Thanksgiving and Religious Liberty

In the late 1500's the French began making attempts to colonize and settle the northern coast of Florida.(1) It is around this time that a great Huguenot leader named Admiral Coligny would aspire to establish a colony for which his persecuted brethren could seek refuge. The Admiral would send Jean Ribaut who in 1562 discovered St. John's River in Florida. Ribaut also named the country of Carolina after Charles IX, a boy-king. The colonist that Ribaut brought would soon give up and return to England or France. A couple years late Rene de Laudonniere established the St. Johns River Settlement in Florida (June 30, 1564). Laudonniere led a group of French Huguenots to colonize and build Fort Caroline near present-day Jacksonville, Florida. It is recorded that Rene de Laudonniere wrote:

    We sang a psalm of Thanksgiving unto God, beseeching Him that it would please Him to continue His accustomed goodness towards us.

In  August of 1565 Phillip II of Spain, who likely views the French as a threat to their trade route, would send Pedro Melendez de Aviles who announced his purpose to "gibbet and behead all the Protestants in these regions." Melendez would establish St. Augustine which is now one of the oldest towns in the USA. Melendez with bloodthirsty precision would also wipe out the French settlement and Huguenots. Both the French and the Spanish unnecessarily lost many human lives. In 1567 Dominic de Gourgues, a Gascon soldier, would come to avenge the Huguenots. He would capture all the Spanish settlements left by Melendez except St. Augustine.(2) 

The first amendment to the Bill of Rights clearly states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.(3)

Those who once came to this land long ago did not do so in order to erode religious expression. They did not come to the shores of this county in order to seek further deviation from the Creator. Many did so, as did the French Huguenots, in order to worship and thank God freely and without fear of persecution. America was a refuge for those who sought freedom of religious expression.

The generation of Americans today and tomorrow must always hold such things to be true. America is a place where spiritual men came to have spiritual expression. Today and every Thanksgiving Day is a special celebration of such realities that came full circle on American soil. The reality that all mankind, who individually possess' inalienable rights, can flourish and participate in religious expression must always remain. Good men and women must pray and be diligent in order that such freedom can be maintained. Today let us give thanks to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who has given and created all things. 

Ephesians 5:20, "And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." NLT

James 1:17, "Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow." NLT

One way the Holy Spirit is evidenced (see Gal. 5:20-22) in our lives is a reversal of any pattern of ingratitude. God wants to make us people who exhibit thankfulness in proportion to the gifts and blessings we’ve received. Let all the earth behold the the creation and its Creator. And give thanks.

NOTES:

1) Many facts and details here taken from: Thwaites, R. G. (2005; 2005). Epochs of American History: The Colonies (34). Pleasant Places Press.

2)  Cincotta, Howard. An Outline of American history. 1998. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc. (original edition by Frances Whitney. Revised and updated by R. Hofstadter, W. Gray, D. Steven, K.W. Olsen, N. Glick and A. Winkler)

3) The Constitution of the United States of America. 1998 (elecronic ed.). Oak Harbor WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

The Holy War

A classic example for Holy War theology, for Jew and Christian alike, begins in the book of Joshua. For the Muslim, who is often participant in this type war, may be found in Sura 2, Al-Baqara verses 190-193 or 214-217. The book of Joshua, however, is “YHWH’s victory account.”[1] In fact, the Hebrew word (kherem) which refers to “utterly destroy” occurs frequently throughout the book (e.g. 6:17; 8:26).

By His own decree God has used progressive revelation. Essentially God has not revealed all truth about Himself at one time, rather He has revealed Himself portion by portion (e.g. Zechariah 14:9). This revelation is tending toward a goal, to different people in the space-time-matter continuum (c.f. Hebrews 1:1).

God has used men of God and the Scriptures to be recipients and appropriators of this revelation. For example, Noah and Abraham, or even David, had a different relationship with God than say Paul or Peter or you and I as New Testament believers. This does not mean that the object of faith has changed but that there is a difference between an old covenant and that of a new one. The particulars here are debatable. God called Abraham out of the heathen though. I believe that Israel, the “fewest of all peoples” (Deuteronomy 7:7 NRSV) became the sword of morality to the fallen men since Adam. It was a bright light, so to speak, in a dark world. Light can be bright and piercing at times. Man in his fallen nature was vile and yet God called a man out of that vileness to raise up a special people with which God will bless the nations of the earth.

