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de-privatization

Posted Oct 1, 07:02 AM | 2 comments | by Editor | Link

By Mike Gorman, re-posted from ReclaimingPaul.org:

There has been a lot of discussion on this blog about the question, “What are we reclaiming Paul from?” It seems to me that there are several important answers to that query, but for now I want to focus on just one (though I think it has wide-ranging implications)—reclaiming Paul from the private sphere.

In much interpretation of Paul there has been a very strong, and sometimes nearly exclusive, emphasis on Paul’s message as one of individual justification or salvation or union with Christ. This privatization of Paul misses at least three key elements of his theology and spirituality.

First, Paul’s understanding of justification is incredibly communal and relational. I am not primarily referring to the argument of the “new perspective” that justification is fundamentally about the inclusion of Gentiles, as Gentiles, in the people of God. Rather, the very idea of justification or salvation in Paul depends on a notion of sin that means breaking covenant with others, as well as with God. The covenantal dysfunctionality described, for example, in Romans 1:18-3:20, involves the breakdown of human relationships as well as direct rebellion against God per se. If justification does not renew and restore human relationships, it does not address the human condition as Paul perceives it. This project of restoration and renewal includes, for Paul, the cessation of violence toward others—the undoing of the human condition reflected in texts like Romans 3:15-17: “‘Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known.’” Few interpreters of Paul have drawn sufficient attention to this aspect of Paul’s theology.

Second, and in a similar vein, when Paul describes new life in Christ, or the fruit of the Sprit, this too is communal and relational. For example, when Paul in Galatians 5 contrasts the “works of the flesh” with the “fruit if the Spirit,” he makes it clear that Spirit-filled living is not merely a matter of personal piety but an ongoing project of reconciliation.

Finally, Paul’s spirituality is thoroughly political. It is about being a new entity (the body of Christ) taking up public space. Nearly every key item in his theological lexicon is a political word, from justification/justice to peace to Lord to ekklesia to parousia.

In the spirit of Paul, we want above all to move forward, not look backward (Philippians 3:13-14), but to do so faithfully requires some reclaiming, and that includes the de-privatization of the apostle.

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Mike Gorman is Professor of Sacred Scripture at the Ecumenical Institute of Theology of St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland.

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