Re-Centralization

Paul wrote this letter to the church at Colossae because they were in danger of being turned into Gnostics. Now, we aren’t in danger of turning into Gnostics, are we? I mean, how many of you woke up this morning and said to yourself, “you know, this Gnosticism stuff - I think I’d really better look into it.” And when you turn on the TV you don’t think, “Aha! Those Gnostics are at it again!”

Well, you might be surprised at how many Americans really are Gnostics at heart.

You see, Gnosticism was a system of thought that grew up in the years when the Christian church was beginning to take shape in response to two very common pressures. The first pressure was the desire to reconcile the popular culture with the teaching of the church.

You see, one of the most common philosophies in those days was dualism, the belief that the universe is divided into good and evil, with the good being spiritual and anything material being evil. It was populated by a whole series of gods. At the top of the pecking order was a god - or maybe just a force - who was perfect, untouched by any sin or evil, that is to say anything physical. Descending from the top god was a series of "emanations", who were less pure because of their contact with material things, and at the bottom of this totem pole, well separated from the spirit at the top, was an intermediate being, often identified as the “logos” or word, who created all the physical things which constitute the world we know with our senses. The Old Testament God, with his claim to be creator, thus became automatically subordinate, a lesser god. So, the formal teachings of the church, with Jesus being spirit and flesh combined, both divine and human, pure spirit born into impure flesh, was really hard to swallow.

The Gnostics - by the way, the word comes from the Greek “gnosis”, or knowledge, taught instead that Jesus had left behind secret teachings which, of course, could only be understood by the spiritually enlightened, those with knowledge. And since Jesus was representing the pure god, who could not be corrupted by contact with physical things, Christ only appeared to be a person, but he wasn’t really. Therefore, he couldn’t have suffered and died on the cross. He just seemed to. Some people even said that he didn’t cast a shadow when he walked. So, you see, Gnosticism was an attempt to make Christianity understandable, acceptable, and respectable in a Greek world.

The second pressure was the difficulty with accepting salvation as a free gift - accepting that we are incapable of earning our way into heaven under our own steam. Because, you see, if salvation is God’s free gift, not something that is ours by right, we can’t demand that he serve us, that God live up to our standards of behavior before we will pay any attention to him. It was just as hard for the people of Jesus’ day as it is for us; most everybody wants to be in control, and if there’s nothing we can do but surrender to God and trust in his mercy, then we’re not in control any more, are we? And furthermore: not only are we supposed to just accept it, we’re supposed to go out and offer it to everybody else on the same terms we got it - namely, completely free, no entrance requirements, secret handshakes or cool in-group stuff that gives us a sense of our own uniqueness and superiority.

Gnosticism gave you things you could DO. There were two branches: one said that the body didn’t really exist, so you could do whatever you liked as long as you believed the right things. That wasn’t the most popular branch, though. The most popular version added a variety of self-abasement techniques, designed to wean the soul away from the body and thus ascend to a higher level of spirituality.

Well, as the people who have been attending the Sunday morning class on comparative religion can tell you, Gnosticism is alive and well in many different places around the world. Offshoots from orthodox Christianity like Mormonism, Christian Science, and Jehovah’s witness emphasize secret knowledge, an additional “key” revelation which enables the initiated to discern the true, hidden meaning of Scripture. Christian Science is also intensely dualistic, believing that the body - with all its attendant aches and pains - is all an illusion, and that true spirituality is gained by recognizing the illusion for what it is.

Other world religions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism, are also dualistic, believing that material things, the physical world, are either illusions or traps. And every single one believes that there are certain things you have to do in order to earn salvation - however you define it.