Noah Movie - Gnostic Roots?

Excerpt:

In Darren Aronofsky’s new star-gilt silver screen epic, Noah, Adam and Eve are luminescent and fleshless, right up until the moment they eat the forbidden fruit.

Such a notion isn’t found in the Bible, of course. This, among the multitude of Aronofsky’s other imaginative details like giant Lava Monsters, has caused many a reviewer’s head to be scratched. Conservative-minded evangelicals write off the film because of the “liberties” taken with the text of Genesis, while a more liberal-minded group stands in favor of cutting the director some slack. After all, we shouldn’t expect a professed atheist to have the same ideas of “respecting” sacred texts the way a Bible-believer would.

Both groups have missed the mark entirely. Aronofsky hasn’t “taken liberties” with anything.

The Bible is not his text.

Read the rest HERE

The Holy Spirit a goddess?

"Moshe Rabbenu, I’ve got a few questions for you: How much does the Torah passed down in your name reflect what you actually said and did and experienced? And now that you have crossed over to the other side, how much space is there between your experience and articulation of God and the God whom you now know in eternity? Why couldn’t you find a woman from your own folk you could stand long enough to marry? And is the bias against women in the Bible directly related to your domestic issues? And Elijah, I have a couple of questions for you too: how does being taken bodily up into heaven in a chariot of fire actually work? Does your body phase in and out of solid matter cohesion like in a transporter beam? Is heaven on the other side of a wormhole? When you killed the four hundred fifty prophets of Baal but not the four hundred prophets of Asherah was it because you really didn’t mind a little goddess worship on the side? Are we feminists right in saying that Asherah was just the Canaanite articulation of the Holy Spirit and not really another God? Those are just some of my questions. I don’t know if Peter had questions or if he just wanted to be in the presence of his holy and revered spiritual ancestors." (Emphasis mine)

I may get smacked for citing so much content from someone else's blog in one hit. But that's life. The above derisive rant wasn't penned by a scornful atheist or your run-of-the-mill radical feminist. These are the words of a minister. In fact, the author is an Associate Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.

As Dan Skogen notes:

"Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney is...an ordained Episcopal priest who teaches the future leaders and pastors of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America."

Is that how a faithful Christian minister should behave towards the Word of God and the Holy Spirit? Or is the basis for judging what actually constitutes the Word of God founded on whether it agrees with one's ideology? Is whatever fails to meet one's criteria subject to mockery?

Two posts ago I blogged about gay activism and suggested that academics within the Lutheran denomination are beginning to use their selective brand of "hermeneutics" to champion the practice of homosexuality, same-sex marriage and a host of other social ideologies. Judging from Gafney's comments, significant elements within the ELCA are already happily wallowing in the depths of heresy and paganism.

Why would an organization, with the high pedigree that the Lutherans have historically enjoyed, allow people like Gafney to teach at their seminaries?

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 2Ti 4:1-7

I could quote a few more Pauline verses that would be germane to all this and thereby generate the proverbial "gnashing of teeth". Of course, many will hasten to point out that Paul was a misogynist who got some basic things wrong because he was raised in a patriarchal society. Moreover, they'd argue that a lot of the stuff in his epistles is irrelevant to "modern needs" and must be filtered through the lens of the appropriate hermeneutics.

Sadly, the secular media embraces these examples of "Christianity" because their narrative is complementary to where the main-stream media believes an "enlightened society" should be heading. But are these examples truly faithful presentations of God's Word to the unbeliever and babe in Christ?

"Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears. Act 20:28-31

My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. Jam 3:1

Speaking of hermeneutics, according to Gafney:

"Because of what all seminary professors, biblical scholars, seminary trained clergy and religious leaders and careful critical readers of scripture know: we all interpret everything we read or see, including (and not just) sacred texts. Yet there is a misperception that texts – especially religious texts – are independent of interpretation, that their meaning is whatever the literal text says, with no nuance or room for interpretation. And Those who get to say that the text means what it literally says to them, are those with power, frequently white, male, heterosexual, cis-gendered, able-bodied, frequently clergy (with or without seminary education depending on the tradition)."

Are these people actually looking at the texts and sifting out subtle "nuances" that have "room for interpretation"? Or are they beginning with modern diversity-derived presuppositions, and then cherry-picking what they need from wherever they can in Scripture?

I recommend Dr. Robert L Thomas' "Evangelical Hermeneutics - The New Versus the Old". See especially chapters 13 and 14 (Evangelical Feminism & Evangelical Missiology) in regards to the subject of this blog. See Gary Gilley's book review HERE and also note the articles:

Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutics - Part 1 

Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutics - Part 2

Further reading:

Gods and Goddesses

Yahweh and Asherah (Michael Heiser)

Biblical Hermeneutics: Foundational Considerations 

The Hermeneutics of Evangelical Feminism

Don't Quote Scripture!

