Evangelical leader accuses pope of creating "division" with LGBTQ+ views

Alright so wiki link to getcha started here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle

Is where a lot of early Christians got their message and first ideas of Christianity from. He never met Jesus when Jesus was alive. From the writings it's easy to get a vibe that he was a sex repulsed asexual who didn't want anybody to have sex. That it be within the confines of marriage and strictly procreative in purpose in that context reads a bit more like a concession to the practicality of his followership being a majority bunch of allosexuals. Jesus didn't say much about sex outside of marriage and even refused to carry out punishments levied against adulterers. Arguably because God's law is not for people to judge. Side note - Given that "washing of feet" is sometimes used as a period euphemism for sex and "feet or foot" often used to refer to the male member... Well Mary Magdeline drying his "feet" with her "hair" may not have been referring to the hair on her head so to speak and Jesus may have been fairly sex positive.

But back to Paul. Paul comes along and writes rather eloquently about how he had a vision and that Jesus signed off on him... But the bits that biblically vouch for Paul's authority as personally invested by Jesus is all written of by Paul. Dude basically pulled a "here's the rules I wrote about why the rules I wrote are rules. Paul's teachings being included in the Bible does make sense from the perspective of figuring out where certain cultural aspects of Christianity came from. By establishing himself as an early authority he basically got to codify and pass his veiws off as gospel... But his stuff is also lousy with contradictions because people used him as an easy way to hijack stuff. Out of the 27 bible sections attributed to him only 14 show consistency in syntax and style prompting the belief that there are more than a few forgeries slipped into the mix.

In general what we can gather from Paul's veiws is he is pro-establishment. He preaches that government rule is legitimate and backed by God. He is where we get such gems as women not being eligible for priesthood (aside from the exceptions of the one he elevated) and that leadership "dignity" and authority in the Church was a suitable reward for supplying the church with material wealth and resources.

He also was fairly dismissive and even supportive of slavery framing metaphorically everyone as slaves to Jesus first... Which was pretty rich given he was hobnobbing with rich folks and encouraging them to support the church he was building. Modern Christian scholarship gets around this by proclaiming that slavery at the time "really wasn't all that bad" ... Which is bullshit. Slavery at the time absolutely was chattel slavery. You were legally allowed to do whatever you wanted to slaves including killing them and the children of slaves became your property by extention. This all makes sense for Paul though because he fetishized suffering making him a solid foundation for the Christian martyr complex. A lot of the things the Church has been criticized for - the abuses of power, the hoarding of wealth the frank misogyny and exploitation.... A lot of it finds it's justification in Paul.