Profaning Paul

Profaning Paul offers a critical examination of how Paul's biblical letters have been interpreted and used throughout history. These letters have been invoked to justify racism, slavery, imperialism, misogyny, and anti-Semitism over more than two thousand years. Yet despite this troubling legacy, many readers have sought to reclaim Paul's writings for liberal or radical political purposes, attempting to counteract the harm done in his name. The book begins with Paul's use of language around excrement, refuse, and waste, then traces how Paul's words are repeatedly recycled and reinterpreted. It investigates why diverse readers—including liberal Christians, academic biblical scholars, political theorists, and philosophers—feel driven to reconstruct Paul as a heroic figure and extract wisdom from his texts. Drawing on feminist, queer, and minoritized scholarship, the book asks what might change if readers stopped this process of recycling Paul's writings. By removing the sacred status from his letters, new possibilities might emerge for developing political frameworks suited to contemporary and future political, economic, and ecological challenges.