In my grad class tonight I commented that I thought General Gordon, the hero of Stachey's "The End of General Gordon" in Eminent Victorians, was a gnostic.

I was greeted with blank faces. Graciously, a girl in the class asked me to "explain gnosticism to me in 30 seconds," which I did the best I could off the cuff: Gnostics hate matter, they don't believe Jesus was incarnate because flesh is bad, and they idealize the immaterial in a fanatical way.

The chapter in the book was written about a British general in the 1890s, and it got me thinking: there were gnostics so recent? What other heresies persist in pseudo- or quasi- form today?

I was talking to my brother on the phone on my way back from class and I told him I see a lot of gnostic ideas in the American church today. There is a lot of denial of the greatness of the "flesh" not in Paul's sense of the word but in a more participatory tone. God has given us so much abundance, so many great foods to try (in moderate), so many good beers to drink (in moderation), so many peaks to climb and so many teas and coffees to brew and taste with amazement and awe. God has given all of this, and we should rejoice in his almighty abundance! Yet so many (obese) pastors tell us to stay away from the joyful things of life and focus on this nebulous heaven, which is really just a Christianization of Plato's realm of ideals---it is not a true view of heaven. [1]

Heresies persist and persist. They won't go away. I think the lies of empire and power are still persisting from Constantine's meddling in religion, and I think others are reaching their tentacles toward us from the sands of time. If we read the Nicene Creed, the Church Fathers and Mothers, and really think about what they were reacting against in both Christian and secular circles we find deja vu all over again.

[1] N.T. Wright's work is cricitcal on this point. Some articles he articlates this point in are:

Heaven is Not Our Home

N.T. Wright on the Resurrection

Resurrection: From Theology to Music and Back Again

Bishop's Heaven: Is ther Life After the Afterlife?

Christians Wrong About Heaven, Says Bishop