The Love of God Revealed:


Eventually, through that Semitic line, from Abraham, came the Messiah. In Him we have forgiveness of sin and salvation from the fallen sin nature. God will return soon to take away His special people. Obviously, during the course of that journey God has dealt with and required different things of man. Christ has come to atone for the sin of humanity, essentially reconciling the world. Shedding abroad the love of God. Notice the following Johannine theology very early in Christian tradition:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. John 3:16 NRSV

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.
1 John 3:16 NRSV

God loved the world. This might have been a novel idea to some. Many Jews believed that God loved the Jew only, specifically a religious Jew. Some may have imagined God hated the Gentile world. Even though God had showed them His love towards any who would repent in the story of Jonah and the Ninevites. It is also a virtue that transcends the god represented in the Quran who seems impersonal, at the very least. Muslim defenders might reply with Sura 50, Qaf vs. 16 however this verse only suggest that God knows us very well. Consider these two Quranic translations:

“We created man: and We know what his soul whispereth to him, and We are closer to him than his neck-vein.”
Sura 50, Qaf. vs. 16 (J.M. Rodwell)[2]

“It was We Who created man, and We know what dark suggestions his soul makes to him: for We are nearer to him than (his) jugular vein.” (Yusif Ali)[3]

It says nothing about Allah desiring to have a personal or loving relationship with creation. God knows every man since He knows all actual and even potential knowledge. It is what God has decreed or chosen to do with man that is significant in Christianity. Even while knowing our human frailties and flaws God extends His love towards us. He desires a personal relationship with him. God’s entrance into time and space has indeed made history significant. By the Incarnation He has set into motion the means of reconciling and restoring fallen man to Himself by Jesus Christ and powered by the Holy Spirit.

The Quran commands Muslims to wage war against non-Muslims and apostates (Surah 5:33; 9:5, 29). The Quran is riddled throughout its pages with commands and innuendos to do violence to non-believers and the un-faithful. Of the 114 Surahs, 109 have identifiable war verses. One out of every 55 verses in the Quran is a war verse. What about the book of Joshua in the Christian Bible? There is much that could be said here but the significant distinction between an Islamic jihad (holy war) and a Christian holy war is that the believer in Christ is mitigated and controlled by love with an awareness of spiritual forces (Eph. 6:12). Being controlled by love however does not mean we are also inoculated from God’s justice. The Christian believer has a new covenant that introduces revelation about God and His love whereas the Quran has seemingly no ethical progression.

Western Inheritance of The Holy War:


Mennonite scholar John Yoder in his tome Christian Attitudes to War, Peace, and Revolution noted that the advancement of Islam during the period of the crusades was the “dramatic equivalent of Marxism in the twentieth century.”[4] He goes on to note that “Islam was a threat on a world scale that called into question the very existence of Christian culture”. Yoder also agrees that “the Muslim holy war tradition is not very different from that of the crusade.”

Yoder suggests that two elements from the medieval crusade model are still resonating in our Western culture. Since the time of the Crusades our globe, and much of Western civilization, bears the scars of various wars (Korean War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Desert Storm) He cites two elements that are still lodged in our thinking about war.

1. A transcendent cause justifies downgrading the rights of the enemy.
2. The value of martyrdom

We experience the first element still. This struggle was recently seen in the Guantanomo Bay prison proceedings. Dying though is usually not glorious or appealing to us. However, death coupled with a crusade or a just war is known to give death meaning. Death in this sense is viewed as righteous because it is has been coupled with a righteous cause.

The value of martyrdom is almost intrinsic in the fabric of early Christianity. The Greek  root word (Grk. martus) for the English “witness” or “testify” (Grk. marturion) is translated as “martyr”. Amazingly, until the peace of the Church in 315 A.D. the church or “Christians”, in any sense, were in season.  In fact, some of the greatest flourishing of the church occurred during this period of persecution. Michael Servetus was burned at the stake as late as 1553 for denying among other things the doctrine of the Trinity.

Yoder goes on to suggest that we juxtapose and consider afresh the idea of “martyrdom” over against the sacrifice of Christ. His point is valid and we should consider this more closely. The sacrifice of Christ pertains to the salvation and atonement of mankind. The sacrifice of Christ however cannot amount to a sacrifice of Christians. A “martyrdom” complex arises when one believes they are dying for a cause they firmly and wholeheartedly affirm. The Christian and the Muslim both experience this metaphysical impulse. Our religious preferences have a tendency to embed themselves deeply into the fabric of human emotion and intellect. We should also remember that just because Christ has died it does not also mean that there will never be a cause demanding our ardent reliance upon faith.  As we rely on faith must be resilient in standing for that faith.

