Pope Francis Versus Gnosticism

Pope Francis has gotten a lot of props for his progressive-sounding statements, but it is also important to understand that he has done little to change Roman Catholic theology itself. His statements about compassion for the poor and income inequality are welcome, but it also should be kept in mind that such positions have been advocated by the church for centuries. It's just that since John Paul II it was an issue that received little attention, so it's good to hear Francis bringing it up again now.

While I find Francis to be a vast improvement over his last few predecessors, what would really impress me would be if he began making significant changes to some of the theological points that seem out of touch with the modern world. This he has not done. Recently Francis gave a speech in which he outlined the "two temptations" facing the church, one of which he described as "Gnosticism."

The Pope then identified the second temptation as “Gnosticism.”

Francis said this leads to “trusting in clear, logical reasoning” which “loses the tenderness of the flesh of the brother.” The fascination of Gnosticism — he said — is that of “ a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings” ("The Joy of the Gospel," No. 94).

Pope Francis said that the difference between every form of Gnosticism and Christianity is to be found in the mystery of the incarnation (of God who became man). “Not to put the Word (of God) into practice, not to bring it to reality, means to build on sand, to remain in pure ideas and to degenerate into intimacies that bear no fruit because they make its dynamism,” he said.

Now this is no real surprise because Gnosticism has been considered a heresy by the Roman Catholic Church since the first millenium. It also is true that the Gnostics of that period at least to some extent fit Francis' characterization. I've always found demiurge theology bizarre because it is based on the contradiction between the portrayal of God in the Old versus the New Testament. Put simply, the first millenium Gnostics decided that since the Old Testament God was an asshole and Jesus was cool, the Old Testament God must be a "false God" that they called the demiurge.

However, if you're not a literalist and understand that the perception of God has a more to do with the perspective of the various authors and less to do with what really took place at that time, this apparent contradiction falls apart. The Bible was finally written down after the Babylonian Captivity around 580 BCE. Before that it consisted of nearly a thousand years of oral tradition. The narrative gives a general sense of what the Israelites of the time believed their history to be, but that's about as far as it goes.

Egyptian Book of Spells Deciphered

A 1300-year-old handbook of Egyptian spells has recently been deciphered by two Australian researchers. The text is written in Coptic and dates from the centuries following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, a period from which few magical texts have survived.

Getting a look at the structure of the spells that the text contains could provide valuable insights regarding the magical practices of that time. Some of the references in the text seem to indicate that it was written or used by the Sethians, a Gnostic sect that was likely dying out by the time the codex was written.

Among other things, the "Handbook of Ritual Power," as researchers call the book, tells readers how to cast love spells, exorcise evil spirits and treat "black jaundice," a bacterial infection that is still around today and can be fatal.

The book is about 1,300 years old, and is written in Coptic, an Egyptian language. It is made of bound pages of parchment — a type of book that researchers call a codex.

"It is a complete 20-page parchment codex, containing the handbook of a ritual practitioner," write Malcolm Choat and Iain Gardner, who are professors in Australia at Macquarie University and the University of Sydney, respectively, in their book, "A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power" (Brepols, 2014).

The ancient book "starts with a lengthy series of invocations that culminate with drawings and words of power," they write. "These are followed by a number of prescriptions or spells to cure possession by spirits and various ailments, or to bring success in love and business."

I would be most interested in evaluating whether the spells contained are more similar to classical goetia or theurgy. Some grimoire traditionalists insist that the latter is a later, strictly medieval development, and finds like this allow us to test that hypothesis. With that in mind, I'm looking forward to getting a chance to read through the text.

"Jesus' Wife" Not a Modern Forgery

Back in 2012 a piece of papyrus that appeared to contain a fragment of an unknown Gospel was presented at a conference in Rome. The text was written in Coptic and, controversially, included a phrase in which Jesus refers to "my wife." According to official church doctrine Jesus was not married, and an editorial published in the Vatican newspaper declared that the document was likely a modern fake. However, recent testing of the papyrus and ink has found it to be far older than the editorial suggests.

Harvard Theological Review says in the article published Thursday:

"Over the past two years, extensive testing of the papyrus and the carbon ink, as well as analysis of the handwriting and grammar, all indicate that the existing material fragment dates to between the sixth and ninth centuries CE [Common Era]. None of the testing has produced any evidence that the fragment is a modern fabrication or forgery."

Testing by a research scientist at Columbia University, using a technique called micro-Raman spectroscopy, determined that "the carbon character of the ink matched samples of other papyri that date from the first to eighth centuries CE," the Theological Review says.

It is of course true that even the new dating of the text does not necessarily mean that the historical Jesus was actually married, only that the doctrine claiming he was not is more recent than previously thought and was not accepted by all First Millennium Christians. The various Gnostic Gospels contain many unsubstantiated claims about Jesus which may or may not be historically accurate. The "Jesus' wife" fragment also contains a number of phrases that appear in the Gospel of Thomas, a much more famous Coptic text that is part of the Nag Hammadi Library collection and which may be one of the oldest Gnostic Gospels.

