As Maverick as White Bread and Cheesewhiz

A friend sent me a link to a Christian Science Monitor article titled Christian mavericks find affirmation in ancient heresies. Zowie, what a surprise. It is about, as you might guess, this year's major media choice for The New Insight That Knocks Down Christianity Forever, the Gospel of Judas, though it takes off from there.

The article is a nice example of cliched journalism, of a sort I haven't seen in a while. Let me start with the obvious one: A fuss is made over people who are not actually very interesting, except that they're not traditional Christians. (You and I yawn, but there must be a market for this.)

Crucially, they are in their religious life close enough to traditional Christianity (at least from the reporter's point of view) to create the drama of a conflict with the tradition upon which the value of the story rests. That's what makes them "mavericks" and not "weirdos." That's what tells the reader "Here's a fight you want to watch."

You have to think them Christians, or the reporter does not have a story. "Buddhist denies Incarnation" is not a story. "Christian affirms Incarnation" is not a story. "Christian denies Incarnation" is a story. (You and I yawn at this one too, but as I say, there must be a market for stories about heretics, though why the slide into heresy of someone who has the kind of tenure the higher clerics have and gets a book contract for giving up the thing he once swore to protect is interesting, I'm not quite sure. It's like writing a story on a corporate ceo who wants to make money. But I'm getting off the subject.)

In this kind of story, the "mavericks" must be seen to be doing something Christian in denying whatever doctrine they're denying. They have to be mavericks in a good, indeed a truly Christian, cause. They can't just be rebels, they must be idealists and reformers. In this case, the "mavericks" are pursuing their "modern mission to update what defines faithfulness." Please note that mission and updating are both good things. You are supposed to think well of these people, even if you disagree with them. They mean well.

It's a cliche that makes me roll my eyes and snort. That "maverick" in the title gives away the problem with this cliche, or would if the average reader thought about it: not one of the "mavericks" is the least bit maverick. Every one of them lives and work in a world in which he is the plainest of conformists. He's Mr. White Bread. He is to dissent what cheesewhiz is to real cheese.

A Unitarian likes the Gospel of Judas! Gosh, what a surprise! An Episcopal cathedral takes out of the Scripture readings and the liturgy all the un-p.c. bits! Shocking! The pastor of a homosexual church rejects the Atonement! Well, knock me down with a spoon! The Episcopal Church's social justice officer thinks the idea of one truth oppressive! Oh, will such wonders never cease!

The story rests, in other words, on an illusion. It pretends to a dramatic value it does not have. We are supposed to feel that people who do not care for traditional Christianity are challenging the tradition from within, that the walls are shaking, that the mavericks might win. As I say, one rolls one's eyes and snorts.

That is not the only cliche, of course. The story includes that reliable technique, the appeal to the authority of an undefined group of "scholars" as if they represented the unquestionable consensus. "Scholar" in this kind of story means "truth-teller" and is implicitly opposed to "Religious people bound to their now-disproved faith." The story tells us early that "It's an approach that's winning approval from scholars, who say Christianity has always attracted diverse beliefs." What scholars, and how many, and what do they believe, and are they biased, and how many scholars disagree with them, and what "diverse beliefs" in the early Christianity actually meant then, are all questions you are not supposed to think of asking.

This old reliable technique has a second stage: the subtle criticism of the traditional or conservative. In this article, the next sentence reads: "But others worry that this revisionism misrepresents time-tested truths." The others who oppose the scholars, you note, are apparently not scholars themselves, else the sentence would begin "Other scholars". They're just "others," which is not a group one is inclined to take seriously. And notice that they "worry," not think or argue or even just "say." They're scared, not thoughtful.

You see other cliches in the way the story is told. The writer quotes some orthodox Christians, of course, but he only tells stories about the "mavericks" and every story he tells makes them look good. There is a reason for this. A story make the reader sympathize with its subjects. You feel ou know them, in a way. The effect of such writing is to make you think well of the "mavericks" and feel that the conservatives are just cold-hearted jerks with short, easy answers.

