Dear Marian, 

I have written two letters in reply to your last but since I feel the point of my writing is being missed, I did not finish them. I hope this one makes it clear. I appreciate your reading my work and giving your considered comments.

The first thing to say of my writing is that it comes from an enlightened appreciation of the person of Christ, his teaching and his license to give us unalterable paths to follow to the end that God anticipates for us.

The prestige of Christ is not just greater than that of any person, living or dead. No, it is so singular that no person's knowledge, convictions, religiosity, philosophy or skill with words can be appraised in comparison. Only Christ can prescribe the ideal life for us and give the ways and means to it. His authority is not shared. Even his greatest disciple can do nothing or dare to prescribe anything that is not a reiteration of Christ's declarations.

In light of Christ's total being, human and Holy, it is presumptuous and grossly in error to declare any provision of God without tracing it back to the announced Word given by him.

Christ is straightforward in his teaching. He announces his purpose, the projected destiny for us and the means to it. He stipulates, by unalterable command, the requirements of those who would be followers. We sully his name by heeding the word of a lesser light and yet claim to be Christian. We follow him implicitly. If we use his name, even profusely, but take instruction and even provision of forgiveness from Paul's method, we cannot say Christ is our leader. Those who divide their allegiance are known for their loyalty to Paul as they take umbrage to the statement that Christ must be obeyed exclusively.

This leads me to see there are Pauline Christians and Christ Christians. Pauline Christians feel so strongly, that they resist Christ's word on forgiveness and his commands, preferring Paul's assurances of benefits without cost and eternal life as a gift.

I see in the world, the effect of this undemanding concept of Paul's. He has made of Christ an object of worship. Back in November of 1993 a statement formed in my mind during my prayer time and I immediately wrote it down: When we admit Paul's authority in Christian matters to the extent that what he says become tenets of our method of devotion to God, we have demobilized Jesus. We have made of him a static symbol whose meaning is found in the explanation of another.

Instead, we should think of the quality of our life that he has wrought in us. We honor and worship him as we obey him. We live in dedication and in answer to his call. Of course formal worship is needed for mutual benefit and reinforcement of convictions. Gathering together, one is conscious of the statement being made by each soul's life. It is that Christ is central and in control and each one joyously follows him. Now as each one finds life in Christ's dimension, love is expressed for God in his Trinity. Life on earth with God is continuous and of the same intention. This is the source of joy as one resolves to respond to Christ in obedience and enters a life with him. Joy and love now abound with meaning that includes the living of life in the here and now.

As the Pauline worships in sober ceremonies and perhaps with arm waving, the person generates within themselves an emotion and conviction they are doing something concrete in gratitude for their salvation, procured by the act of putting Christ to death. They never recognize that he was executed because of his teaching that the principal temple authorities absolutely rejected. They took the most drastic way to be rid of Jesus after all their unsuccessful attempts to compromise him in illegal statements.

This Pauline influence on the Church has established itself, beginning only about twenty years after Jesus died, and now is, to the unaware, the authority for defining Christian conduct. The simple proof of this inroad upon Christ is to be alert to the frequency of references to Paul's statements by preachers, teachers, authors and inquiring souls who simply do not know better. Further proof is to be alert to detect one's own feeling of rejection of the statement that Christ be obeyed implicitly. They feel revulsion when it is said that Christ did not die for the sake of forgiveness of the sin of the world.

Because of Paul's influence, the world's people are not aware of the urgency to identify oneself as a Christian by reason of obedient loyalty to Christ. It is this resolve that leads us to be convinced that Christ's word is complete and cannot be modified. Paul's commands and assurances of gifts from God are therefore, a disservice to the intention of God in Christ.

The moral influence of Pauline Christians is revealed by the condition of our city, country or world. Paulines are not the guilty immoral ones but they are not before society as role models living under imperatives that are guides to all persons. We need examples that show a high calling to conduct that is becoming to those who are living consistently with a Holy objective for life. In practice, instead of role models they are as neutrals taking no stand with Christ or with his instructions as a cause.

I am visioning Christ Christians, living in obedient response to Christ's meaning as the common, every day, simple example of being guided to do the right thing in every little and big way. They do it because they are living and making all decisions with the complete influence of Christ's ethic. It must be pointed out that his ethic applies everywhere and all the time.

I am visioning Christ Christians demonstrating there is a price to be paid before receiving assurances of a full life and eternal life. That price is our selfish and autonomous life that must be surrendered and given to Christ. He will replace it with a new one with features that are packed down and running over.  

I am visioning society being influenced by Christ Christians who have a single focus. It is in Christ whose benevolence includes all persons. Those who must see this are the ones who are not yet convinced that they can afford the price asked by Christ.

I am visioning Pauline Christians finally agreeing that it is folly to think that the best of life now and eternal life to follow is without need to conform to its ways. They will see that by merely deciding Christ is acceptable then say they are "saved" by their judgment to accept Christ, is a mockery of his life spent teaching otherwise.

I am visioning Christ being emulated in our country to such an extent that social justice and peace will be attained. Is there one among us in disagreement that Christ will lead us into his ideal life?

In contrast, the Pauline way is in effect everywhere. If it could, it would have had a solution for society's ills from the beginning. The morality of society is rapidly declining and the Paulines are showing their best effort and best values in the face of it but without effect. It is obvious; Paulinism is neither the solution nor the way to Christian life. It is because its best features are free and it has no commanding influence. It is rude to Christ when we say by our allegiance to Paul that, "Paul is the answer; he says thus and so; therefore I find religious comfort in his easy assurances."

Some Paulines somewhere, sometime, will have to stand up to their fellows and ask: Why are we not following Christ? Does he not tell us what to do and how to live and what it leads to? Should we not give our attention to the Son of God? Is there another of greater authority? Is Christ's teaching not complete? How would we know otherwise?

This concludes for now the formal statement of the driving force and necessity for being a Christ Christian. Christ intended it, we can safely say, because it is his teaching only that we hold up.

Ralph B. Folsom

Feb 15, 1996