Four Considerations:


1. Justice. The love of God is balanced by His divine justice. For example, God’s justice demanded retribution for sin but it was God’s love that reckoned His own righteousness on our account by the death of the Son of God. This is a judicial system and in such systems justice is distributed upon both the just and the unjust. In his letter to the church at Rome (13:1-7) God authorizes the state to punish the disobedient and even mentions the “sword” which refers to death—the ultimate punishment. This is fitting since man is responsible for his actions, as free moral agents. We can find God’s retributive justice being practiced in both covenants. Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) and Herod (Acts 12:20-23) are examples where God directly kills people to exact His justice. The principle of retribution is also evident for those who will experience eternal torment if they reject Christ.

2. Some evil cannot be avoided. At times even inaction can be viewed as evil. J. Vernon McGee once commented “You have forgotten that you are not only a citizen of heaven, but you are a citizen of a country down here.”[5] For example, during WWII a Protestant scholar and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer resisted the onslaught of the Third Reich. The fruits of his opposition to National Socialism grew to the place where Bonhoeffer was part of a conspiracy to kill another human being—Adolf Hitler. In his book Ethics Bonhoeffer noted the tension of guilt and freedom, or free-will:

“the structure of responsible action includes both readiness to accept guilt and freedom.” (Ethics, pg. 210)

During the 12th Century the Waldenses were a pre-Reformation group, led by Peter Waldo, that stressed a return to the Bible. They also rejected war and the taking of human life. After the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) the Inquisition was revived to stamp out heresy. This group was condemned as heresy and eventually forced to defend themselves.

Pacifism is not workable in all situations although it is, at times, the necessary or correct approach. The reason many theologians and Christians believed the West should intervene in WWII was because inaction, on their part, would have constituted an even greater war if Hitler had not been stopped. Even with the intervention of the British and the United States Hitler almost attained total European domination. Yoder himself notes that “Pacifism can aggravate the issues by siding with inaction or reaction.”

3. Natural Law. Plato, Aristotle and Cicero all believed that man naturally desired peace and a sense of order. This can only be achieved through right reason, which is granted us by God. For example, by use of reason we will come to establish certain norms or axioms that help to maintain peace and order. At times war, governed by moral law, must be appealed to in order to maintain that peace and order. Even the pax Romana of ancient times would not have flourished without protection and defense of its outer borders from less civil peoples.
4. Biblical Teaching.

a. The biblical view of man. Man is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-28). Therefore man has intrinsic value and should be protected and his dignity and inalienable human rights defended.
b. The biblical view of the state. "Government originated as an ordinance of God. It is, in one sense, God’s response to the nature of the people themselves. While it cannot redeem the world or be used as a tool to establish the kingdom of God, civil government does set the boundaries for human behavior. The state is not a remedy for sin, but a means to restrain it.” ~Charles Colson
In Romans 13 Paul informs us that God has "appointed" government (vs. 1). Therefore, if government, is an establishment of God then it is to manifest the character of God in some way, e.g. justice balanced with love. Paul, in no way, is advocating our adherence to any government, then, that is indeed contrary to Himself. Government is God’s way of maintaining the public good and directing the affairs of state. It is a temperate hand resting on a restless humanity. Legitimate government then, is one instituted by God and consequently an exhibitor of His ways.
The implementation of justice is done so, by the government, to punish bad and approve good. It is interesting to note the use of the term "sword" in the text. "Because a sword is an instrument of death, the weapon here symbolizes the right of civil government to inflict punishment, including the ultimate penalty of death for crimes that deserve it. In the earliest period of human existence, the Lord instituted capital punishment. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man” (Gen. 9:6). When Jesus told Peter, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52), he was reminding His disciple that the penalty for his killing one of Jesus’ enemies would be to perish himself through execution, which the Lord here acknowledges would be justified."[6]

*Note: There are more arguments that could be listed here but for the sake of brevity they have been omitted.

Man must not be governed by his passions but rather the rule of reason should prevail. Godly reason. Any war then should be limited to what is needed to maintain peace. Men like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin or modern scholars like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Reinhold Niebuhr have held a similar view. Pacifism may be ideal and strived for yet it is not workable in all situations.
In the twenty-first century we have changed. I noted the diplomatic efforts of Saladin and Richard the Lion Heart in my writings about the Crusades. First, in order to intimate Christian virtues such as patience and love diplomatic efforts should be exhausted. Second, we should also remember that the Church cannot be extended by purely physical causes but it is possible that it be defended in some sense. Defended foremost with godly and Christ-like love through character, writings, acts of benevolence, education, patience and turning the other cheek. However there was a time when even deity became irate at the behavior of the heathen in His House and drove them from it by force. We are not simply to look in the sky for redemption alone, as time and the lost pass us by, instead the believer can be willing to defend what God has given us in this present world, working until He comes again.
 