The most important cliche to see is the way the article depends upon a simple but effective anti-Christian idea, continually re-presented in different ways. In this case, the governing idea is that early Christianity was diverse so modern Christians can be diverse — which, judging from the examples of "mavericks" the writer chose, means agnostic, homosexual, p.c. — as well. The writer makes the first claim but lets his subjects make the second, which keeps an illusion of objectivity.

The best ideas of this sort are those the reporter can present as undermining Christianity's foundations: not those that challenge the faith but those that tell the world that the Faith actually isn't everything traditional Christians thought it was. It's all right to present the reader with an external challenge to Christianity, but even better to present him with an internal one.

I think I could find more cliches in this article, but it's late.

Comments

[GL]

Over Easter weekend, my mother-in-law asked what I thought about the Gospel of Judas and I replied that it probably was written in the 4th or 5th century as has been reported and that this should hardly cause any concern as there were heretics back then as well. Of course the non-story about the Gospel of Judas is full of cliches; that's the only way to make yet another 1700 year old heresy "news." As you say David, "yawn."

On the other heresy du jour, a good friend of mine and I were joking recently about how the Andy Griffith Show would handle Opie's role in the Da Vinci Code. We were picturing a worried Aunt Bee telling Andy that he needed to talk to the boy and Barney telling him that he had to "nip it, nip it in the bud." Meanwhile, Andy would commonly assure them that it was just a little phase of heresy the boy was going through and then go to his room and give Opie some wise, but folksy advice, after which Opie would perform some act of contrition (cf. when he raised the baby birds after he killed their mother). We never settled on what that act of contrition might be, however. Suggestions are welcomed. We also tried to do the same for Richie Cunningham, but without as much success. Of course, it works better when you can imitate the dialog in person. ;-)

[GL]

Change "commonly" to "calmly." It's late and I am just getting back to blogging after giving it up for Lent. I'll try to do a better job of proofreading before posting from now on.

[Bob Ritchie]

Well said, particularly like the lines, "You have to think them Christians, or the reporter does not have a story. "Buddhist denies Incarnation" is not a story. "Christian affirms Incarnation" is not a story. "Christian denies Incarnation" is a story. (You and I yawn at this one too, but as I say, there must be a market for stories about heretics, though why the slide into heresy of someone who has the kind of tenure the higher clerics have and gets a book contract for giving up the thing he once swore to protect is interesting, I'm not quite sure. It's like writing a story on a corporate ceo who wants to make money. But I'm getting off the subject.)

[Fr. Bill]

David,

The lateness of the hour nudged you to write "liturgies" instead of "heresies" when you cited the headline of the story in the Monitor. Your analysis of the story which follows is, of course, spot on; but, I kept looking for the connection to ancient liturgies to no avail. And, that prompted me to click the link.

Your analysis goes into my digital hidey-hole so I may easily cite it as needed in the future. As always, thanks till sparrows weigh a ton, for the trenchant critique.

I wish, however, that the story had been about Mavericks finding affirmation in ancient liturgies as originally billed here. That story gets aired every once in a while. And, the authors reporting it try to follow some of the tediously trite journalistic criteria you expounded. In their case, however, they're trying to report and analyze a different phenomenon -- Christians whose faith traditions are so short or so thoroughly disconnected from the Great Tradition that an ancient liturgy is for them an utter and revolutionary novelty.

It's like trying to make "Starving man rejoices at finding food!" or "Thirsting man goes gaa-gaa over bubbling brook" into high drama. The real story would be why men are starving in the midst of vast stores of food, or why a man thirsts when sitting in the middle of a fresh-water lake.

No, the reporters of these stories must have the Christians "discover" what anyone with eyes can see was always there, or make them to resort to something "ancient," as if its distance in time posed some barrier or hurdle to overcome.

Oh well, maybe you'll have occasion to find one of those stories and pass it along.

