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From: daved@academy.westford.ccur.com (508-392-2990)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Looking for some thoughts on moral theology
Message-ID: <Feb.5.04.44.11.1990.26841@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 5 Feb 90 09:44:12 GMT
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What are some contemporary books that stress New Testament-based 
defenses of moral theology? What do people in this group think?

The reason I ask this is that I am struggling with some issues in 
in the Pauline corpus. Paul makes any number of normative statements,
directly and indirectly, in his letters. Some of these, almost no one
seems to take seriously: "Women ought to have long hair and be silent
in church." Other  pronouncements are held up as binding on all
Christians. How does one know which is which? 

I have heard two oft-stated rules addressing this concern:

1. Prefer a word of Jesus (as from the Gospels) over Paul, if there
	seems to be a conflict;

2. Some statements were for a particular place and time and group of
	people, and were not intended to be universalized.

Neither of these seems to me to hold up, to my present understanding,
under close scrutiny as a rule which maintains the authority of
scripture, and still permits us to 'put by' such statements as (this 
time from Matthew I think) "Believers will handle snakes and 
drink poisons."

I welcome any thoughts or references. The only lead I have so far
is William Barclay's The_Mind_of_St_Paul."

Dave Davis			These opinions are my own.
			
daved@westford.ccur.com
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