon Paul’s conclusions. In other words, if Paul’s premises are incorrect, thereby invalidating his conclusions, then the American 21^st Century Church must reform by (a) accepting that logic must play a key role in discipleship and (b) identifying the error(s) in and correct its doctrine.

The history of Christianity outlines precedent which supports the assertion that once the church becomes more concerned with (a) laity understanding and (b) more accuracy in interpretations of the scripture, reformation should of necessity follow. This study will look at key cases in the Christian Reformation to support the above. These key cases are the Protestant Rebellion, England’s tyrannical monarchs, the English push for religious freedom which resulted in the colonization of America, the Pauline-Corinthian Conflict, and the Athanasius-Egyptian Conflict. In short, this study hopes to outline (a) that the Pauline Corinthian Conflict was similar to Pre-reformation conflict and (b) based upon Christian precedent, the American church must pursue another reformation.

Presently, there are no studies which suggest that Paul miscontextualized scriptures and used empirical methods to support the claim. Because of the aforesaid, it is imperative that we define miscontextualization and how the study determines it. Miscontextualization is defined as the misquoting, adding or subtracting of words, and or taking Septuagintal scriptures out of context to help prove one’s point. Miscontextualization is measured by how accurately Paul quotes the scriptures in which he references in his letters. It is also imperative that the reader understands the historical context of the Pauline writings. The majority of New Testament contributions are from the Apostle Paul. Paul writes letters to various churches in order to “strengthen” them; these letters were later canonized to form the New Testament. Paul uses quotes from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, to help solidify his commands to those to whom he is addressing.

This study briefly reviews doctrinal beliefs of the American Church to detail the extent to which its doctrines heavily depend on the Pauline writings. The term “American Church” is used to describe mainline Protestant denominations (e.g., Southern Baptist, United Methodist Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Assemblies of God, etc.) found in America as defined by McKinney in his articles American Mainline Religion (1987) and Mainline Protestantism 2000 (1998) 2. Again, the research holds that due to Paul’s miscontextualization, following Christian precedent the 21^st Century American Church must reform.

Before we proceed further we should acknowledge the limitations that Paul and all other ministers experienced prior to the Gutenberg Press: the scarce availability of a written copy of the Septuagint and or the Hebrew Bible. McLuhan’s theory of media ecology suggests that humanity experienced four historical eras: (a) Tribal Age (before 2000 B.C.E.), (b) Literate Age (2000 B.C.E. to 1449 A.C.E.), (c) Print Age (1450 to 1850 A.C.E.) and (d) Electronic Age (1851 to present). McLuhan argues that what are now considered sacred texts all started out as oral traditions passed down to each generation (2009: 314-25). These oral traditions were transcribed when the phonetic alphabet was established and literacy increased (316); what this means for Paul is that he lived in a time where the Septuagint was reproduced by scribes but not mass produced, therefore, he and other ministers depended on their memorization of the scriptures (oral tradition) as their reference to it (Hirshman 2009: 30, 81).

However, as the research supports, Paul’s Septuagintal references to Galatia were 100 percent accurate, and all of Peter’s Septuagintal references were 100 percent accurate. Lastly, as Welborn (2010) points out, Paul knew the Septuagint well (214-15). The reader must judge whether or not there is sufficient enough evidence to prove intent to miscontextualize to the Corinthian Church. As we proceed, we will first familiarize ourselves with the pre-reformation schools of thought so that we may better understand the conflict which started the reformation.

Pre-Reformation Schools of Thought Regarding Christian Interpretation

The Protestant Reformation ushered a movement of critical analysis that challenged the Church-State government’s legitimacy. There is much to be said regarding how the reformation started, yet, for the sake of this study we will focus on a key reformer: Martin Luther. Luther was trained after the monastic order of Augustinian Eremites. This under emphasized fact in Christian literature is very important to the call of action that this paper purports; the monastic order of Augustinian Eremites emulated humanistic thought and so also did Martin Luther (MacCulloch 2010: 606).

Scholasticism

There were two outgrowths of religious schools of thoughts during medieval times – Humanism and Scholasticism. These two schools of thought are important to this study as both are academic in nature and precipitated reformation. First, scholasticism is the eldest of the two schools of thought. Scholasticism was pioneered by St. Thomas who “perfected the doctrines of Aristotle” (Hope 1936: 445), thereby marrying both religion and philosophy (445-46). As Felix Hope writes in his article “Scholasticism,” “Scholastic Philosophy is the philosophy which teaches the certitude and objective validity of human knowledge acquired by means of sense-experience, testimony, reflection, and reasoning, and distinguishes an objective and a subjective element in universal ideas” (452). Although this definition holds that human knowledge is important, one of the things scholasticism teaches against is “demanding an explanation of [what is deemed] the obvious” (447). Additionally, scholasticism discouraged the question “why” if one has not tried to first justify “why not.” In other words, if one doesn’t fully understand why something should exist, he should never ask why it exists. This type of reasoning, although philosophical, kept those in the Catholic Church from questioning its formal structure and doctrines. Remember the premise of this study’s argument: the history of Christianity outlines precedent which support the assertion that once the church becomes more concerned with (a) laity understanding and (b) more accuracy in interpretations of the scripture, reformation should of necessity follow. The medieval response to scholasticism was humanism.