who's Christian?

[Terrance]

Doug Millison wrote:
> 
> 
> There is especially a body of critical literature that finds in Pynchon's
> writings a condemnation of some forms of institutional religion, especially
> those that align themselves with worldly governments and take part in the
> oppression of the human spirit and specific individuals, part of the System
> -- that's hardly a neutral attitude towards religion, but is instead a
> specific position vis-a-vis a certain form of religion.


Doug, can you please name the critical sources and/or one
such organized religion that these critics claim P condemns?
I find no evidence in his texts or in his prose to support 
this claim. Again, his treatment of religion is very
complicated and he never, as far as I can tell, condemns any
religion, not even Calvinism or Valentinainism or
Manichaeism  for that matter.  You know, the living earth is
an idea not unheard of in Catholicism, not only in the
ancient church, and the mystics and heretics, but in the
teachings of major contributors to Catholic dogma and
theology. That Pynchon has Chardin as his voice against the
gnostic return in GR tells us something.   His critique of
Christianity is most interesting and I think a very good
place to start discovering it, is the Letter to Thomas F.
Hisrch and his other prose, particularly the Sloth essay,
next, his known sources, and of course his novels, but
bringing in texts that P is not known to have read or used
to write his novels only clouds the issue imho.