L
leonse
Guest
Paul is the most important faith founders. Who was this man? He was intelligent, trained in law, therefore knowledgeable of Roman law and Jewish law, he was goal-orientated, he was an "all-or-nothings" man, he had some very nasty skeletons in his closet ; of such severity that people had lost their lives, he had guilt about his violent ways, his guilt was of such an extent that he could not always face himself, he was an organisational strategist, he was a burocractiser and a policy and procedure architect. What did he do? He internationalised two faiths, primarily the Christian doctrine but because of the close links,also the Jewish faith. He therefore internationalised the monotheism of an invisible God to a world of statue worshippers. He determined the structure of the church and formalised the loose structure into a formalised organisation. He strategically designed the flow of money and salaries of the church. In order to not taint the money matters with the smear of creating the structure for personal secondary monetary gains he decided not to take a salary but earn his keep from his skill as a tent maker. Lets explore his organisational approach based on the early organisation surrounding Jesus. Many differences exist between his organisational structure development and the one of Jesus our Lord. The church in the time of Jesus was non-institutionalised, with groups of people meeting in streets or open fields or in public meeting places. It had a haphazardness as found in all early organisations, endowed with very small organisatoric structure (one leader and 12 disciples). The disciples initially helped in regulating the crowds, later did much more as they back me more knowledgable. Paul however structured this community-based open organisation into an organisation that was home-based. The open public organisation had many risks as the government of the day was scared of uprisings and would always ensure that there were soldiers, spies and security personnel around at community gatherings. The home-based organisation designed by Paul took the organisation off the streets into the homes of people, thereby reducing the security risk of the Christians as being seen as a risk to the state. The change of life perspective of newly converted Christians due to their new-found hope and faith carried the real risk of these Christians to start rebelling against the authorities of the day. He therefore urges them to calm down with words such as "faith, hope and love, but the largest of them all is love". Having lead to the death of many by in years gone by, by means of the use of bureaucracy, Paul truly knows the real dangers of the powerful state against the tiny man-on-the-street. He knows that by showing any sign of resistance to the mighty goverment of the day, will lead to victimisation, detainment, incarceration and even death by state machinery. Jesus himself realised this threat to his followers and pertinently stated that "pay the emporer the tax that he requests". He knew that the public gatherings could easily by seen as a tax revolt by the taxpayers and the state machinery would injure them unnecessarily and unfairly. If the emporer was ensured of his tax, he would not see these gatherings as tax revolts. The emporer had his spies and his soldiers in the area. The emporer was therefore ready for a political revolt. Jesus therefore appeared to Paul in order to safeguard Christians against governmental abuse of power. The one man of the day who knew how to use Jewish law, Roman law, university knowledge and government machinery against the small man on the street was in fact Paul himself. Jesus needed an ex-state killer to protect his flock against state killings. What was the possibly inadvertent effect of subduing the Christian faith at such a fundamental stage with a "policy of love". The first effect is that it emotionalised Christianity. Love is in part an emotion and by accepting an emotion as basic foundation it slanted the doctrine in a specific way. Governmental machinery are supposedly unemotional. They function according to law and politics. Politics becomes law and dictates to government how to work. The "doctrine of love" subdued armed resistance of the Christian community. The only resistance could be by increasing number of members, in essence by democratic means. The "doctrine of love" had a designed and possibly inadvertent effect in that it empowered members of the society who are more capable of love and who have higher emotional intelligence. I would postulate that this would be the females of society who are more capable of loving and emotions. Christianity has therefore since its early existence been slanted in favour of the female. It may be for this reason why Mohammed 300 years later, who also believed in a monotheistic invisible god was positioned to institute Islam, a religion not so fundamentally slanted to a "doctrine of love" and empowerment of the woman. Paul and the disciples, in example of Jesus, performed another paradigm-shifting act. They demolished the concept of "individual ownership". In that day one could gain ownership of an individual by means of psychological control and sociologically accepted norm by saving someone else's life. This "doctrine of lifelong endebtedness" was a subtle form of slavery. It affected a very powerful lobbies in society namely the medical profession and the legal profession. "Because I saved your life as doctor or lawyer you have a lifelong endebtedness to me and I am in effect your owner". Can you imagine the shock it was when Jesus came along and healed everyone and anybody next to street, irrespective of their standing in society, for no payment, and frequently not even knowing their name. Away was the leverage of "lifelong endebtedness" and threat of banishment outside the walls of the city, to the ash heaps and rubbish dumps because you would not or could not conform or you did not have the money, means nor political clout. Your sins were forgiven. The leverage was gone. You could rise again from the dead and take your rightful place in society. Away was the sin of falling pregnant without the succession planning by your parents and the backroom meetings of the town elders about who had to procreat with whom. Away was being treated as a breeder, such as the animals on the farm. Your sins were forgiven and you could rise again. You could be a beggar and rise again, a thief, a criminal, a corrupt governmental official , a murderer, a lepper. Anyone could rise again. Paul is careful during his debate with the intellectual Corinthians concerning rebirth. He essentially asks them if a tree will ever know that it once was a seed. Does he refer to the rebirth on earth as well ask the rebirth at the Second Coming, or both? Exploring the concept of forgiveness; In a society founded on a paradigm of "forgiveness" one may not recognise such forgiveness. You may only realise what you had, once you lose it. In conclussion; Jesus needed to protect the early church against the power of the state. For that he needed a man who knew how to use state machinery to maime and kill. Paul was the chosen man for the job. Paul was the first line of defence. One can only note that the world in one sense is a brand new world since the death and resurrection of Jesus but in certain aspects has not changed at all.