JN Anderson
 
NOTES: 
[1] Barton, John. and Muddiman, John, et al. Oxford Bible Commentary. © Oxford University Press 2001 pg. 159
[2] Rodwell, J.M. The Koran. Ivy Books. Published by Ballantine Books (Edition April 1993)
[3] Ali, Yusif, The Quran http://www.harunyahya.com/Quran_translation/Quran_translation_index.php
[4] Yoder, John H. Christian Attitudes to War, Peace, and Revolution. © 2009 by The Institute for Mennonite Studies. Brazos Press. pg.
[5] McGee, J. Vernon: Questions and Answers. electronic ed. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001, c1990, S. 218
[6] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Ethics. © 1955 by Mcmillan Publishing Company. New York, NY pg. 210
[7] MacArthur, John. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary on Romans. (1996, c1991, c1994). Chicago: Moody Press. pg. 226

The Legacy of the Crusades

“I say it to those who are present. I command that it be said to those who absent. Christ commands it. All who go thither and lose their lives, be it on the road or on the sea, or in the fight against the pagans, will be granted immediate forgiveness for their sins. This I grant to all who will march, by virtue of the great gift which God has given me.” ~Urban II

The Crusades:

In 1095 Pope Urban II perhaps officially enjoined the physical meaning of “holy war” or fighting for faith and material gain in the same sermon. . While preaching at the Council of Clermont in France Urban roused Christian believers to take up a holy war, a war under the cross of Christ. To accentuate this urge he also promised that the conquered lands would indeed be their own. Historian Bruce Shelley records, “As Urban ended his impassioned appeal a roar rose from the multitude: Deus Volt! God wills it! So there on the spot Urban declared that Deus Volt! would be the crusader battle cry against the Muslim enemy.[1] Until King Louis IX of France this impetus was seeded in each and every effort to follow in taking up this newly idealized cross for Christ. Many men and women would go on Crusade for the next 200 years. It was a time for Christian “holy war” something very similar to the Islamic “holy war” or jihad.

The reasons for holy war ranged from economics, adventure, excitement, or pride but the main motivation was religious. In fact, Louis Brehler, of the Catholic Encyclopedia, states “The Crusades were expeditions undertaken, in fulfillment of a solemn vow, to deliver the Holy Places from Mohammedan tyranny.”[2] During the medieval period Europe was overpopulated[3], crops were failing and disease was running rampant[4]. Famines were also prevalent. Historian Williston Walker has noted that “between 970 and 1040 forty-eight famine years were counted.”[5] The ambition to make money, the dream of adventure, and the pursuit of fame and power permeated the dialogue and minds of that day.

Along with Urban’s suggestion that material gain could be attained through fighting in the Holy War, he also “promised remission of sins to those who marched under the banner of the cross.”[6] The First Crusade was comprised primarily of feudal nobles from Germany, Italy, and France. Men who, no doubt, had great need and desire for remission of sins. Initially Alexis I the Byzantine emperor called for help in defeating Seljuk Turks. Instead he ended up with way more than he probably wanted. An “unruly horde” arrived in Constantinople to only be redirected to fight the Seljuks. This horde probably consisted of about 40,000 men, women, and children who boasted a fighting force of only about 5,000 knights and infantry. It was this First Crusade that was the most successful of any of the subsequent crusades. Victory over the Turks was decisive and absolute as the Crusaders flushed them from Jerusalem, the Holy City. The bloodshed was no respecter of persons as “men rode in blood up their knees and bridle reins.”

Jerusalem would remain a feudal kingdom until 1291 when it fell once again to the Muslims. In 1147 however Bernard of Clairvaux aroused the Second Crusade. It would virtually go nowhere until 1187 when Saladin would capture Jerusalem and all of Christendom would again center on the Holy City. This brought about the Third Crusade (1189-1192) which revealed such men as Richard the Lionheart of England and Frederick Barbarossa of Germany. Barbarossa would drown in Palestine. Richard however would go on to recover coastal cities, including Acre and Joppa. He would also be instrumental in winning the respect of Saladin himself. Saladin also offered Richard his sister’s hand in marriage. The diplomacy of Saladin and Richard should be remembered here since they finally agreed to a three year truce and the restarting of pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Essentially Richard did not complete the very task he intended to accomplish—to free the Holy City of Muslim infidels. This period and these “holy wars” were complex and the nuances of them cannot be simply flattened out to support hasty generalizations.

There would eventually be about seven Crusades into the Holy Land. These Crusades were led primarily by popes from the end of the eleventh century to the end of the thirteenth. Shelley also notes that “the long range results of two centuries of crusading zeal are not impressive.”[6] To confound the notion of popery, it is a bit ironic that a pope is responsible for the very First Crusade and is indeed inspiration for the subsequent ones as well. The Crusades were mostly a papal attempt to bridge the Eastern and Western churches to extend its universal sovereignty.

