{"id":1675,"date":"2010-02-19T13:49:26","date_gmt":"2010-02-19T21:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/?p=1675"},"modified":"2010-02-19T13:49:26","modified_gmt":"2010-02-19T21:49:26","slug":"smells-like-gnosticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/2010\/02\/19\/smells-like-gnosticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Smells like gnosticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m reposting this here because it&#8217;s a nice concise handy reference on gnosticism, which is alive and well all over the place.<\/p>\n<p>John Z posted originally posted this at the <a href=\"http:\/\/boarsheadtavern.com\/2010\/02\/15\/17563\/\">BHT<\/a> regarding a new book by Tom Hall.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>The key elements of gnostic thought Hall identifies are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Christian tradition is viewed as basically untrustworthy.<\/li>\n<li>Traditional Christianity fails the theodicy test. [Why does evil exist?]<\/li>\n<li>Christian eschatology is implausible.<\/li>\n<li>The core of the faith is worth saving.<\/li>\n<li>Christianity needs a top-down revision not small corrections.<\/li>\n<li>There is a hunger for more spiritual interpretation of Scripture.<\/li>\n<li>Conviction that there is a profound difference between ordinary church people and those who deeply understand the spiritual truth of Christianity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Apparently Hall spends a lot of time examining the theology of Marcus Borg. [Scott] McKnight summarizes thus:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>1. For Borg, humanity is saved by knowledge.<br \/>\n2. For Borg, there is a focus on the spiritual inner self, the divine spark within.<br \/>\n3. For Borg, there is an antipathy toward incarnation and embodiment. [Extensive discussion.]<br \/>\n4. For Borg, there is an emphasis on present spiritual reality rather than eschatological hope, on the God of timeless truth rather than the God who will bring history to consummation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>However, I think the post ends well with this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Thus, he sees Borg as a combination of three features:<\/p>\n<p>The piety of orthodoxy<br \/>\nThe honest intellectual inquiry of liberalism<br \/>\nThe spirituality of gnosticism.<\/p>\n<p>Tom Long says Borg\u2019s Jesus is too much like Marcus Borg himself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>A LOT of books on Jesus reimagine Jesus to look a lot like the author, whether he&#8217;s a hippy, a UFC fighter, a pastor, an eastern self-help guru, or what have you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m reposting this here because it&#8217;s a nice concise handy reference on gnosticism, which is alive and well all over the place. John Z posted originally posted this at the BHT regarding a new book by Tom Hall. &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;- The key elements of gnostic thought Hall identifies are: Christian tradition is viewed as basically untrustworthy. &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/2010\/02\/19\/smells-like-gnosticism\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Smells like gnosticism&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1675"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1683,"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675\/revisions\/1683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}