Florida Lifts Ban on Pagan Masons

Religious discrimination has no place in Masonry. In fact, it seems to me that the entire Masonic system is set up as an institution that allows people of different faiths to interact spiritually without conflicts based on sectarian differences.

Last year, though, the Grand Master of the state of Florida seems to have forgotten this simple principle. Back in November, he issued an edict stating that "Paganism, Wicca, Odinism, and Gnosticism" were not compatible with membership in the fraternity. Fortunately, the rest of the Florida Grand Lodge recently did the right thing and overturned the edict.

Happy to report that, on May 28th, 2013, the Grand Lodge of Florida overturned Ruling and Decision #3 on the advice of their Jurisprudence Committee, and that all Masons affected by said Ruling are now fully restored to membership.

Exactly why this Ruling was made in the first place is a bit beyond me… I’m not a Mind-reader. But, my guess is that the Grand Master wrote it in a fit of pique, without consulting his Jurisprudence Committee (which is certainly his Right, but rarely a smart move). As others on the Net have pointed out, his stated reasoning on this was ENTIRELY out-of-line with Masonic History, its Ideals, and its Laws. A simple chat with his Chairman of Jurisprudence would have set him straight.

In some ways the most bizarre part of this whole story is the inclusion of Gnosticism. Perhaps the original intention was to single out classical Gnostics who follow Demiurge theology, but much of the Masonic approach is related to cultivating direct, personal spiritual realization - that is, Gnosis. There are a number of Pagans and Wiccans in the lodge I belong to up here in Minnesota, and they are just as good Masons as those who belong to more mainstream religions. If you take the universalism out of Masonry, what you're left with seems to me rather sad, and I'm glad to see that the Grand Lodge of Florida has now refused to do so.

When Religions Fail

This started as a few thoughts in response to a comment, and grew into a larger article. It is related to my previous article on the function of religion, but takes those ideas further. Here's the crux of the original comment from reader AISh MLChMH:

Being a Christian isn't unusual within the U.S. However, I think that's in the process of changing:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac2.htm

"Large numbers of American adults are disaffiliating themselves from Christianity and from other organized religions. Since World War II, this process had been observed in other countries, like the U.K., other European countries, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand."

Being a member of an organized religious group, I'm obviously interested in understanding the cause of this increasing disaffiliation.

The title of this article is a little misleading because I mostly am discussing organized Christianty and it can't be said that Christianity as a religion has failed. It is still one of the largest religions in the world and the dominant religion in the United States. However, the modern age poses a number of challenges to the faith and I think it is likely that churches will need to adapt some aspects of their structure in order to stem the tide of disaffiliation.

Any effective religious system can be deconstructed into three parts:

(1) A narrative. This is often the story of the founder of the system. For a narrative to atract adherents, it must be inspirational to a significant number of those hearing it.

(2) One or more technologies. Since the function of religion is to produce spiritual experiences, every effective religion must have some set of spiritual practices that facilitate these experiences.

(3) A sociopolitical structure. This is how the religious system integrates itself into the society at large, polices its members, and advocates for its interests in the political sphere.

Most new religions start out with (1), develop (2) soon after, and only progress to (3) once there are enough members to sustain any sort of political structure. It is important to understand that (3) is not really necessary for a religious system to work, but nonetheless it is often sought out by leaders who want power in the material world as well as the spiritual. Part of the general disaffiliation from organized religion is likely due to a general distaste for the excesses of such leaders, but I think it goes further than that.

The Christian Church has never had many problems on the narrative side. The "good news" that evangelical Christians try to spread and communicate to others - the story of Christ as found in the Gospels - is inspiring to many people and this probably explains the growth of Christianity in parts of the world only recently exposed to it on a large scale, such as Asia. The idea of Christ's sacrifice in exchange for the salvation of the world is moving and powerful, and seems to resonate with much of humanity.

I would posit that Christianity's current problems are related to the collapse of (2) in service of (3), and that this has been going on for a long time. In the first millenium the Christian Church persecuted the Gnostics into near-extinction because they dared to value (2) above (3). The intercessory model of the Christian priesthood was specifically created in service to (3), and the implication of it was that regular people should not have any access to (2). The various spiritual technologies available to monks and the priesthood were kept from lay believers, and behind closed doors these practices eventually deteriorated.

This is an enormous problem from a spiritual perspective because the truth is that no one can do spiritual practices for you. You have to do them yourself. As a result, an intercessory system such as that found in Christianity and a number of other organized religions is essentially parasitic - it draws on the resources of all believers in order to benefit the few practitioners who are actually working the system. It is access to spiritual realization that confers salvation, so by keeping congregations completely in the dark actively does harm in that the overall potential for realization is reduced in society as a whole.