Seedbed for Questioning and Heresy:

The Crusades contain a seedbed of arguments against religion and faith today. Popular critics of religion and history mention this era of time in rightful disdain. Carrying the cross of Christ ironically does not necessarily mean abandoning morality and embracing evil. The very establishment of the office of pope and the subsequent actions of many of the Crusaders flew in the face of true religion and morality; it was the cause of great evil. The rise of popish rule and ridiculous indulgence for absolution would only grow as a result. In fact, church historian Phillip Schaff wrote “the Crusades gave occasion for the rapid development of the system of papal indulgences, which became a dogma of the mediaeval theologians.”[7]

In the end, the Crusades were an exercise in futility. Schaff also noted, “The Crusades failed in three respects. The Holy Land was not won. The advance of Islam was not permanently checked. The schism between the East and the West was not healed. These were the primary objects of the Crusades.” Not only was the overall impetus of the Crusades incompatible with an authentic Christian worldview they were also self-defeating. All the wealth and efforts of Richards’s lion heart did not win him the Holy City and remission of sin is not obtained by stepping into a gated city or finding oneself in any particular geographical location on earth. This notion, as with much of Catholic doctrine, goes against the text of Scripture since in Christ alone can we have forgiveness of sins. The atoning work of Calvary is final for contemporary Christians as well as Crusaders of days gone by.

“Many wended (sic) their way to the holy city, unmindful that our Jerusalem is not here.”
~Walter Map, an Archdeacon at Oxford

The builders of the Tower of Babel thought that in their rebellious unity that nothing would be “impossible for them” (See Genesis 11:1-6). As they were to soon find out they would be scattered abroad and their goal destroyed. With the popes of the Crusade we see, once again, an attempt at man positioning himself too high. Ego came crashing down. Even though they were a significant influence the advancement and progression of Europe did not hinge upon the Crusades. History could have done without much of this holy war blood shed just as it could have done without the atrocities of the Holocaust. The popes of the Crusades failed to grasp what Christ had come for, and what His work had accomplished while on earth. No special earthly city would ever satisfy man, only Christ and New Jerusalem. No sword would ever extend the Church, only Christ.

JN Anderson

NOTES:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Shelley, B. L. Church history in plain language (1995). (Updated 2nd ed.). Dallas, Tex.: Word Pub. pg. 187
[2] Bréhier, Louis. "Crusades." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 11 Aug. 2008 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04543c.htm>.
[3] Latourette, S. Kenneth. A History of Christianity Volume 2: Reformation to The Present Copyright 1975 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Prince Press pg. 408
[4] Gonzalez, L. Justo. The Story of Christianity Copyright 1984, 1985 by Justo L. Gonzalez. Prince Press pg. 293

[5] Walker, Willistion. A History of the Christian Church, Scribners.© 1959 pg. 219

[6] Vos, H. F., & Thomas Nelson Publishers. Exploring church history. (1996) Originally published in 1994 under title: Introduction to Church History; and in series: Nelson's Quick reference. Nelson's Christian cornerstone series. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[7] Schaff, P., & Schaff, D. S. History of the Christian church. (1997) Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

March 6, 1836: Remember the Alamo

Today, March 6, in 1836 the Alamo fell to Santa Anna and his Mexican soldiers. Here is a tribute: Remember the Alamo by Johnny Cash.

 

New England Kitchen in 1776

This picture was sent to me by Gary Bankson. He writes:

Hello! I thought the picture of a New England kitchen in 1776 was interesting. This picture is not a forward...it is from an American History Course in which the students were asked to give their analysis of of the picture as an assignment.

Bankson goes on to comment:

The artist has painted a picture of family togetherness, mutual hard work, and simplicity. The only family members missing are the young husbands of the young women, who must be either sisters or sisters-in-law. The reason I say there must be younger husbands is that there are children happily playing. I believe that the man at the table is the chidren's grandfather, too elderly to work the fields. The lady sewing may be the grandmother, and young adult men are out working the farm or possibly butchering and preparing the meat, cutting wood etc. The reason for so many women together is that this may be preparation for a special holiday like Thanksgiving rather than a typical day. Maybe extended family have come together and sisters are in the kitchen helping. The women are dressed tastefully, decently, and modestly. The scene depicts people who work hard but are contented, family oriented, and thankful to God for their blessings.

Generally speaking, today we are much more materially blessed, much more mobile, less family oriented, less contented, and less thankful, pious and God-fearing than our early forefathers. A huge number of these brave souls came to America to secure religeous freedom and to build a new nation based on Judeo Christian principles derived from the Bible. We are in the midst of just the kind of social "progress" the Bible prophesied we would have to endure before His second coming. Even so, "Come Lord Jesus!!!" In the meantime, in the coming election let us "vote our values" and not just our pocketbook.

