Herban Sprawl

My friends and I have been having a lively and interesting discussion about the use of Paul’s writings for weddings. I threw the subject out there to see what others thought and I’ve enjoyed the responses. It’s also been fun to toss in my heretical point of view, as well.

The passage in question happened to be from a letter allegedly written by Paul to the Ephesians (5, 1-2 and 22-31). According to my Harper’s Study Bible, there is ample evidence that this wasn’t written by Paul, but rather by his followers according to what he taught. So, technically, we are speaking of Paul once or twice removed.

Nevertheless, I have no use for Paul (or his disciples) as the be-all and end-all that Protestant preachers want him (them) to be. My friend Kay says that for a Jew during his time, Paul was expressing some liberal ideas. But if you read a little farther, in Ephesians 6, 5 -8 Paul tells slaves to obey their masters! Oops. Not too liberal, in my opinion.

So we have been dissecting this concept and it’s been interesting that the feminists are definitely against the use of Paul, and the people who have been raised as Southern Baptists are trying to skirt the issue by saying Paul spoke of love and respect.

Bishop Tony Hash commented, “Hmmm though not the best reading, if you continue further to verse 25, Paul teaches the husband to love the wife as Jesus loved the church. Through this perfect love there is no subjugation so Paul contradicts himself. In true love no one is higher than the one you love so in reality the wife is in control in the husband’s eyes!” I had to laugh at that one. Talk about circular!

But was there a church for Jesus to love? Technically, not. Jesus was a Jew and all he was trying to do was cause the hierarchy of the Jews to behave better toward their disadvantaged brethren. He was against the way the Pharisees treated the rank and file Jews, and he was vocal about it. Was he the Messiah? I doubt he thought so. Humility seemed to be his strong suit. All he was suggesting was that if people followed what he was teaching, everyone would be better off.

Did Paul really teach what Jesus taught? It’s hard to say for sure, given when the gospels were written and when Paul had his big conversion. What we do know is that Paul was a higher up in the Judaic scene, so he was a learned man. He was also a zealot, and those are the ones that scare the heck out of me. Where Jesus was trying to improve Judaism, Paul was doing what Paul wanted and saying it was in Jesus’ name. In Jesus’ name, I enslave you.

Paul’s conflicted feelings about women were apparent in the translations of his writing. What I don’t understand is why modern Protestant ministers seem to be so enamored with Paul. You can’t just pick and choose from his writing and decree him a great religious leader. You have to look at the entire body of his work, and if you do, you see that he was a moralist. At the same time, he blamed others, namely women, for leading men astray.And, if the evidence is correct, who’s to say that the followers of Paul might not have kicked it up a notch?

Why do ministers keep drilling on the same passages that are so wrong-headed in the treatment of women? You have only to live in the Bible Belt with Southern Redneck men who think it is their duty to beat their wives into submission, or to rape their wives when their wives won’t submit themselves sexually, to be mighty wary of the words of Paul. We don’t have to lead men astray. They do a mighty fine job of it on their own. You hear me talkin’, Paul-baby?

Moralists like Paul are appealing to literal believers because they offer simplistic answers that don’t require independent thinking. Believers can just go through the motions without challenging anything and be perfectly content. BGF once tried to explain the trinity to me. I waved him off. It’s not that I don’t understand it, I explained to him, I just don’t believe in it. I gave it plenty of thought when I was supposed to be memorizing pieces in the Evangelical and Reformed catechism. The other kids were doing this rote thing, and here I was, thirteen years old and driving the elderly minister insane because I didn’t believe in ghosts.

But back to appropriate wedding readings. I don’t approve of Paul. Period. But if a young couple can’t get married without something from Paul, why not Colossians 3, 12- 17? I’d leave out 15-17, but then I’m not Christian.

The passage talks about loving and forgiveness. The hardest thing any couple has to learn how to do is forgive. Forgiveness is tough. The trick, though, is letting go. Grudges have a habit of getting stuck in our craws, and it’s way too easy to leave them there. Forgiveness while letting go is a huge challenge. All longtime married people agree this is the one thing they’ve had to work at the most.

When the aunts rebelled and decreed their niece wasn’t getting married to the tune of Paul, it was because we three are feminists who came up when women were thick in the fight for equality. That fight still isn’t over, but younger women seem blithely unaware of what it was like in the day, and they don’t seem to understand that a bunch of male legislators have the power to set us right back to square one…men who will quote Paul the entire time they are doing it.

My mother had it right, and she wasn’t quoting Paul – “Forgive and forget,” she’d say. She wasn’t alive when I got married, but it was a lesson I never forgot. That’s the verse I’d really like to be reading to these young people.