Al Owski’s Reviews > The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe > Status Update

“I do believe Paul was implicitly an evolutionary thinker…Real power is now available and false power has been exposed in Paul's thinking, and now it is just a matter of time till false power falls apart. I have witnessed much of this evolution of consciousness in my own small lifetime—toward nonviolence, inclusivity, mysticism, and ever more selfless love, as well as more correct naming of the shadow side of things”

“In his groundbreaking study "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West," the renowned Harvard scholar and pastor Krister Stendahl (1921-2008) wrote that Paul hardly ever speaks of personal guilt, or personal and private salvation-we are just trained to hear him that way!”

“Did you ever notice that Jesus himself was not really that upset at the bad behavior that most of us call sin? Instead, he directed his critical attention toward people who did not think they were sinners, who could not see their own shadows or dark sides, or acknowledge their complicity in the world's domination systems.” Jesus exposed the root causes of evil (almost always some form of idolatry)…”

“Non-attachment (freedom from full or final loyalties to human-made domination systems) is the best way I know of protecting people from religious zealotry or any kind of antagonistic thinking or behavior.”

“I would insist that the foundation of Jesus's social program is what I will call non-idolatry, or the withdrawing of your enthrallment from all kingdoms except the Kingdom of God. This is a much better agenda than feeling you have to attack things directly, or defeat other nation-states, the banking system, the military-industrial complex, or even the religious system.”

“Paul seems to have believed humans are caught in a double bind, and he was convinced that only corporate goodness could ever stand up to corporate evil—thus his emphasis on community building and "church." ”

“We now see that these systems (corporations, nation-states, institutions) have a life of their own, and are usually unaccountable to reason or even law—as much as we try to make them accountable. The ancients were not naïve about such things.”

“If you look at all Paul's texts on evil or "the problem," you see that sin for Paul was actually a combination of group blindness or corporate illusion, and the powerlessness of the individual to stand against it (Romans 7:14ff.) along with systemic evil (Ephesians 6:12 and Colossians 1:21ff.). Evil is not just individual nastiness.”

“In recent centuries, Christians have largely read him as if he was focused on what it takes for individuals to "go to heaven" and avoid hell. But Paul never once talks about our notion of hell! Most people fail to notice that. He would have agreed with Jesus, I think, that humans are punished by their sins more than for their sins. Goodness is its own reward, and evil is its own punishment…”

“His is a classic description of conversion, and it follows the typical progression from self-love, to group love, to universal love. But Paul did it rather quickly, whereas most of us take a lifetime.”