St Paul's Cathedral

Paul of Tarsus is perhaps the most famous convert in Christianity. His dramatic encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus changed his life completely, turning him from a fierce persecutor of the new cult of Christianity to its passionate leader. A powerful personality and a visionary theologian, his letters are the foundational documents of the new church. At the heart of Paul’s theology is the belief that there is nothing and no one who is outside God’s loving redemption. Often we encounter Paul through memories of different preachers’ and scholars’ interpretations of him, but Paula Gooder will introduce him as the person he really was, including how formative his background as a Pharisee was to his thinking. Dr Paula Gooder is Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral and a leading Biblical and Pauline scholar. Her numerous books include Body (about Paul’s theology of the goodness of the body), and Phoebe: A Story which explores the context of Paul’s letter to the Romans, his theological masterpiece.