God Bless!

Gary

The Heresy that Wouldn't Die: Christian History & Biography

by Philip Jenkins

from Issue 96: The Gnostics Hunger for Secret Knowledge

This world is not my home. As it stands, that statement reflects the views of a great many orthodox Christians, but a Gnostic would take it much further. From a Gnostic perspective, the material world is not just fallen but an utterly flawed creation, beyond redemption. God—or at least, the good, true God—certainly does not work in history. Escape is only available to the small minority who know, who recognize the need for liberation, which lies within. Wisdom, Sophia, is for the spiritual, the elite, and distinguishes them from the gullible herd of humans mired in the material, the victims of cosmic deception. They will remain asleep, while the true Gnostic is awakened.

Gnosticism has never gone away, however much some modern scholars lament the suppression of its hidden gospels in the late Roman Empire. The main themes survived, for instance, in the Jewish tradition of Kabbalah, which explains how the world was created through the fracturing of the vessels into which the divine goodness was poured. In addition to seeking their own mystic ascent to God, believers also pledge themselves to achieving tikkun olam, the restoration of the broken world.

Within Christendom too, the fact that Christian states officially suppressed heresy just drove these ideas beyond the frontiers, into regions like Mesopotamia and Armenia. Gnostic and dualist ideas thrived across large parts of Asia in movements like the Paulicians and the Manichaeans, who taught the children of light how to liberate themselves from the evil god of this world.

Occasionally, these ideas were reimported into Europe, most famously in the Cathar or Albigensian movement, which was suppressed by a near-genocidal crusade in 13th-century France. The Cathars followed the old Gnostic ideas faithfully, offering full salvation to the "perfect" who absolutely renounced the world. These old-new movements relied chiefly on the Christian gospels, interpreting the parables in their own distinctive way. Like the early Gnostics, though, they also wrote their own scriptures, such as the Book of John the Evangelist. ("Then did the Contriver of Evil devise in his mind to make Paradise, and he brought the man and woman into it.")

Living in a Christian-ruled society, later Gnostics defined themselves against the church and its doctrines, which provided a foil for the truly spiritual. The Cathars rejected the Roman Catholic Church as, literally, the synagogue of Satan. Catholics followed the deluded God who had created the abomination of the world in which we live and whose bloody misdeeds are chronicled in the Old Testament. Ordinary Catholic believers were the sheep, in the sense of being docile, ignorant, and uncomprehending.

Old Nobodaddy and Women's LibAs Europe moved forward into the intimidating world of urbanization and industrialization, the identification between the church, the old God, and the evil society became ever more obvious to the spiritual children of Light. The Romantic English poet William Blake saw a world enslaved by a false God, Old Nobodaddy, the father of jealousy, who was a deceptive projection of society's own lusts and ignorance. Blake presented a full-blown Gnostic mythology, in which the spirit of the giant Albion has become lost and divided. The world is dominated by the rational intellectual force of Urizen, who is challenged by the revolutionary imagination in the form of Los. Only Los remembers the divinity that Albion has forfeited, and only he can awaken him. In the 19th century, the French poet and critic Charles Baudelaire took the logic of revolt to its natural conclusion. If a church allied to a frightful and unjust society preached about God, then the only decent course was to praise the maligned rebel liberator, Satan.

From the end of the 19th century, original Gnostic texts became available once more. From 1896, any literate person could read the translation of the third-century Pistis Sophia, which offered a complete overview of Gnostic mythology. All the more striking in an age of women's empowerment, this scripture represents an extended exchange between Jesus and a number of female disciples, including Mary. The work had an impact in its day quite as powerful as the Nag Hammadi texts and the Gospel of Thomas would in later decades. Never believe any writer who claims that the world was ignorant of these radical insights until the 1970s!

Pistis Sophia and other texts had a huge appeal at a time when progressives and feminists were seeking to construct a new Christianity freed from the shackles of the hierarchical church. The best way to do this was to claim that, far from building something new, they were restoring the lost truths of the earliest followers of Jesus, doctrines suppressed by a sinister ecclesiastical bureaucracy. Writing in 1909, Frances Swiney claimed that the ancient Gnostics had been educated women, "early pioneers of the liberation movement of their sex, dialectical daughters questioning the truth and authority of received opinions, earnest intellectual women. … The Gnostics kept true to the original pristine faith in the Femininity of the Holy Spirit. A truth universally suppressed in the fourth century A.D. by the male priesthood of the Christian Church."

