A common thread in dueling schools of Christian theological (or philosophical) thought is to characterize “them” (whoever “they” may be) as embracing some sort of heretical position.
I’ve been reading a few posts recently that try to pigeonhole the emerging church as gnostic. I forget some of the other places I’ve seen this recently, but this post is the latest. I am at quite a loss. I don’t feel like writing a whole lot on the subject right now, but if the emerging church is in danger of any heresy, gnosticism would not be it.
Here are some characteristics of gnosticism (I’m being generous and using theopedia’s definition of gnosticism here):
- The real world is not the world of the senses. I’ve read not a single “emergent” who remotely believes this. Postmodern emergents are wary of the captivity of our theology to Platonism, along with the thought that “the world” and the “flesh” are evil and that our only hope lies in being whisked away to some incorporeal spiritual state known as heaven. Instead, they believe that the gospel has to do with the redemption of this world because it was this world, this real world, which was created good by God (Genesis 1) and is the object of Christ’s redemption (Colossians 1:15-20).
- There is a world outside the world of our experience which is the realm of truth it is very distant from the Kosmos. The world of our experience is created by a lesser and flawed being, a demiurgos. No. I’ve never heard anyone remotely say that there is a lesser God that created the world. The God who redeems this world is the God who created the world.
- Christian Gnostics were gnostics who considered themselves part of the Christian faith. In their view there are really two Christian faiths a lower faith for the masses and a higher faith for the elite. This fails as well. Most emergents are very aware of the historic apostolic faith, holding firmly to the creeds of the Church and seeking to embody the one true faith in a way that is most fitting to our current cultural context.
- [T]here simply is no notion of Canon in the Orthodox Protestant sense. There is literature that contains revelation but there is simply no way to speak of “authoritative scripture”. Every emerging author I have read is deeply committed to the Bible. Perhaps it is not in the propositional, systematic sense of some of their detractors, but the Bible is still the rule and norm for faith and life.
- For docetic Christianity we can have either a complete rejection of the incarnation (Jesus is mythically in the same way that Zeus is mythical) or a rejection of the humanity of Jesus. Yet again, no, I repeat, no emergent author I have ever read has ever diminished the humanity of Jesus. No, not one. Ever. Every one I have read believes that Jesus died in a bodily, historical, this-world sense. Tony Jones considers the death of Jesus the “pivot point in the entire history of the cosmos.” No gnostic overtones there.
Now, this is not a comprehensive examination of gnostic thought. But I think it is a fair characterization of gnosticism’s major points. From my experience, the emerging church is not even in the same hemisphere as gnosticism. Come on folks, show some theological discernment. Don’t just throw heretical labels our direction so that your following will stay away from us. It’s slanderous. And sinful.
At least characterize us correctly, even if you disagree.
yeah – totally. its seems the opposite.
When they start speaking of these ancient practices that happened quite after the apostles died and then was covered up when the church became institutionalized that hid this history of Christianhity dealing with Mysticism as often the perception is in the three major religions born from that region and bonded us together and Israel had their mystics, Islam had their mystics-where did the “Christian” Mystics go that had this mystery beyond knowingyou basically had your Roman Panthiests and semi Gnostics such as Origen withstanding the full Gnostics(as origen believed the bible was intentionally erroneous because the enlightened ones are who can interpret the bible nad he cut his man tool off so he can withstand temptationand he was not even considered half Gnostic) and every professed Gnostic I run into that tells me that Christianity was Neo Platonic for teaching the Trinity(hello Unitarians) and cannot define what Neo Platonism is besides regular Platonism when I cut them a break and tell them to google Plato’s theory of forms next thing i hear as we really are not sure what that is. Yet, when I am told my faith movement is built on rationalism and modernism which is a complete fabrication as fundamentalists were not relying on anything rational but rather standing on faith as modernists tried destroying Christianity by telling us the first three chapters of Genesis was myth and did not really happen though we see the first people, the first temptation, the first falling into sin which brought the judgement on earth, on man, on woman, and on the Serpent as in the third chapter being judged by the first prophecy of Christ and then see modernists in Christianity try to accomodate the philosophies of the world and concocted this amillinealism which was just a long time for man as the soveriegn to save everyone and everything including mother earth from the evil capitalists so we must bring in the kingdom of God as there is a spark of divinity in each of us thyat needs to be coaxed out by rescuing from evil societies in the cities of America(hello capitalism) and the social gospel was nothing but to bring socialism to every one so we are all equal though some sat drunk on thier fat bums and others worked i.e. you control your own capital and those who worked-sure they sure did not have it too well but by the third generation those who worked ascended to upper middle class while the poor stayed poor becaus in a country ran by Smith Classical economics is not going to bend over for the Bolshevicks. The simple truth is this-between world war one and world war two absoutely destroying and shattering liberalism in Christianity as it was so obvious the fundamentalists and conservatives taught man was naturally evil and apart from God because of those three timy chapters in Genesis liberals denied as truth as they also shreded the bible with higher criticism and after WW2 it was fundamentalism and conservatism that riegned supreme until some one got tired of seeing Fundamentalists and conservatives to get off our duffs and get involved in politics to vote our conscience for that party that best brepresents our Christian values and Jerry Falwell which liberals hate motivated us to vote Reagan in and in the lat 28 years only saw one democrat President-and he only had success when Conservatives took over the house and Senate two years after slick willy got in office and laid down the gauntlet of a demcrat whisteling our fittle and seeing what many see as a half retarded son of a President gain the Presidency over one itty bitty political slogan-I only give it to my own wife and hallelujah bye bye.
