Here I begin discussion of N. T. Wright’s book Creation, Power, and Truth: The Gospel in a World of Cultural Confusion (Zondervan) with Chapter One: God the creator in a world of neo-Gnosticism. If you have read the chapter, feel free to comment. If not, feel free to ask a question.
This is a fairly long chapter and the book itself has only three chapters. All three are relatively long. I will also cover the Conclusion here after covering the three chapters.
According to Tom, in this book (I refer to him as Tom as I know him personally), ancient Gnosticism is enjoying a renaissance in contemporary Western culture, including America.
I was taught that one should not call something “Gnosticism” unless it has within it the myth of the “heavenly redeemer,” a being of pure spirit emanating from the heavenly source of all that is, not becoming incarnate but rescuing the spirits trapped in matter, in bodies. That would almost limit Gnosticism to second century heretical Christianity (e.g., the Valentinians).
Tom cites four major elements of neo-Gnosticism: cosmological dualism, belief that pits spirit (good) against matter (bad), belief that this world was made by a incompetent or malevolent secondary being, belief that the solution is for the soul to escape from this world to some kind of Platonic heaven, and belief that the way of escape is gnosis, discovery of a particular kind of hidden knowledge. “Discovering who you really are lies at the heart of it: more particularly, discovering that deep down you are one of the sparks of light, imprisoned within the present material world but longing to escape.”
Tom argues that the modern, Enlightenment self-description is itself gnostic (or neo-gnostic). We in the modern, “enlightened West” tend to think we are “people come of age” above all others past and present. “At the individual level, the great controlling myth of our time has been the belief that within each of us there is a real, inner, private ‘self’ long buried beneath layers of socialization and attempted cultural and religious control, and needing to be rediscovered if we are to live authentic lives.”
Tom goes on to argue that much Christian orthodoxy also wreaks of gnosticism insofar as Christianity is made primarily a matter of correct thinking about God, Jesus Christ, etc. And he identifies as “gnostic” the common evangelical (and other Christian) emphasis on “getting out of this world and into heaven” as all that “salvation” entails.” Here he promotes his own view, which he considers the biblical one, that “heaven” is not an anti-earth place but the eschatological joining of heaven and earth.
Then Tom scores some contemporary (or recent) intellectual “elites” such as Darwinian Richard Dawkins as falling into a kind of gnostic belief in themselves as “the Brights,” the enlightened ones whose knowledge of the workings of the universe elevates them above the rest of humanity.
I could go on. There’s so much that is insightful in this chapter. It constitutes a powerful critique of modern, Western, especially very recent culture. As much as I opposed Social Darwinism, though, I’m not clear about how Tom gets there, to criticize it, from Gnosticism (or neo-gnosticism).
I have read books before that use the generic rubric of neo-gnosticism (or just Gnosticism) to critique whole swaths of things in culture. Tom even credits one of them that I read years ago (and reviewed for Christianity Today). That was The American Religion by Harold Bloom. Bloom swept up Southern Baptists (and by extension evangelical Protestants in general) and Mormons (Latter Day Saints) into one “gnostic religion.” In the book Bloom even prophesied that Southern Baptists and Mormons have so much in common that they will eventually merge into one religion. That was, of course, an outsider’s view and a false prophecy. It will never happen. But, to a total outsider, the two do seem quite similar because of their emphasis on conservative lifestyle.
I liked this chapter, but I have qualms about using Gnosticism to cover so much diverse ground. My students often say that this or that is “gnostic” and it may or may not have some feature that is similar to Gnosticism, but I am hesitant to label things gnostic or even neo-gnostic that do not have clear spiritual features. I regard neo-Gnosticism as evidenced in, for example, esoteric Christianity—namely Rosicrucianism, Anthroposophy, and similar religious groups. And also much of the so-called New Age movement.
I would love to hear from you who read this chapter. What are your thoughts about it?
*Note: If you choose to comment, make sure your comment is relatively brief (no more than 100 words), on topic, addressed to me, civil and respectful (not hostile or argumentative), and devoid of pictures or links.*
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