Reading Paul in post-Lutheran Sweden.

This article brings a contextual approach to Paul and Christian origins. By suggesting a way to re-imagine Paul in the context of a disestablished Lutheran church in a post-Lutheran and post-homogenous Swedish society, the article strives to contribute to contemporary Lutheran theology as well as to the understanding of Swedish identity. Even if the relevancy of this relatively new social context might seem obvious, it is far from obvious how it affects a Lutheran self-understanding. This emerging context, it is argued, challenges Lutherans to revisit the writer that meant most to Luther: Paul. Beginning with the Tübingen school, the article shows how Pauline scholarship has been characterized by a problematic contrasting between Jewish particularism and Pauline universalism. A similar contrasting, it is further shown, can be found in the so called New perspective on Paul. With special attention to the Pauline vision of unity in Christ (Gal 3:28) the article strives to move beyond the New perspective. By proposing a re-imagining of Jewishness as an open ethnic category, I suggest that Paul and Christian origins could be re-conceptualized in a way that is Lutheran, but that is also sensitive to issues of ethnic difference, margins, and belonging in contemporary Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
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