That's right; don't quote the Bible. It could be offensive.

Some weeks ago I was chastised on a book forum for quoting Scripture by someone claiming to be an Orthodox Christian.

As an ex New Ager, I'd been trying to witness at that forum for nearly two years. We had been discussing the books of an Indian guru author who wrote extensively about Jesus. He taught that Jesus was only a man and just one of many ascended masters who had attained the "Christ Consciousness". In his cosmology there is no sin as we Christians understand it and the path to "salvation" is through the guru's particular style of Kriya yoga meditation.

This "orthodox" Christian suddenly jumped into one of the conversations I was having with these people, and voiced his objection. He surmised we could all learn a lot from this guru about "spirituality" and how to love Jesus, even though he admitted that he'd never read Yogananda. Sadly, I've come across several Christians on that forum who shared similar beliefs and one pastor who was enthusiastically looking forward to sharing this guru's teachings in the pulpit!

The Christian insisted it was arrogant of me to be quoting Scripture to people who, either couldn't understand it, or didn't give it the same credibility "we" did. He insisted that it was like trying to teach quantum science to someone who couldn't understand algebra. Moreover, he criticized me for being combative.

I can, indeed, be arrogant and argumentative. In fact, I would add condescending and a bunch of other adjectives I constantly struggle with in my flesh. I checked back at my comments and there were some I probably would have rephrased in retrospect - a lesson for future witnessing. Ironically, one of the New Agers immediately came to my defense saying that she never found me to be argumentative. Still, I took the criticism on board and prayed over it.

The next day the penny dropped. I dug a little bit further into this Christian's profile and found out that he was a fan of Catholic priest Raimon Panikkar. So I asked him if he was a religious pluralist. He ignored the question. I then informed him that the guru we'd been discussing had selectively cited hundreds of Bible verses out of context in support of his teaching. Therefore it wasn't rocket science to respond to that book in like fashion. In fact I suggested to him that Christians are obligated to do so. He stopped posting soon after that exchange.

You can read all about Panikkar online. One of the books he wrote borders on New Age paganism: "The Cosmotheandric Experience: Emerging Religious Consciousness."

Panikkar's principles of religious dialogue etc can be found HERE.

A sampling:

1. It must be free from particular apologetics. The Christian, Hindu or Buddhist must not approach the dialogue with the a priori idea of defending one's own tradition over or against the other.  

2. It must be free from general apologetics. Those involved in interfaith dialogue should not see their task in terms of defending religion in general against the non-religious or anti-religious attitudes of secular society. This would turn the religious encounter into an ideological movement as well being simplistic in its rejection of modern secular consciousness.

3. One must face the challenge of conversion. To be involved in religious encounter is a challenge and a risk. The truly religious person is not a fanatic who has all the answers but a pilgrim who is always open to the experience of grace and truth. One may lose one's life or even lose faith in one's own tradition--but one may also be born again and one's own tradition transformed.

4. The historical dimension is necessary but not sufficient. All religions risk limiting themselves to particular, historical interpretations which quickly become truncated ideologies. Religious encounter is a meeting of religious persons who both carry the power and burden of their own religious traditions; yet they also carry the power and burden of reinterpreting that tradition anew, not breaking with past history, but carrying it forward in imaginative ways. Religious persons like all others belong to history; they also change history through responding to life's contemporary challenges.

Interestingly, just today I saw a link to an apologetic at Catholic Answers. The topic in question was:

Apart from God's saving works, no one can be saved. So how can atheists be saved just by acting charitably?

I guess that, as a Catholic, the apologist is no fan of Sola Scriptura. Here is part of the response:

"To the extent that belief in God has been made impossible for him [the atheist] by others, there may be some mitigation of his culpability for unbelief. Ultimately we must trust that even he is not beyond the reach of God’s mercy if he strives to live morally (cf. Lumen Gentium 16). The second great commandment is love of neighbor (Matt. 22:39) and Christ said of those who serve others, even if they do not explicitly do it for Christ’s sake..."

Read Bob Deffinbaugh's article on Romans 1:18-32 HERE

Back to the Panikkar website:

"Moreover, Panikkar's own kind of radical pluralism is appealing in the manner it develops a critical stance towards all imperialistic and monistic modes of thinking and acting. No more will one religion, culture or tradition impose itself on peoples of diverse if less powerful traditions. The cosmotheandric vision tells us that a new wholistic experience of reality is emerging in which every tradition, religious or otherwise, can play its part in the unfolding of a new revelation where all will live in harmony and peace. This does not require the abandonment of faith, since faith is what humanity holds in common." (Emphasis mine)

Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Acts 4:12

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 6:23

Oops, there I go again!