Fr. B

[Stuart Koehl]

These "Christian Mavericks" would be who, precisely? Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic and Ethiopian Christians, Syrian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Armenian and Maronite Christians, Malankarese and Malabarese Christians. OK, other than these fringe movements, who else?

[Daniel Nairn]

What a great reading of news stories such as this one. They truly are cliche. Our local paper decided to celebrate Easter this year with a front-page "attack" on the "fundamentalist religious right", equating it to a "two-headed beast". And these words were all in the title itself! They justified the aggressive article by styling it as a book review from a Christian who is really just claiming the true Christian tradition. He's fed up with all of biblical literalists who have "hijacked" the faith and seem to think all of that stuff about Jesus really happened. They treated him as a modern day Martin Luther.

[little gidding]

The "rebel-fights-the-lonely-battle-against-the-ignorant-powers-that-misrepresent-the-truth" cliche is *itself* the basic Gnostic myth. It's no surprise that modern Gnostics, in and outside the Church, and those who dominate in media and academia (the "scholars" referred to in the article) should echo that myth so easily and frame news stories around it. And certainly it's no surprise that it should appear in the *Christian Science* Monitor, which is, after all, the inheritor of the 19th century Mind Cure stylings of Mary Baker Eddy.

[Pam W.]

I was just referred to this site........interesting......particularly this article and blogs.......

I stumbled upon something on this site that may answer all the comments here....and I am assuming elsewhere on this site...particularly for you Little Gidding.

Love is the Lesson
Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day
Didst make thy triumph over death and sin,
And having harrowed hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive us to win:
This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
And grant that we for whom thou diddest die,
Being with thy dear blood clean washt from sin,
May live forever in felicity.
And that thy love we weighing worthily
May love thee likewise for the same again,
And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,
With love may one another entertain.
So let us love, dear love, like as we ought:
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

-- Edmund Spenser, Amoretti 68 (1596)

A blessed Easter to you and your families all.

Posted by Anthony Esolen at 02:15 PM |

[Little Gidding]

And the Church is what ensures that Love.

It is not that Love's enemy, as so many seem to think.

[Tony Esolen]

Why are folks so interested in the Gospel of Judas? They are not really interested -- the Gnostic gospels are worse than heretical; they are dull. I mean, they out-Tao the Tao. The usefulness of the Good News of the Traitor is that it will help to undermine the Good News of Jesus Christ. But that means it would undermine the only really good news that mankind, miserable, lost, misguided, shabby, poor prodigal mankind, has ever heard. It would undermine the news that this life has been redeemed; that creation is not only holy, but that it points towards what transcends creation, and that that transcendent Creator is no force but a Person. It would undermine the news that this Person, this Father so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son into that world, as a ransom for sinners. It would undermine our only hope -- it would lower the vault of heaven to that wooden ceiling an inch or two above our heads as our bodies await being put back in the ground, where they will rot, period; after which we will be slowly forgotten by people who knew us, and then finally our very existence left without a trace, vanished into nothing as surely as the snows of yesteryear. It would do all this -- and so why is it good news? What is the payoff? WE GET TO UNZIP OUR PANTS WITH WHOMEVER WE PLEASE, HOWEVER WE PLEASE, WHENEVER WE PLEASE. Excuse me, but modern man's heresy really does not aim at anything higher or more noble than that. We are not in the age when the really imposing Marcions and Ariuses walked the earth.

[GL]

I wonder how imposing the ancient heretics really were. Maybe the one's for whom various heresies were named were imposing, but I would wager that many of their followers had motives just about as base as Tony attributes to modern heretics. Consider the following quotes:

"They [certain Egyptian heretics] exercise genital acts, yet prevent the conceiving of children. Not in order to produce offspring, but to satisfy lust, are they eager for corruption." Epiphanius of Salamis, Medicine Chest Against Heresies 26:5:2 (A.D. 375).

