Summary
Johnson believes that there is a genuine analogy between the situation of the church today and the challenge Gnosticism presented to the church in the mid-second century. He opines that in both cases, there is a crisis of identity and even of survival. Here, an in-depth discussion on this topic is presented.
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Extract
A New Gnosticism
Historical analogies are both tempting and tricky. They are tempting because we like to learn about the present from past examples. They are tricky because the search for instructive examples can distort both past and present. Try hard enough, and any age begins to look like the fall of the Roman Empire.
Despite the danger, I want to suggest just such a historical analogy. My interest is partly historical but mainly moral. I think there is a genuine analogy between the situation of the church today and the challenge Gnosticism presented to the church in the mid-second century. My contention is that in both cases there is a crisis of identity and even of survival. More important, the shape and the resolution of the crisis in the second century have lessons-and a warning-for us today.I am scarcely the first to note the similarities between ancient Gnosticism and the dynamics of contemporary religious movements. In fact, the January 26, 1927, issue of Commonweal had an editorial titled, "The Newer Gnostics." That editorial was genially content to skewer aspects of popular religion by contrasti...See the full content of this document
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