In service to its elite practitioners, the Christian Church also spent a great deal of effort on maintaining its political power throughout the Medieval period. In many ways the history of the Church during that period reads like the history of a military and political nation or alliance ruled by the Pope. The Church allied itself with various rulers and opposed others, organized the great armies of the crusades, and accumulated vast wealth. But none of this really benefited lay adherents of the system. They were promised rewards in heaven that the Church really had no way of securing for them.

The Protestant Reformation was an attempt to break free from this restrictive structure and set up new churches in which Christians would be more free to practice on their own. However, many Protestant sects also threw out most of the technologies developed by the Christian Church over the centuries. "Justification by faith" is not a theology that supports personal spiritual practice. Most Protestant sects still teach either the idea of Grace, which suggests that spiritual awakening is something that only God can do for you and which is unrelated to your actions, or Predestination, in which God essentially decides when you are born whether or not you are of "the elect" who will be saved. Either way, there's really nothing that you can do about it.

A religion can last a long time without an effective technology for achieving personal illumination especially if it has achieved significant social power, but with the advent of the information age people are being exposed to other religious systems and realizing that (2) is actually important. For example, Buddhism is starting to become more popular in the United States, and Buddhism is a religion that emphasizes the technology of meditation. Buddhism has also lasted sigificantly longer than Christianity or for that matter Judaism.

In addition, many people in Europe and the United States are becoming more aware of Gnostic Christianity through the publication of various alternative Gospels such as those found in the Nag Hammadi collection. Gnosticism is appealing to people who are inspired by the narrative of Christ and long for effective spiritual technology, but unfortunately it is also considered heretical by most mainstream Christian denominations and this may preclude any organized affiliation for such individuals.

As far as organized religions in general go, the most effective suggestion that I can make for any religious system that wants to survive long-term is to focus on the technology. Teach the practices, recommend them strongly to adherents, and continue to develop them so that spiritual realization can be achieved as efficiently as possible for those who are willing to do the work. Political and social power should only be sought as an afterthought, and the pursuit of such power should never take precedence over religion's real function - cultivating awakened realization.

The Function of Religion

Recently I came across an article on a Christian blog critical of Pentecostal Christian churches that makes for interesting reading. While I am no fan of the Pentecostal movement and agree with some of the author's criticisms, what stood out for me was this:

Secondly, Pentecostals really have no love for doctrine. I will admit that the church I grew up in, as a whole denomination, had a firm handle on doctrine. However, my local church was obsessed with the extreme elements of Pentecostalism, like slaying in the Spirit, excessive use of tongues, “deliverances” and stuff like that. I can recite whole sermons where Baptists, Presbyterians, John Piper, John MacArthur and anyone who actually “taught more than actually do something”. And it is not isolated. My father visited hundreds of Pentecostal churches where doctrine is disparaged, nicknamed “religion” and ignored in favour of “experience”.

Essentially, the author contends that a serious problem in Pentecostal Christianity is the possibility of experience trumping doctrine.

But shouldn't it?

The function of a religion is not to lay down a bunch of rules for people to follow in a group. That's the job of society and culture. The function of a religion is not to impart intellectual truths. That's the job of science and philosophy. So what does religion actually do?

The function of a religion is to produce spiritual experiences.

I'm not going to go so far as to defend some of the ridiculous practices found in Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity. "Speaking in tongues" as practiced in those churches is nonsense and many "faith healers" are total fakes. Here's a hint - in order to heal somebody using a spiritual practice you need to be able to actually direct spiritual energy, not just say "Lord, heal this person in Jesus' name!" and then hit them on the forehead.

On the other hand, the "conversion" or "born again" experience described by a lot of Christians sounds like a genuine spiritual awakening of some sort, which was described as metanoia in the Gospels. One of the things that the Gnostic Christians got right was that metanoia is the key function of the Christian religious system, just like enlightenment is the key function of Buddhism. Furthermore, there is a lot of evidence in neuroscience suggesting that at least at the physical level they are essentially the same experiences.

In Christian doctrine, metanoia (Greek) is translated into paenitentia (Latin) and from there into repentence (English). But the word metanoia literally means a change in one's consciousness or state of mind (meta = change, noia from nous = mind), not some sort of "atonement" as the Latin and English connotations suggest. When Gnosticism was wiped out by the institutional Christian church the real meaning of metanoia was obscured.

For example, I'm of the opinion that that the idea of original sin comes not from the Gospels or even the Bible, but from confusion arising from metanoia's translation into paenitentia. Notably, Saint Augustine spoke Latin, and there is no concept of original sin in Judaism. The idea didn't appear anywhere until the Gospels were translated into Latin.

If doctrine is supposed to trump experience, the doctrine had better be unassailable and frankly the above example strikes me as a rather amateurish mistake by a poor translator - or perhaps one with a specific agenda. It's very useful for an intercessionary organization to convince its followers that they are somehow flawed and desperately need the organization's help to "repent."