"This proves that you [Manicheans] approve of having a wife, not for the procreation of children, but for the gratification of passion. In marriage, as the marriage law declares, the man and woman come together for the procreation of children. Therefore, whoever makes the procreation of children a greater sin than copulation, forbids marriage and makes the woman not a wife but a mistress, who for some gifts presented to her is joined to the man to gratify his passion." Augustine, The Morals of the Manichees 18:65 (A.D. 388).

"But I wonder why he [the heretic Jovinianus] set Judah and Tamar before us for an example, unless perchance even harlots give him pleasure; or Onan, who was slain because he grudged his brother seed. Does he imagine that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of children?" Jerome, Against Jovinian 1:19 (A.D. 393).

"Observe how bitterly he [Paul] speaks against their deceivers…‘I would that they which trouble you would cut the whole thing off’ [Gal. 5:12]…On this account he curses them, and his meaning is as follows: ‘For them I have no concern, "A man that is heretical after the first and second admonition refuse" [Titus 3:10]. If they will, let them not only be circumcised but mutilated.’ Where then are those who dare to mutilate themselves, seeing that they draw down the apostolic curse, and accuse the workmanship of God, and take part with the Manichees?" John Chrysostom, Commentary on Galatians 5:12 (A.D. 395).

"You [Manicheans] make your auditors adulterers of their wives when they take care lest the women with whom they copulate conceive. They take wives according to the laws of matrimony by tablets announcing that the marriage is contracted to procreate children; and then, fearing because of your law [against childbearing]…they copulate in a shameful union only to satisfy lust for their wives. They are unwilling to have children, on whose account alone marriages are made. How is it, then, that you are not those prohibiting marriage, as the apostle predicted of you so long ago [1 Tim. 4:1–4], when you try to take from marriage what marriage is? When this is taken away, husbands are shameful lovers, wives are harlots, bridal chambers are brothels, fathers-in-law are pimps.” Augustine, Against Faustus 15:7 (A.D. 400).

Isn't it convenient how heresies (ancient and modern -- and the later are usually just recycling of the former) become justifications for sexual perversion? Perhaps (and perhaps not) the heretics for which the heresies are named were not motivated by their baser natures, but I suspect that many of their followers saw an opportunity to have what they really wanted much like modern followers of modern heretics.

[Little Gidding]

I think the attraction of Gnosticism comes from several sources. I would not discount the power of the sheer temptation to lust, and the temptation to regard it as holiness.

But I think another motive is the conviction that we can become "angels." The way to do that, supposedly, is to liberate the spirit from the body, to leave behind matter, to become "transhuman" and therefore immortal. For the Gnostic that means one needs to crawl inside the belly of the beast, the matter of the world, the dark Babylon, and deconstruct it from the inside, acting out its evil, wearing it as a kind of disguise, but actually remaining psychically separate from it, and therefore untainted, until one wears it out or cuts it open from the inside, destroying it and liberating oneself. This is vividly described in the Mandeans' myth of the hero allowing himself to be eaten by the serpent and then cutting his way out (like, I suppose, Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black, or like Neo diving inside Agent Smith at the end of The Matrix, or, in the Gnostic interpretation of the Gospels, like Jesus taking on a kind of fake material body, and then allowing that body or disguise to be captured and made to suffer, while tricking those who would do it, by escaping beforehand, either by switching places with Simon of Cyrene, or in some other way).

I think this is why modern Gnosticism, on the surface, pretends to be (and usually seems) so sensuous and accepting of nature, so inclusive of all. It is eager to engage in all forms of porneia, while simultaneously practicing, as good, whatever it takes to sever the soul from the body, provided it is done without passion--such as abortion, euthanasia, and suicide (or, if you're Aleister Crowley, passionless violence of all kinds). And limiting embodiment and further reproduction of the "works of the Womb," as the Cainites called it. And striving to dissolve marriage and to create a non-material world--such as cyberspace--whose main use, it appears, is to provide a way to experience sex in any way whatsoever without all the messy (that is, material) consequences. It all tends toward a desire for the annihilation of the flesh. One can and even should engage in any sin, but always wear a psychic condom around your soul to keep yourself "safe."

