Is there a sect of Christianity that does not incorporate or even specifically excludes the teachings of the apostle Paul?
http://www.k-b-c.com/jpd_intro.htm
http://www.mersina.com/lib/christianity/index.html
gnosticism
http://www.aristotle.net/~bhuie/col-comm.htm
The coptic church dates from before Paul
http://www.coptic.net/
interesting history of paul
http://www.pennpals.org/anderson/chapter11.html
Once again, we have someone who WANTS to be a Christian (because, as we all know, Jesus was a sweet, lovable, non-judgmental guy who embraced EVERYBODY) while shunning Paul (who was a homophobic, sexist, old meanie who made up a bunch of exclusionary rules).
Fella… you have absolutely NO IDEA what you’re getting into. You think Christianity is tough WITH Paul, imagine what it would be like without him!
“Nice” Jesus NEVER said his followers didn’t have to follow Mosaic law- mean old Paul did!
“Nice” Jesus followed the kosher laws all his life, and NEVER hinted his followers didn’t have to. Mean old Paul said that!
“Nice” Jesus said that not a letter of Mosaic law was to be done away with- so, if you’re a “Christian” who dismisses Paul, YOU must adhere to the Mosaic prohibitions against pork, shellfish, sodomy, and all the rest.
Ooops! Well, have fun being a STRICT Christian. But something tells me you’re gonna miss bad old St. Paul!
Actually, I think much of the issue about gentile Christians not keeping kosher and derives from Peter, not Paul. Acts 10:9-11:18 seems to be relevant here.
And in terms of following other Mosaic Law, Acts 15:1-21 mentions Paul putting this before a council of church people, and James is the one who speaks up, saying that the gentiles needn’t follow Mosaic Law to follow Christ.
Astorian:
It’s just a question to help me get find a place to get started on some research, fella. Please don’t take it as an attack on your faith. It’s not.
CF
The Celtic Christian church, in general, considers the letters of Paul to be just that, important historical notes from one of the most important early Christians.
astorain is wrong. JC specifically said “'till all be fulfilled”, one must continue to follow the OT Law. Peter, John, and JC’s brother (James) were all sure He meant “his dying for our sins” as the “all” that was to be fulfilled.
ie, you can’t be saved by JC dying for your sins, until he actually does so. This (and many other things) was decided at the Council of Jerusalem, in AD48. See also Matt12. Not to mention several passages in John, which I do not recall right now.
You might be interested to know that Philip Jose Farmer’s book Jesus on Mars is about a colony of Christians who got transported to Mars after Jesus died but before Paul came along. The end result is that they all live like Orthodox Jews, but believe in Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus also lives in the nuclear reactor that provides their civilization with energy, and periodically he comes out to greet people. Much of the plot deals with the ways a bunch of astronauts of different religious faiths deal with meeting Jesus, as they try to figure out whether he’s really Jesus, is really an alien, or both.
Without giving too much away, my reading was that the alien was really the antichrist, and that Farmer meant the whole book to suddenly invert in meaning if you figured out that that was what he was hinting at, but I could easily be reading too much into it.
-Ben