Are There Gnostics in Today’s World?

Gnosticism is a strange sounding word, dredged up from the days of the early church. Maybe it is a curious icon more appreciated by church historians and scholars than the practical Christian. Or is it?

Contrary to common belief, Gnosticism is alive and well in our twenty-first century. It survives the aeons of time exceedingly well because of its uncanny ability to morph and mutate, to disappear and to materialize. Gnostic thinking is basic to the “human potential movement” because it focuses on man and his problems, man and his needs, man and his happiness. Taking up the mantra of Enlightenment thinking by making “man as the measure of all things,” Gnostic thinking would postulate that human tragedy is not the result of sin, but only ignorance. The answer to life’s plight and inequities is therefore found in knowledge.

Evolutionary thinking would prefer to find man in his next stage of development, free from the oppressive bonds of religion and open to the fresh winds of self-awareness, human reason, and discovery as man discovers new vistas of “human potential.” Immediately at hand is Gnostic thinking that whispers to the anxious enquirer, “Search your heart; seek the truth deep within your soul. You are the truth because God is in you.”

Totally opposite to this is the Bible, which tells the searching heart that the true human tragedy is sin and that the blood of Jesus is the only antidote for the human condition. Second, we might refer to the wonderful text found in John’s epistle. We don’t have to sit and mutter to ourselves, searching way down deep for a still small voice of inner assurance. Instead, we read that “our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). Our Creator, the one who made us and owns us, seeks to have intimate, ongoing fellowship with His creatures. That’s good news.

From Steve Fazekas.

P.S. Please pray for Steve Ham as he visits the UK to assist our sister AiG ministry there.