The desire to be as angels, results in a willingness to ignore the messy material world and its contours and its irregular edges, in favor of an effort to establish by sheer force of will a utopia that can replace earth with a heaven of abstract purity. A vision of absolute purity and perfection can act as a powerful motivator.

And also, I think, the Gnostic myth is one that strongly appeals to our pride--one discovers that one can be one's own redeemer, and through descending into and then rebelling against Babylon--as in the Hymn of the Pearl--can be everyone else's romantic revolutionary leader as well, and the wisest of the wise, and the ultimate code-breaker.

The Gnostic myth thrives on polarities. It has little capacity for synthetic Catholicity. Its logic works through a dialectic of opposition. When left without opposition, its parasitical nature makes it turn in upon itself, because it must find an "other" to oppose. Its dialectical logic, after all, is an expression of its metaphysical dualism--"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem," and all that other tarted-up Manicheanism that propels the revolutionary spirit to a willlingness to fight against The Man and to Rage against the Machine. In Gnostic thought, there are only the children of light and the children of darkness, and the light, as we know, cannot abide the darkness. And ever since the 2nd century A.D., there have been those who have regarded the Apostolic Church as The Man, the One to Be Struggled Against and Liberated From.

[Stuart Koehl]

Tony Ensolen wrote: "Why are folks so interested in the Gospel of Judas?"

Beats me. As Tony said, gnostic gospels are basically boring. As to why they aren't part of the canon of Scripture, Bruce Metzger put it best--these books excluded themselves by being so obviously inferior and derivative as compared to the canonical books.

That said, I for the life of me cannot understand the hubub about Judas himself. Surely there must be someone in the mainstream media who knows that both Judas and Pontius Pilate have long been venerated by the Coptic and Ethiopian Churches precisely because of their critical roles in salvation history. The first century Egyptian Church was a very interesting place, just bubbling with syncretism and all sorts of docetical and gnostic heresies, many of which were put into very elaborate systems by Eypt-based heresiarchs. It wasn't until the time of Clement of Alexandria--if not later--that Orthodox Catholic Christianity finally achieved ascendancy.

But it is clear that the gnostic sects had an influence that extended down the centuries--mainly in the allegorical exegesis that was taken over and perfected by Origen and Cyrill of Alexandria, and (to a lesser extent) in the continued veneration of Judas Iscariot (and Pontius Pilate).

With regard to the portrait of Judas that appears in the canonical Gospels (and which is expounded relentlessly in the Great Week services of the Byzantine rite), as an historian I find it problematic, as well as reflective of first century historiography and understanding of human psychology.

The ancients believed that character was imprinted at birth. A man could not change his character, any more than the leopard could change his stripes. Therefore, if someone seemed to change during his life, it was not because his character developed, but becuase he was "hiding" his true self. This was especially the case when ancient historians dealt with men who started out good and ended up evil. It wasn't that they changed over time, it was merely dissembling on their part--they were NEVER good, nor could they ever have been good. The Evangelists, being steeped in the historiographical tradition of both the Jews and the Greeks, accepted this view implicitly.

But that makes for a rather unsatisfying portrayal of Judas and his relationship with Jesus. Jesus throughout the Gospels appears as a penetrating judge of human character and motivations, yet with Judas, he allows a petty theif--and a rather transparent one, at that--to become a member of his inner circle. Why did the other Disciples put up with him? The Gospels do not provide an answer, and the discussion of his betrayal of Jesus bears all the hallmarks of post-hoc rationalization.

