For someone possibly questioning the whole enterprise, I'd suggest entertaining the idea Apostle Paul was the First Heretic, and try a 'pure Jesus, no Paul' faith approach. You can still use your Bible, just ignore the Paul retconning and hijacking of a new religion he barely had a grasp of. He wound up ignoring quite a bit of Jesusism, and then changing quite a bit of what he had been exposed to.
The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it.