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After a particularly long post, Chirol from Coming Anarchy suggested that when I have a lot to say, I should break it up into a series of articles. I've taken his advice, and now for several subjects (Embracing Defeat, Guerrillaz, Liberal Education, and OODA-PISRR) I've written four tetrologies.

However, before all that I wrote a trilogy on early Christianity. I described it as essentially a 4G movement, such as Maoism, but one that also drew energy from existing family structures. In that sense it is similar to the religious right in America or al Qaeda in Iraq. Early Christianity was profoundly shaped by two thinkers, Jesus and Paul, similar to the way that Sovietism was shaped by Marx and Lenin.

This insight is not original. About the time I wrote my posts, Jeffrey Obbins of Lebanon Valley College published The Politics of Paul, where he wrote...

Paul is every bit Jesus’ equal as a social and political revolutionary, standing to Jesus as Lenin does to Marx.

Why was Jesus crucified? Why were the Christians thrown to the lions?

Douglas Adams began his epic Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by saying people didn't want to be kind

And then, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change...

While Juanna Hates sees something in the Christian message that the Temple found obnoxious

Surely it was because of these outrageous claims that the leaders of the Jewish community succeeded in having Jesus killed. His real claims struck at the heart of their religion, the identity of their nation.

Both these answers are too easy. They make people feel good about themselves, knowing how foolish and short-sighted their opponents were. But Caiaphas was wise and far-sighted. Diocletian was one of the greatest Emperors in history. Why did they make their decisions?

Joseph Caiaphas, Hellenized Jew, Roman political appointee, and High Priest of the Temple for 18 years, agitated against Jesus to his fellow priests.

Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."

"The Weak and the Strong," by Saint Paul, Letter to the Romans, http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?search=Romans%2014, circa Anno Domini L.

Describing the works of The Apostle as part of the epistleosphere may be a stretch, but surmising his probable views on The Pentagon's New Map is not.

Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written: “ ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’ ”So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.

So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

Paul was concerned about rule sets, not rules. He was concerned about direction, not speed. He worked for a future worth creating.

Throughout his writings, Paul stressed that rules were important but not important in themselves. He saw no cosmic importance in the drinking of wine or eating of meat or day of worship. However, these cosmically irrelevant rules have the most effect on indivduals. Whether or not to eat a McRib or to rest Sunday morning are the dillemas that make up the day. Paul saw through the situation. What is celestially important are not distinct rules but the sort of actions an individual's internalized rule set produces. In the same way, it does not matter whether or not invested banks generate "interest" or "dividends" (Islamic banking). What matter are the actions enabled by the socialized rules. If the actions are peaceful and build connectivity, they are good. Else they impede peace and joy.

Paul had to recognize a danger caused by overly strict rules. Condemnation among Christians concerned Paul, because it was self destructive. Still, Paul's criticisms of Judaizers is very muted. Paul splits people into the "strong" and the "weak." Barnett prefers the "fast" and the "slow." But it's the same grouping. What matters is not strength or speed but direction.

Paul new what sort of future he wanted to create. Paul Who Was Saul wanted a righteous world that one would want to be in. He wanted a world of peace free from revolt and tyranny and terrorism that one would be safe in. He wanted a world of joy one would be happy to be in. None of these conditions are met by the Gap. More than ever in history, all of them are met by the Functioning Core.

Today in the Gap, when there are horrible democides we debate: "how much is a genocide is it, really?" While in the Core, we are justifiably sad when some people are to anxious of nothing to work.

Every person is part of Christ's body. That person is better and more tenderly cared for in the Core than in the Gap.