My own view of the matter is that Judas would not have betrayed Jesus for purely venal motives. That just doesn't ring true. On the other hand, in light of the continual misapprehension of Jesus' mission by the rest of the Twelve, it seems more likely that Judas DID think of Jesus as Messiah, but his understanding of what that meant differed from that of Jesus, whose own self-understanding was radically at odds with Jewish expectations. In that context, Judas may have acted out of a sense of betrayal himself--or perhaps a misguided sense of what Jesus himself wanted.

Be that as it may, outside of the Gospels all we can do is speculate, and give thanks that somehow, someone DID betray Jesus into the hands of Sanhedrin and the Romans, for without the betrayal, there is no Cross, and without the Cross, there is no Resurrection and victory over sin and death.

[Tony Esolen]

Little Gidding, GL, Stuart: Excellent comments. You bring me up short; I was thinking of the hubbub about the Gospel of Judas among the journalists and the dilettantes, not among those who really are delving deep into angelism. There are a few of those -- probably overrepresented among "Christian" pastors, songleaders, lectors, education directors, teachers, chancery workers, and bishops. Excellent quotes from the heresy-hammers, too -- with the caveat that in any ancient polemic we ought to expect accusations of that sort. But certainly Augustine himself not only accuses Manichees of "using" their faith to justify porneia; he confesses that he himself did so.

That's what I get for thinking about the heresiarchs themselves, who in those days were often pleasant enough and sane enough people, even of considerable moral integrity -- like Arius and Pelagius. But when Manicheanism resurfaced among the Cathars centuries later, it was the same thing all over again: the "imperfect" got to rut like swine in a sty, justified by the so-called "perfect," who among other things would starve themselves to death. Then there is the accusation -- of uncertain validity -- that John of Leyden and his merry "liberated" Christians shared not only property but wives, when they brought the Kingdom of God down to Muenster.

[Juli]

Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee!
'Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee;
I crucified thee.

[joe]

I wonder whether the hoopla over the recent spate of Gnostic books will result in a reappraisal of the current state of Evangelical Protestantism. Frinstance, we're reading a lot from the Evangelical camp about how some guy called "Irenaeus" addressed the Gospel of Judas back in 180 A.D. ("They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas."), but do these Evangelicals realize that the sword of St. Irenaeus of Lyons cuts both ways?

By Irenaeus' standard, much of what passes for little "o" orthodox Christianity among Evangelical Protestants today is plain old gnosticism.

'Against the Protestant Gnostics' (Oxford University Press)by Philip J. Lee takes this issue head on:

"By a Presbyterian pastor of American religion in terms of the recurrent struggle of Christian orthodoxy against Gnosticism, a struggle in which, on the American scene and especially in the Protestant camp, Gnosticism seems to have the upper hand. Beginning from the New Testament and early Christian periods, Lee sets out to describe Gnosticism and the orthodox response to it (St. Irenaeus is the major orthodox writer given voice at this juncture, and is relied upon by Lee throughout the book to articulate Christian orthodoxy). The essential features of Gnosticism receive a skillful illumination here: the hatred for the material world, the emphasis on private, individual illumination as opposed to the reception of a concrete Faith in the midst of a community, a spiritual elitism which held the average believer in contempt and rejected the centrality of the sacraments. Proceeding to the Reformers, and especially in a detailed analysis of Calvin, Lee finds a predominant retention of orthodox belief, but sees an almost Gnostic despair manifesting itself in Calvin’s low opinion of humanity, even before the Fall. The ways that this despair, and the backlash to this despair, work themselves out in the arena of American religiosity, occupy the remaining portion of Lee’s analysis."
[blurb courtesy of Eighth Day Books]

Why is it okay to be against the ancient Gnosticism but pro-Protestant gnosticism?

[joe]

Joel Kalvesamaki, a contemporary Early Church historian wrote:

We maintain doctrines today that fly in the face of the early Church and their understanding of Scripture. If the Church of the Ante-Nicene period were with us today they would consider most Evangelical denominations as heretical and schismatic.

