St. Paul’s theology, as demonstrated in the book of Romans, is just as important today as it was at the time he wrote it because we, in the post-modern world, encounter just as many divisions and disagreements within the Christian Church today as Paul did in his time. I believe this has happened because, psychologically, by human nature, all Christians want to know they are “saved” and are going to heaven. As a result, we all naturally become focused on the rules and guidelines of our faith (the Law), and how to get to heaven, rather than living the Spirit of the Law, as Paul describes in Romans.
As we all know and Sigmund Freud would tell you, it’s human nature to try and act obediently in order to avoid punishment (Pregeant, page 259). Paul says in contrast that we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ through God’s grace, and this grace is a gift given freely by God. It cannot be earned by our prescriptive, “good” behaviors as a Christian who is intent on fulfilling the law. In my opinion, the misguided focus of Christians bent on fulfilling the Law to earn salvation today has created, and continues to create divisions and disagreements in the Church about who is doing the faith correctly or incorrectly and, subsequently, who has earned a place in heaven and who has not. Like Paul’s letter to the Romans, today we encounter disagreements in the Church about similar issues:
• Faith vs. works (e.g. Are we saved by faith or by works?)
• Law vs. the Spirit (e.g. Who’s following the right Christian rules and who’s not?)
• The Role of Women in the Church (e.g. Why can’t women become priests?)
• Homosexual Relationships (e.g. Can someone practice a gay lifestyle and still be considered a Christian? Can/should a gay man or woman be allowed to become a minister?)
• Slavery (e.g. Why is there still abuses related to human trafficking and illegal immigrants?)
In this reflection I will address the first two bullet points on this list.
Yesterday I received an e-mail from my Aunt who was feeling out of sorts because she shared with a friend that she was converting to the Catholic faith from her Episcopal roots. The friend proceeded to beg her to change her mind for fear that she would end up going to hell. Unfortunately, I have other Catholic friends who struggle with the same objections from their evangelical friends during discussions about their Christian faith practices. In Romans, however, Paul tells the Church community that, despite their judgments to the contrary, all people are held under the “power of sin” - - whether Gentile, Jew, or pagan - - yet we are all justified by our faith in Jesus Christ and his promise of salvation (Pregeant, p. 245, 248, 250), just as Abraham was (Ludwig, p.7). God’s righteous action restores our relationship with him through Christ, and we cannot perform specific acts or say specific prayers to earn his grace. Paul goes on to say that righteousness is based on faith, not the Law, and subsequently obedience to the law is a dead end (Pregeant, p. 247, 249).
Paul’s writings on this issue are obviously applicable to today, but I would point out that, in my experience, someone cannot be argued out of their allegiance to specific faith practices (e.g. Law). That’s where the Holy Spirit comes in. The Spirit and God’s grace purifies the hearts of Christians over time through the practice of prayer so they come to know the truth of faith in their hearts, not just in their heads.
Based on my earlier example and experience, it’s interesting to compare how typical evangelicals and Catholics interact in today’s society, similar to how the Jewish and Gentile Christians addressed in Romans must have interacted in Paul’s time. Like the Jewish Pharisees, most evangelicals today know and can quote scripture better than any Catholic can. As such, like the Jews of Paul’s time, this knowledge of scripture for evangelicals is an advantage but can also be a stumbling block. If you have the mindset that the written Word of God is the Word of God (aka the Bible), and if something is not written in the Bible then it obviously can’t be true, I think this mindset can create blinders that crowd out God’s ability to get one’s attention and teach you anything through the Holy Spirit. Just look at Paul’s own experience. He was so militantly obedient to the Jewish Law that God had to knock him over and blind him for three penitential days before scales fell from his eyes and he “saw the light” of his calling to become an apostle of Jesus Christ. So Paul’s letter to the Romans reinforces for us today that faith has to always be a heart thing and not just a head thing. It’s not about the rules, but the grace, and God is the one who gives the grace. We can only ask for it and receive it in God’s time and measure.
Being a Christian is also not about who’s in the “salvation club” and who’s not. It’s a recognition that we’re all in the “sinner club”, and we can only be a part of the “salvation club” if we nurture a committed relationship with Jesus Christ in both faith and works. According to Paul, Christ provides what the law could not, freedom from sin and death (Pregeant, p. 249). Once we let go of worrying about who’s in or out of the “salvation club,” and focus on living in the Spirit of our faith, Christ (and Paul’s) message of loving our neighbor as ourselves can come into sharper focus. The net benefit of this is that we all end up trying to lift up each other’s boats through our love, rather than being isolated and just working on our own personal relationship with Jesus. As Paul describes, the life of a believer is a life of love that is worked out in our daily walk as Christians (Pregeant, p. 258). Some days we do it well, and other days we do it poorly. It’s a journey, but our Christian faith calls us to live and love in humility, charity, community, and a cheerful hope to persevere in our trials (Ludwig, 9).
Two-thousand years later, it’s apparent we still have much to learn from Paul’s letter the Romans. We Christians are still debating what it means to be a good Christian, we’re still sinning, and we’re trying to learn how live in God’s good graces. So if Paul’s letter was re-sent to us as a text message titles, “A letter to the Chicagoans,” it would be just as relevant to our lives as it was to the Romans in their time.
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