Theoblogy

Dan dissents regarding the post, Is Mysticism Gnostic?:

Tony writes:
“In my Monday post, I mused that the “secret knowledge” vibe expounded
by some conservative Christians opens them to the charge of gnosticism.
Some commenters mentioned that the other primary characteristic of
gnosticism is a strict, platonic dualism.”

I don’t see the first charge as being valid for conservative
Christians at all. Unless Paul’s statement that spiritual truths are
only discerned by the mind that is energized by the Holy Spirit is seen
as “secretive”. It may be true of some charismatics, but wouldn’t be
true of any of the folks I read or listen to.

The Platonic dualism might have some validity in a second-hand way.
Conservatives don’t get too involved in the arts for example. But that
has more to do with a narrow moral focus than an actual belief that
matter is evil or that knowledge is a secret mysticism. Oddly, when
conservative get involved in politics they’re told they’re too worldly
and should stick to spiritual things. We can’t win.

And “lack of interest in creation-care”… Please. One can care about creation without buying Al Gore’s magic elixir.

I’m guessing the original charge against you, Tony, is that you seem
to have a high degree of skepticism about the objective knowability of
truth. You seem to ground knowledge in the experience of the local
community to such a degree that one cannot really know much of anything
with confidence. You seem to say that knowledge is cultural and
experiential and mystical. That seems to separate knowledge from the
concrete. That seems closer to gnosticism than the conservative
thinking of a Ravi Zacharias or a Francis Schaeffer or a J.P. Moreland
or an Al Mohler.

Darren King weighs in on the post, Are Conservatives the Real Gnostics?:

Tony, I agree. And I’ve often thought about this in terms of how we
handle parts of scripture – such as the epistles of Paul. Rather than
seeing Paul as someone who, like us, was trying to make sense of new
revelation blended with old understanding – in a real-time, presentflux
kind of way, many conservative Christians – and even more specifically,
many conservative, charismatic Christians – read Paul as if he offers
some sort of pure, undiluted stream on “the spiritual world”. Now, not
only is the idea of “a spiritual world” hyper-dualistic – thus gnostic,
but so too is the idea that Paul had some kind of magical way of seeing
it all – as if he somehow bypassed the human condition and didn’t read
it all through a particular, contextually localized worldview.

Eric Glover continues the discussion of the Trinity:

First I just want to say that I’m not arguing for or against the
traditional understanding of the trinity in this post, I just merely
want to engage the applicability of the aforementioned rule, that if
“X” cant exist in the mind then “X” cannot be believed, to biblical
belief in any doctrine.

Steve previously said:

“To believe something, one must first think it; if something cannot exist in the mind, it is incapable of being believed.”

Steve, I see where you go with your argument but I don’t find it
convincing. Your telling me that as long as something can exist in my
“MIND”, that is the only way it can be believed? what does that mean
exactly? To what extent do I have to understand to believe? Can I even
really believe in God at all then? Even though “I Believe” what the
bible says about him I cannot at all conceive of where he is right now
or that he is Omnipresent, Omniscient ect. If I thought about so much
of that long enough and applied your logic then up in the air go both
my hands with the concept of God at all.

what about a new christian who has hardly any concept of who God is
in greater detail but yet they still believe? I think your definition
of what constitutes belief seems to fit better with non-biblical belief
in non-biblical items. I don’t think this same logic should be applied
to holy writ.

The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, right? why is it that
I cannot convince a non-regenerate to believe and persevere to the end
with my “own” words of wisdom? That’s because God alone is the only one
that can truly change a heart, not me. Without the Holy Spirits
ministry in the process of salvation we would not be able to come at
all because our minds are still darkened in their understandings (Eph
4:18). I understand that the prior post wasn’t intended to be
explaining in detail salvific belief, I just don’t feel that belief in
anything biblical can be put on the same shelf with “HOW” we believe
anything else.

Steve, I fundamentally struggle with the idea that something in the
“BIBLE” has to be conceptualized intellectually before belief of it can
be true.

–More to follow–

In Christ we stand!

More than once, my Google Reader has shot me a link to a conservative blogger who’s accused me of gnosticism.  Here’s one from a few years ago that makes that claim, and there have been several more since.

Gnosticism is a long-standing religious predilection, popular in Jesus’ day, and popular in our own as well.  While it can be its own religion, per se, it is more often manifested as a flavor within a particular religion.  Kabbalah, for instance, is a gnostic Judaism.

The primary characteristic of gnosticism is that there is a secret, mystical knowledge about something — God, humankind, the universe — that is available only to particular individuals.  In Zoroastrianism, it is available to those who good good works and stave off sadness with happiness.  In Scientology, it’s done through a process of spiritual “auditing” and walking the “bridge to total freedom.”  In Eckankar, “soul travel” opens new chapters of truth leading to further spiritual liberation.

In all cases, more “truth” is available to those who have progressed in the secret knowledge of that particular religion.

It seems to me that conservative Christians aren’t all that different.  Some say that special things happen when a person prays with glossolalia or uses the phrase “In Jesus’ Name” almost like a magical incantation.  Others say it comes via the rite of the Eucharist. Still others claim that it’s belief in a certain set of doctrines that ushers one into the special knowledge.

But orthodox Christianity has always shunned anything like gnosticism.  In the earliest days of the church, Christians were often accused of being similar to the very popular cult of Mithra, a gnostic sect of the time.  But even while Christians were being persecuted pre-Constantine, they did not hide what they knew or believed.  (E.g., contrary to popular belief, early Christians did not hide and worship in the catacombs outside of Rome.  They dug the catacombs so they could bury corpses, as opposed to cremating them, because they believed that the resurrection of the dead was just around the corner. They held their memorial meals for the dead above ground, just like everyone else of the day.) Early church fathers like Tertullian and Justin Martyr fought these accusations.

There’s nothing secret about Christianity.  There never has been.  Let’s make sure there never will be.