Irenaeus, in his treatise Against Heresies, catalogues and deals with Gnostic heresies, primarily combatting their views on the godhead and creation, while also addressing their inclination towards sectarianism, anti-sacramentalism and departure from the Apostolic succession. Tertullian, the first Christian to use the term Trinity, also looks at the nature of heresies in his day and observes how they have departed from the historic Apostolic faith in both teaching and practice, giving no regard to the sanctity of the Eucharist or the Apostolic succession. The criticisms Irenaeus and Tertullian make against their opponents are still valid against many forms of Evangelicalism.

Allow me to qualify these bold strokes. Some of the early authors may have looked upon certain groups such as Anglicans or Lutherans with a sympathy that may have extended to mutual recognition and communion. However mainstream Evangelicalism, as represented by the Evangelical Alliance or most interdenominational agencies, would not be in favor with the consensus of the earliest Fathers.

... this is not a detailed justification of belief. But I believe it important to summarise a few of the new perspectives I discovered in my search through ancient Christianity.

Salvation

Early Christianity maintained that we are saved by faith in Christ through baptism. We are being saved now and will be saved if we abide in Christ. Their writings are full of warnings against falling away from Christ, with the understanding that it could and does happen. Even though they had no understanding of eternal security, the Fathers had no "eternal insecurity." They understood that God initiates our salvation by sending His Spirit and power into our lives, a love which we reciprocate. The concept of salvation by faith alone or by irresistable grace was a concept foreign to the Church. Rather, the Calvinist system, which I had embraced for many years, finds unusually strong echoes in the teachings of Gnostic sects.

Communion

Known as the Eucharist, this supper was believed to be of divine institution and power. It was much more than a symbol or representation-it was God with us and the elements were transformed by the Spirit into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, on which believers could feed to maintain the life of sacred devotion to God. It was also seen as sacrifice, the gifts of the earth which we offer in thanks back to God at the altar of the New Covenant. Ironically, once again, it was Gnostic sects which were habitually anti-sacramental.

The Church

Again, the earliest Fathers believed that they, as a community, were the New Israel, and that a departure from the visible communion of the body of Christ was the same as a departure from the faith. Their Church structure was hierarchical and based upon the trifold ministry of bishops, presbyters and deacons. They believed that maintaining the unbroken succession from the Apostles through the bishops was an essential element of the Catholic Church. Schism from this One Church was seen as being among the worst possible sins for it was an assault against the Body of Christ. Although not a monolithic organisation, the early Church was One, without division and spread throughout the world from India to Britain.

Worship

Without exception, the worship of the early Christians revolved around liturgy. Rather than eclectic or creative services the primitive Church was content with that which they received, a liturgical worship handed to by the Apostles. The worship of the early Church was both an extension of the Old Testament and a dramatic exclamation of God's visit to man in the incarnation. Rather than centring around the sermon, the Sunday worship focussed around the Eucharist. Their understanding of worship operated on a different level than those of Evangelicals since it did not assume direct access to God, but rather an ongoing contemplation of the mysteries of Christ which we still struggle to take in.

[See: Second Thoughts, Pilgrimage 1993-95: http://students.cua.edu/16kalvesmaki/2ndth.htm]

[joe]

"After his visit to this country, G.K. Chesterton famously remarked that “America is a nation with the soul of a church.” The remark is both famous and true. America, he said, is about “making a home for vagabonds and a nation out of exiles.” It is a “home for the homeless.” It is a temporary home, to be sure, but a happy refuge for pilgrims along the way. Every human being, said Chesterton, can become an American by accepting a political creed. And the great thing about that political creed is that it leaves one free to accept a higher creed and pledge a higher allegiance to a country where we will, at last, be homeless no more.