The (sleeping) child withinMany of the reasons that gave Gnosticism such a cachet in the first quarter of the 20th century still sound familiar today. Gnosticism offered a Christianity freed from elements that many thinkers found troubling, especially the Old Testament, which was being subjected to such devastating historical criticism. Nor were believers expected to accept New Testament gospels that higher critics argued were later, theologically inspired fictions. Through a Gnostic lens, Christianity was transformed from a religion rooted in history to a form of inner psychological enlightenment.

Once Christianity was understood as inner truth, educated observers no longer had to accept the unique claims of that religion, but could see the many commonalities that existed with other world religions. Buddhism in particular also taught enlightenment and waking from the sleep of illusion. Reconstructions of the "real" early Christianity reached a mass public through hugely best-selling novels like George Moore's The Brook Kerith (1916), in which a Jesus who survives the crucifixion ends his life by joining a party of missionary Buddhist monks.

Twentieth-century Gnosticism took many forms, both inside and outside the churches. Overtly Gnostic ideas inspired many esoteric groups and new religious movements, especially those derived from the Theosophical movement. To take one example of a modern esoteric religion, Scientology offers an unabashedly Gnostic mythology of sleep, forgetting, and reawakening. Believers are taught to return to the vastly powerful spiritual state they once enjoyed, but lost when that original being was trapped in the deceptions of MEST (Matter, Energy, Space, Time). No less explicitly Gnostic are the later works of that latter-day prophet Philip K. Dick, in books such as VALIS (1981).

Psychology was also a major vehicle for Gnostic thought. Carl-Gustav Jung, as much a mystic as a therapist, drew extensively on ancient Gnostic thinkers and mythology in works like Seven Sermons to the Dead (1916). Fundamental Gnostic assumptions underlie many forms of contemporary therapy, which lead patients to recognize the Fall through which they became entrapped in the world of illusion and dependency. Patients must above all recover their memories, through which they can overcome the states of sleep, amnesia, and illusion that blight their lives. As for ancient Gnostics, troubled souls are lost in an alien material world, trying to find their way home, to remember their true identity. The Gnostic idea of salvation became the psychologist's integration or individuation.

These parallels became particularly evident with the child abuse recovery movement of the 1980s and 1990s. Treatment of incest survivors implied such archaic themes as the loss of primal innocence through sexual sins inflicted on the patient, and the recovery of an untarnished child-like state: Memory is the gate through which we return to Eden.

A more authentic Christianity?But Gnosticism has also returned in an explicitly religious form, with the scholarly rediscovery of the ancient religious movements themselves. The best-known name is Elaine Pagels, whose pivotal 1979 book The Gnostic Gospels offered a religious synthesis very similar to that offered in Frances Swiney's day. Pagels likewise presented an ideal Christianity that was dehistoricized, psychological, thoroughly woman-friendly, and had many points of resemblance to Buddhism. For Pagels, moreover, as for later writers like Karen King, these ideas were not just an alternative fringe package labeled "Gnosticism," but the authentic core of the ancient Jesus movement. The ancient Gnostic gospels received a fresh advertisement in 2003 when Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code again argued that such movements were at the center, not the margins, of Christianity. Brown's heroine, who proves to be a descendant of Jesus, even bears the Gnostic-inspired name of Sophie.

Such ideas are intoxicating for the millions of people who have grown up in a Christian culture, who love the figure of Jesus, but who feel that there must be something more to the story than what is offered in the Bible or the churches. Gnosticism, as selectively repackaged by its modern advocates, amply fills this need and is buttressed by "authentic" ancient scriptures. Gnosticism, they feel, represents the pristine faith in a form that could never be appreciated by the vulgar herd of ordinary believers, who remain asleep. Surely God would never deign to make his truth available in a form equally available to everyone, however humble, and from all nations?

Philip Jenkins is professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University and author of God's Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe's Religious Crisis (Oxford).

Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian History & Biography magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History & Biography.Issue 96, Fall 2007, Vol. XXVII, No. 4, Page 33

Apostolic History by Dr. Marvin Arnold Online:

Here is the online version of Apostolic History by the late Oneness scholar, Dr. Marvin Arnold. You can contact his son here as well to order his works.

Post-Apostolic Authority?

By Guest Author: Stephen Kuntzman

If we take the time to interview a Roman Catholic priest we'll soon find that what the Roman Catholic Church follows and believes in as a "plan of salvation" is "the apostolic tradition of the 3rd century." Since we know that the Church began in the 1st century and was firmly established on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ as the Chief cornerstone we need to study this out and see if there is any validity to it.

