Neo-Gnostic Revival
My rector (and friend) and I were talking and he told me you can tell a lot about a person’s theology by how he views Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. I agree completely and I think it reveals the neo-Gnostic tendancies among many American Christians.
As a review, Gnosticism is an old heresy which has been revived several times throughout Church history in one form or another. Generally speaking, Gnostics believe that salvation comes through knowledge (Gr. gnosis). They also tend to believe that all creation is evil and many divided the Godhead to speculate an inferior Old Testament Creator God and the superior Father of Jesus. As a result the Gnostic canons of Scripture were usually cut and paste jobs in relation of our current one. Finally, the Gnostics denied the full humanity of Jesus. Some said he only appeared to be human, but didn’t leave footprints, suffer, die, etc. Others took the view that the Spirit in Jesus did not experience full union with humanity, even to the point of leaving the man Jesus before he died.
The orthodox Church Fathers rejected Gnosticism as inconsistent with the apostolic witness, but nonetheless it has been particularly seductive throughout the history of the Church. We are seeing this in America and the West today, especially in the reaction to Mel’s movie. There are people who for one reason or another may not like The Passion and I respect that. But, the religious condemnation of the movie, I believe comes from neo-Gnosticism. It has two sides, both stemming from the most anti-tradition elements of American religion.
First, the revisionist critique, which has been the most vitriolic and the most widespread. They usually complain that the movie is too bloody, too realistic in its portrayal of Jesus’ sufferings, not grounded enough in the Jesus of history (whatever that means). For the revisionists Jesus has become a lightweight, a first century Doctor Phil. The Incarnation is minimized, the bodily resurrection denied, and the power of the cross is removed. We are left with abstract ideas, hardly different than the theological statements about the so-called “Christ of faith” they seek to abandon. The obsession with finding the “historical Jesus” rather than humanizing him has taken him even further into the realm of ideas. Jesus saves through his teachings, through his knowledge, not through the Incarnation or the Cross. The reality of Jesus’ humanity is so downplayed it almost ceases to exist. Not classical Gnosticism, but certainly a cousin. The Passion which graphically portrays Jesus’ human sufferings and death is anathema to this view, just as the Incarnation was an anathema to the the original Gnostics.
The second approach to criticism of The Passion has come from some fundamentalist quarters. They object to a physical portrayal of Jesus on the screen. They insist that the words in the Gospel, the reading of them, is all that is allowed. These are the same churches that often condemn art and even moderate drinking. The material world becomes something that must be resisted. The Incarnation and its purpose of sanctifying creation and breaking it from the bonds of evil (as catholic thought asserts) is denied, at least in practice. Thus, graphically portraying Jesus’ sufferings becomes too close to idolatry in their minds, just like the Jews of Jesus’ day could not conceive of the Incarnation of YHWH as anything other than blasphemy. Jesus’ humanity becomes an afterthought, something we best not dwell on lest God seem too personal. Yet, God did become one of us, which Gibson visualizes so well.
Yet, against all these voices and condemnations, The Passion has been wildly successful. I believe this is for the same reason that orthodoxy triumphed over Gnosticism: the reality of Christ’s humanity is vital given the reality of our humanity. We live in a material world and for God to redeem us outside of our own situation seems distant and unloving. But a God who chooses to stoop down and become one of us, fully and completely, is an act of love that resonates with the human spirit. We cannot make our humanity an abstraction or an afterthought; it defines who we are. What an amazing God we worship for whom becoming man was more than an afterthought or an abstration, but the central event in the mystery of redemption and an act of his immense love for his creation.
