Progressive Christianity Isn't
Yesterday, we introduced Gnosticism, a few years ago I would have asked if this could catch on in the United States, but it has (and it is not new). In 1995 a Roman Catholic theologian, Richard Grigg, in his book When God Becomes a Goddess: The Transformation of American Religion, has reassured us that religion in America will not disappear but is in the “process of transformation.” Significant elements of traditional religious belief and practice are passing away, but a new kind of religiosity is poised to take its place. But it is not new. It is the old monistic Gnosticism, but it is now hailed as a new breath of fresh air for those dissatisfied with biblical orthodoxy.
One of these, often hailed as the most influential American New Testament scholar of the 20th century, is James Robinson. Once a Bible-believing Reformed Christian, Robinson became the director of the translation project of the Coptic Gnostic texts. In his introduction to this weighty volume, Robinson has many negative things to say about Christian orthodoxy and many positive things to say about the future impact of these ancient texts on the spirituality of our contemporary world.
Negatively. Robinson dismissed the second- and third-century Christian bishops who opposed the anti-Christian character of Gnosticism as prejudiced and “short-sighted,” as mere “myopic heresy-hunters.” This is still how liberals try to portray historic Christianity – closed-minded and bigoted, just as a recent President called those who opposed some of the sexual changes promoted by the administration as “worn arguments and old attitudes.” Actually, where the nature of human life is concerned, there is little that is new.
Positively. With obvious delight, Robinson presented the Coptic Gnostic texts as an attractive, timeless, and thus immediately applicable “answer to the human dilemma.” Robinson declared that the Gnostic library had “much in common with primitive Christianity.” This was the beginning of an attempt to totally revise our understanding of early Christianity along Gnostic-pagan lines.
Along with a well-funded cohort of radical scholars associated with the Jesus Seminar, Robinson attempted to prove that the Gospel of Thomas predates the canonical Gospels (it doesn’t). This massive extremely hypothetical reconstruction of Christian origins lies behind the optimism of so-called progressive Christianity, exemplified in the writing of Harvard professor and liberal Baptist Harvey Cox, who claims we are now entering “the Age of the Spirit,” fortunately leaving behind “the Age of Belief.” Cox argues that “the Gnostic texts show that a wide variety of different versions of Christianity, not just one, flourished in the early centuries. The discovery of the Gospel of Thomas [KLM: which is neither a Gospel, nor written by Thomas] opened the door to a refreshing new understanding of the first centuries of Christian life.” The euphoric Cox goes on to say that this new age of spirituality celebrates the “move to horizontal transcendence” or a “turn to immanence, … a rediscovery of the sacred in the immanent,” where the experience of “faith” from all the religions is an important part of the Spirit’s new work – “a new Pentecost,” he writes.
The fact is a number of biblical Christian scholars have done serious work to show that this reconstruction of early Christianity is without historical value, and is driven only by a radical theological agenda. Also, all these speculative attempts to insert Gnosticism into early Christianity smash against the solid rock of 1st Corinthians 15: 1-11, which contains the earliest Christian creed we possess, coming directly from the Jerusalem church of the mid-to late 30s of the Christian Era.
Before we move on:
- What present-day conflict do we see between Christian orthodoxy and repackaged Gnosticism? How are Gnostics attempting to revise our understanding of early Christianity? How have biblical Christian scholars countered these claims?
- What is the “New Pentecost” described by Harvey Cox? Why is this event so exciting for Gnostics? How is this different from the Pentecost described in Scripture?
- Did you note the date of the first book mentioned (1995)? We are now living in the era he predicted.