Just a sample of the vast wisdom of James B. Jordan. These basic paragraphs from one of his essays in 1982 challenged virtually everything I thought about the reality of the world. Once these thoughts penetrated my intellect, I could not be the same again. At that moment I realized that the evangelical landscape was not so much embracing a faulty hermeneutic, but adopting a dangerous one to read reality. Once I began to see these things Gnostic premises fleshed out in evangelical worship, theology, and culture, then everything began to make sense and I intentionally set out to carefully re-orient all these themes to fit a more thoroughly biblical view of the world. Of course, we may not all end up in the same place, but we do end up with the same trajectory by rejecting the Gnostic thesis.
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There are many descriptions of Gnosticism, but the best is that which recognizes that Gnosticism is the great counterfeit of Christianity, which has hounded it since the beginning. Gnosticism sees the issues of history in terms of knowledge and power, instead of in terms of faith and obedience. Gnosticism approaches history in terms of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, rather than in terms of the Tree of Life (which is approached on the basis of faith).
Gnosticism sees good and evil dualistically. For the gnostic, there is a realm of evil, with an evil god (Satan) ruling over it. This evil realm invaded God’s domain, seduced humanity, and presently rules the world. God has sent Christ to defeat Satan and to rescue men from his domain. The essence of the work on the cross was not the satisfaction of Divine justice, but a defeat of evil powers. The world is still controlled by these evil powers, and “Christians” are to forsake this world and contemplate the next world. Salvation is rapture out of this world. Individualistic Gnosticism focuses only on the souls of believers and looks only to salvation in the next world. Communal Gnosticism goes one step farther and calls on Christians to forsake society for a separate community within this world while awaiting some form of rapture into the next world.
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