In the absence of an ecclesiology that tethered them to the Church through time, for many American Protestant thinkers the nation with the soul of a church became their Church. That was true then, and it is true now. More than three hundred years later, in yet another reversal, some theologians today depict America itself as Babylon. But, like their Protestant forebears, they, too, have no Church in continuity with the Christian story through time. It is not enough to have the soul of a church. American Protestants have a tendency to forget that, in the biblical image, the Church is not the soul of Christ but the body of Christ. With this in mind, we can better understand Harold Bloom’s argument that “the American religion” is gnosticism. Religious gnosticism goes hand in hand with ecclesiological docetism. The result is less the Christian story than the free-floating and ambiguously Christian experience untethered from an ecclesiology that, as Newman would say, is not notional but real."

- Richard John Neuhaus

[David Gray]

>But, like their Protestant forebears, they, too, have no Church in continuity with the Christian story through time.

Goes to show why Neuhaus went to Rome, not that Neuhaus understood the Reformers.

[Stuart Koehl]

Those of us who went to Constantinople also would agree with Neuhaus. And we understand the Reformers all too well.

[firinnteine]

With respect, I'm not sure that the approach of some Protestants to the sacraments is best characterized as gnosticism. Certainly it is a departure from the practice of the Church through history; at least in the case of "strict memorialism," it is also clearly contrary to Scripture.

However, I do not believe that this is a rejection of the physical; I don't think that's (usually) what's happening. Rather, it is a separation of the physical and the spiritual, rather like the separation of the Divine and human natures of Christ according to the Nestorian heresy.

These Protestants do believe in the body, and believe that it's a Good Thing -- but by itself (and perhaps, in many cases, more instrumentally... the cultural influence tends strongly that way). They simply don't see the physical and spiritual as interwoven in the way that the authors of Scripture do, or the early Church Fathers, or even sacramental Christians now.

I think you see aspects of this in the sundering of the "visible" and "invisible" Church to such an extreme point. Granted, this has tended to undermine the visible, as separating the bread and -- well, juice -- from any idea of the real presence of Christ has tended to devalue the Sacrament. These things become expressions of the spiritual, but only through the personal intention of the individual. It's a "memorial" -- rooted in our memory. It's an act demonstrating our faith (a purely spiritual thing).

The trouble is that, separating the physical and spiritual, one must be seen as the person. This is the trouble with mind/body dualism of this kind -- though Christians want to maintain that the two are distinct, we don't want to maintain that one without the other is a complete human being. We are spiritual; we are also bodily.

Granted, there are similarities to gnostic heresies. But I'm not sure that's precisely the error taking place here. Maybe it is, my studies of gnosticism haven't been as extensive as might be desired. But I think it may be something a little different.

If I'm wrong, no doubt someone will point the fact out to me. :)

[David Gray]

>And we understand the Reformers all too well.

That seems rather unlikely.

>Certainly it is a departure from the practice of the Church through history; at least in the case of "strict memorialism," it is also clearly contrary to Scripture.

Many Protestants don't hold to a memorial view of the Lord's Supper.

dave

[James Altena]

I would suggest that Philip J. Lee's "Against the Protestant Gnostics" be approached with some caution, even scepticism. It starts out well, but once he reaches the Reformation he starts to do some uncomfortable squirming (as does the Evangelical Harold O. J. Brown in his "Heresies") to avoid some of the necessary implications of his previous argument for Protestantism. And then, near the end, he suddenly veers into left-wing political territory (in a distinctively, almost amusingly, Canadian fashion) and -- mirabile dictu! -- condemns modern conservatives and not liberals as the current Gnostics, including an indictment of Ronald Reagan as a "Gnostic" for calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire"!!! ('Nuff said?)

[Patrick]

"also clearly contrary to Scripture"
Without getting into centuries of arguments, if it were quite so clearly contrary then those who hold to this view wouldn't hold to this view. They don't hold this view to spite the Bible, but because they believe this to be the most faithful to Jesus' intent, a Jewish perspecitve, and to the Scripture record, which allows for more metaphor than many give it credit for.

Jesus certainly didn't institute the Eucharist so we could use it as a cause of division, which it sadly has become because we can't see that what is so clear to us is entirely differently clear to someone else.