So now, what do you do if you are a liberal and tired of seeing Christians vote foir conservatives? I am going to fabricate this lie that fundamentalism was built on postmodernism and so they are both gone by the way side we need to enter post modernity while we co-op all the old modernism beliefs and call them missional and incarnational as these were built on Modernism constructions. Ever wander why McLaren talks about peaceful Marxism but last i checked commies slaughtered more people not even concieving this happened in China when the supreme leader decided there were too many China men so let a few hundred million die besides after our forrays into Vietnam-China had her little toosh handed to her by the Commie Vietmanese which looking at thier modern society it is communism by name only. So I am suposed to aopt communism a nother modernist belief as well asall these eligopus beliefs which is nothing but recanned social gospel and the only differance is instead of individuals being the absolute authority for truth it is now community and the onlyt differance is instead of one it is many. If you think one messed it up what do you expect from many of the same?
So now here is this guy who feels guilty for being white and feeling bad about our forrays into Colonialism when actually this conservative feels a heck of a whole lot worst then he does wehn I have family and friends in the Philippines and after fighting Spain-we bought the Philippines as an insurrection started and do you know which religous group encouraged the democrat McKinley to go in for the glory of God so we can bring the Kingdom of God into the Philippines? You got it-it was the liberal social gospel peons as conservatives stood against this.
As a disabled Vet from the Iraq war, do you know the unit I now share a heritage with when reconstituted in Ft Lewis with the new Stryker Brigades? 14th Cav Regiment, On our crest we have two items representative of our heritage. One is this long knife and the other one was a rattlesnake. Now guess where these came from? When Mickinley decided to conquer for the glory of God it was the 14th Cav Regiment sent in to put down insurrection and install a puppet government. How do you think that makes one feel that this is your proud heritage because we were honorable in our actions but try not to let your family and friends know about this and hope they never ask. I have this notion I do not think McLaren is nearly feeling as bad for our liberal forrays into colonialism with the drums being beat by the liberal Christians-I just think all this emergent BS trying to pull the wool over many Consewrvative Christians eyes as basically it ends up being we are the ones that determine our politics as I think quite a few of us were willing to go a different direction as Obama canidated as left of center similar to Clinton and knew his wife would keep him in line sexually and when he started bringing all these old Clinton cabinet members over I was like cool until it is people like me-a disabled vetin Pensylvania who loves his religion and his guns and disabled by an obvious unjust war in iraq but it is me that is more liable to be a terrorist even in having two terrorist attacks on our country-one killing soldiers training for war and Obama does not have the nut sac to call it what it was-Terrorism from our enemy Al Qaeda. If all your worried about is whether they are or not but will nottell you from where this ancient past mysticism is coming from as liberals are good liars I expect nothing less.
By the way inMclarenbs book of finding our way again I am worried what the hell is he tinkingscared of fundamnetalists setting off nukes and NKorea is firing them off like the 4th of July and because of an obvious weak President we cannot find pirates on 19th century technology or stop Iran from running into Iraq what the hell does Mclaren fear of Christian fundamentalism as we are the ones who make our country great.
On the other hand you cannot bullshit a bulshitter and you can mark this down
Sgt David Emme (retired) 2-14 cav-you aint cav you aint shit