America's gnostic religion

Ghetta Life ghetta_outta at hotmail.com
Thu Feb 12 11:59:57 CST 2004


>From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid at yahoo.com>
>
>The desire to flee Earth, the intensely contradictory love/hate attitude to 
>the body, the good/evil dualism-- these staples of evangelical Christian 
>theology are all characteristics of gnosticism, as well as prominently 
>featured in Pynchon's fiction.
>
>What were once characteristics of a heresy (from the point of view of the 
>Christian establishment at the time, many centuries ago) have migrated into 
>the mainstream, i.e., in the evangelical movement whose 70 million 
>adherents now dominates Christianity in the U.S.

Some Gnostic attitudes are prevalent in Christianity, as you note above, and 
these spring from a shared conception of this present world as being deeply 
flawed and in the clutches of an evil power.  Thereafter the two theologies 
sharply diverge.  Gnostics believe the world was created by an inferior god 
breaking away from the truth, and that salvation is acquired by the 
individual through meditation on "truth" and abstinence from the temptations 
of the flesh.  Evangelical Christianity believes that the Creator is God and 
that a usurper has taken control of the world through the fall of man, and 
*especially* that personal salvation is ONLY available by belief in Christ, 
not through individual work/meditation/abstinence/etc.  For any Evangelical, 
the difference is crucial.

Gnostic theology has not "migrated into the mainstream" of Evangelical 
Christianity.  There are obviously parallels in theology between the two, 
but that in no way makes Evangelical Christians into Gnostics.  The Gnostic 
"heresies" are considered no less so today by Evangelicals than they ever 
were.  Just ask any Evangelical  and he'll tell you Gnosticism is from 
Satan.

Don't let such distinctions cloud your brain if you'd rather not (but I 
wouldn't go calling any evangelical "gnostics" in public if I were you).  
Continue on with your fine reporting of the facts...

Ghetta

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