If we were to begin studying some of the writings and personalities of that period (3rd century) we would quickly ascertain what it is that the priest referred to. It should be alarming to us that so many people fall back to those so-called post-apostolic fathers, claimed by the Roman Catholic Church, as part of their foundation.

The foundation of God and the Church stands sure. It is not built on histories heroes of the faith, like Praxeas or Sabellius (although we certainly agree with most of what the RCC has reported as their stance), nor is this foundation built on the so-called post-apostolic fathers, and certainly not on the perspective of the historians who wrote from a trinitarian point-of-view, but on the teaching and practices of the Apostles, the prophets, and Jesus Christ.

There are a number of men listed in books who are registered as having been a part of the post-apostolic era, and if we were to take a synoptic view of only five of these men and their doctrine in comparison to the true orthodox practices of the early church in the New Testament we might find some interesting points of departure relative to the post-apostolic fathers and New Testament Church. So, let's use Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement, Justin (Martyr), and Hermas as our post-apostolic sources.

The fundamentals of our faith are based solely on the teachings of Jesus Christ and the twelve Apostles (referred to as the "Apostles' Doctrine"), which includes total adherence to Acts 2:38 as the only plan of salvation and a biblical understanding of the oneness of God (monotheism). The Apostles' Doctrine then must be followed to be a true Biblical Christian, which is:

1. Repentance.
2. Baptism by immersion in the name of Jesus Christ.
3. Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost evidenced initially by speaking in tongues as the Holy Spirit gives the ability to do so.
4. The Oneness of God.

Any deviation from the original teachings and practices of the Church at Jerusalem is an obvious rejection of the true message of Christ and not in accordance with the true orthodox Christian Church of the New Testament, which began in Jerusalem and not in Rome.

Repentance as practiced by these men was largely based on works since they do not appear to have any real understanding of the true spiritual significance of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. They did not understand the concept of justification by faith and were constantly looking towards martyrdom as a way to assure their place in heaven. These men also began to buy into the idea that repentance could involve confession to a priest. This is in direct contradiction to the scriptural teaching on repentance. We need only go to Jesus Christ in prayer to find forgiveness of sins.

The doctrine of water baptism was also perverted at this time. The writings of Clement would cause one to believe that these men taught baptism in name of Jesus Christ, but further studies show this to be incorrect because many believe that Justin began the formation of what became the trinitarian formula. Prior to this, the early Church baptized only in the name of Jesus Christ (as they had been taught by Jesus and the Apostles). Besides using the wrong formula for baptism, it also appears that at this time immersion began to be replaced by pouring water on the head, sprinkling, and eventually even infant baptism. Such disregard for the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles should reveal something about the true nature of these men.

As far as speaking in tongues is concerned, it is evidenced by different books and writers that none of the so called post-apostolic fathers wrote about or stressed the importance of receiving the Holy Ghost with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues. This leads us to believe that in this area they had thrown away the doctrine of the Apostles and most importantly the teaching of Christ. These men covered many different subjects in relation to the Church (like eschatology, responsibilities of the bishops, and so on), but never spoke of the gift of the Holy Ghost as it relates to initial evidence. Without this experience in their lives they could not truly say that they were adherents to Christ or even Apostolic in doctrine.

From the many quotations taken from the writings of these men, we understand that they did not have a true understanding of the oneness of God and thus were not strict biblical monotheists, but rather tri-theists, or dualistic, in their understanding of God. Although it is highly improbable that these men used the word "trinity", their thinking on the matter was evidently a primitive form of what came to be known as the heresy of trinitarianism.

Because of their total disregard for the scriptural mandates of the Word of God as to salvation, we must deduce that the post-apostolic fathers did not truly believe that the Word of God is the final authority. They were already at ease with changing what God had established as the plan of salvation for all mankind.

Therefore, it is safe to say that the post-apostolic fathers are not extensions of the true Church, but rather they broke off with the teachings of the Apostles almost from the moment that the last Apostle died. These men did not follow any of the fundamentals of faith and because of their lack of obedience to the Word of God, their personal faith in Christ is suspect and without any real credibility. It is sad that many believe these men were in some way a part of the heritage of the Apostolic doctrine. These men are a stain on the pages of Church history and helped to bring many to apostasy and heresy by their doctrine, which is most assuredly not the Apostles' Doctrine.

Stephen Kuntzman has been a Christian since December 31, 1979. He is also a general licensed minister with the United Pentecostal Church, International. He has been in ministry, in one way or another, since 1995. Stephen also holds a bachelor of theology degree from Parkersburg Bible College and an RBA from West Virginia University. You can see more of his thoughts at his blog--The Pillar and Ground of Truth.

http://thepillarandgroundoftruth.blogspot.com/