1 of 3
by Elaine Pagels Random House, 2003 256 pp.; $24.95 |
I can't be the only Christian reading Beyond Belief, Elaine Pagels' celebration of Gnostic theology and texts, and thinking, "What's so heretical about this?" This best-selling book, and its accompanying train of reviews and author profiles, presents a familiar cast of characters. The Gnostics, developers of a variety of Christ-flavored spiritualities in the earliest centuries of the Christian era, are enthroned as noble seekers of enlightenment. The early Church, which rejected these theologies, is assigned its usual role of oppressor, afflicting believers with rigid Creeds. It's the old story of oppressive bad guys and rebellious good guys, and Americans never tire of it.
But a look at the supposedly scandalous material comes up short. The most-cited Gnostic text, the Gospel of Thomas, mixes familiar sayings of Jesus with others of more mystical bent. These are sometimes cryptic but hardly outrageous. They're not far different from Christian poetry and mysticism through the ages. Where's the problem?
Well, not here. Early Christians rejected Gnosticism, all right. But what Pagels presents is not the part they rejected. What they rejected, Pagels does not present.
Let's look at the first part of that statement. Pagels in fact does Christianity a service by calling us afresh to the truth that God is within and permeates all creation. Every person can awaken to this and experience God directly.
This truth gets emphasized or neglected according to the pressures of the surrounding culture. For a long time, Christianity had to cope with Enlightenment rationalism, which held suspect all things supernatural. Followers of many religious traditions have benefited from recent years' new openness. But even in hostile environments, direct encounter with the divine can't be fully suppressed, because it is true. It keeps bursting out, in the form of Christian mysticism or as charismatic and evangelical movements. When a preacher says you can have a "personal relationship with Jesus" or have "Jesus in your heart," that's what he's talking about. It's a direct, personal, and probably electrifying encounter with the interior presence of God.
You don't have to be a full-time contemplative to experience this; lightning can strike anywhere, any time. When it first hit me, I was a non-Christian tourist strolling around an Irish church. Teens praying after a Christian rock concert, a Hispanic Catholic woman on silent retreat, a Greek Orthodox man with an icon by his computer—anyone can experience this dynamic presence of God, because God is within everything he creates. There's no way to force this experience, but it never hurts to be open, to ask. So "The Kingdom of God is within you" is hardly a heretical statement. Today's Neo-Gnostics would find a crowd around them, from 17th-century Spanish nuns to 21st-century American Pentecostals, saying, "That sounds like what I'm talking about."
Now let's take a look at the second half of the previous statement. "That sounds like what I'm talking about" is a qualified endorsement—a gesture of openness till we hear more. There is such a thing as self-deception, and confusion can bloom in unfamiliar spiritual realms. Though such experiences are indisputably beyond words, after we have them we try to talk about them. We want to share them with others, and we want to check whether we simply flipped out. Say that it's like going to Paris. Everyone takes a photo of the Eiffel Tower. When we get home, we compare them; some snapshots are fuzzy and some from funny angles, but we can recognize them as depicting the same thing. The snaps don't capture the reality; nothing can; but they're ok as records.
RSS Feed
