Today's Evangelical Christianity Gnostic

I remember seeing in the backs of magazines advertisements for books revealing the secrets of certain special, closed societies that have reputedly been around for centuries. Secrets that told of principles for health, prosperity, and even supernatural powers...including the ability to live forever. This idea that there is a secret formula, hidden from most of the world, leading its practitioners to a better life apart from the rest, is the embodiment of a religious philosophy called "gnosticism". It was recently expressed in the Matrix movie trilogy with those escaping the false world of the Matrix (representing what we would call "reality") discovering the truth that set them free from the control of forces detrimental to humanity (the "machines"). The transformational moment came quickly ( by swallowing the "red" pill) and was irreversible. But away from the cinema, we don't need science fiction or secret societies to discover gnosticism: it surrounds us in our culturally powerful religion of evangelical Christianity.

You see, the key to "success" within evangelical Christianity is not to do good deeds or live a moral life. According to the "rules", it is to have passed through an irreversible barrier by at least once having sincerely recognized one's sinful nature and prayed for Jesus to enter one's life and grant eternal life. This is called "salvation" and once obtained, cannot be lost, no matter how dissolutely the saved individual subsequently lives. So we continually read news reports about professed Christians getting into the same criminal trouble as non-Christians. The divorce rate is as high among the evangelical community as it is among the "lost". But you see, that isn't the important thing. The important thing is that the special formula was worked out successfully at a moment in time, somehow obligating God to bestow eternal life and escape from hell on the transformed individual.

There is a reason, I believe, why kingdoms and empires during the first few centuries of Christianity worked hard to eradicate gnosticism and brand it a heresy. For a ruler who proclaimed himself a Christian would essentially decree that his people were consequently Christian, with their eternal fate linked to their loyalty to him and good conduct on this earth during their mortal lives. The idea that people could bypass their obligations to their political leaders with a few catch-phrases, a heartfelt prayer, and (with some a necessity) a dunking in water, seemed bogus.

Well, when I first heard of the salvation method being pushed in evangelical Christianity in 1967, it seemed pretty bogus to me as well. That's because it was presented (and still is) as a formula that needs to be sincerely practiced at a moment in time to work. This is similar to the function of a key, and in the Matrix series the symbolism of keys plays strongly in their gnostic story line. The salvation formula in evangelical Christianity isn't a big secret, but it nevertheless resembles gnosticism in that it IS a formula that purports to drastically and permanently change the nature of one's life (and afterlife). It also sharply separates, in the eyes of the initiates, themselves from those living in the "outside" world.