[notes] Always A Mess

Which is good news, in a way.Assumed audience: Other (little-‘o’) orthodox Christians or people with at least a vague knowledge of Christianity and openness to hearing Christian points of view on things. I’ve been slowly reading through the letters of Paul this summer as part of my daily devotions, and was struck again just how much of a mess the church was from day one. These letters that make up so much of the New Testament are nearly all addressed to churches with issues that would make us all blanch were they our own congregations. Infighting over which apostle was better, class conflict, sexual misbehavior to make even a Slate columnist blush, ethnic conflict: you name it, it’s there. (Paul himself was quite the interesting person, as is evident if you “read between the lines” at all, indeed sometimes if you just read the lines themselves at all — something that is hard to do as a Christian long immersed in these texts and committed to regarding them as both human and divine…