Spirit Wars: Pagan Revival in Christian America

Spirit Wars: Pagan Revival in Christian America
By Peter Jones
Winepress Publishing. 331 pages
ISBN 1 883893 74 7
Available via Evangelical Press in the UK

'I firmly believe, though I pray I am wrong, that we are witnessing the first signs of an assault against the truth of Christ, the likes of which the church has never seen before.' So concludes Dr. Peter Jones, Professor of New Testament at Westminster Seminary in Escondido, California. He means it.
We are racing towards the new millennium, seen by some as opening the Age of Aquarius and a whole quantum leap in consciousness which will liberate mankind. Simultaneously, all around the world, radical spiritualities, politically correct agendas and progressive challenges to old ways of thinking abound. Dr. Jones believes that behind these confusingly varied strands, there is actually a profound coherence. It is the return of what he calls 'pagan monism'.
Before we go any further, perhaps we need to clarify terms. Monism is any worldview which claims that where there appears to be diversity, there is really only one thing. Hence such disparate ideas as Hinduism and scientific materialism are actually forms of monism. There are no ultimate opposites such as good and evil, or ultimate differences, such as Creator and creation, but all is one. The 'Force' from George Lucas's Star Wars film trilogy has popularised this idea, hence Peter Jones' book titles parody those of the movies. The Force has its good side and its dark side, but ultimately all is one. Darth Vader is Luke's father etc.. It is obvious that such a worldview has profound implications.

Return of the demons

Spirit Wars focuses on the state of things in the US. Earlier in this century, the religious academy was dominated by liberal rationalistic/social gospel views. But liberalism has proved arid and empty and inadequate to answer the cries of humanity's soul. This liberal establishment has more or less completed a conversion therefore. It is a conversion to spirituality, but not the biblical kind. Rather, with the agenda of moral permissiveness, the eradication of hell, globalisation and the unification of world faiths in the background, it has turned to the spirituality of paganism and the New Age. (It is astounding to note how many religious academics now bill themselves as witches.) Liberalism could easily be seen as the house swept clean in Jesus' parable, to which seven worse demons have returned. As in his first book on this subject, The Gnostic Empire strikes back, Jones exposes this new spirituality as nothing but a revival of the ancient heresy of gnosticism, with which the early church had such a desperate struggle (See 1 John etc.). Gnosticism is a form of monism, able to make room for all kinds of gods, goddesses and religious experiences (except, of course, biblical faith which makes conclusive distinctions between good and evil, God and humanity).

Gnostic Bible

With meticulous footnotes, a scenario is then unfolded. First, the author sees that academics (e.g. Jesus seminar) are already attempting to introduce ancient Gnostic writings (such as The Gospel of Thomas, and other writings unearthed at Nag Hammadi in 1945) as being the earliest Scriptures and downgrade the New Testament as not reflecting original Christian faith. With the Bible itself being sidelined, post-modern hermeneutics, which fits hand in glove with gnostic thinking, proposes a new method of Bible study - 'reader-response exegesis', which tells us that the truth lies not in the text but in the reader. At each stage, what is being proposed currently by various 'Christian' radicals is followed by a chapter showing the parallels with ancient Gnosticism from original sources.
What is the point of this move against the Bible? For a paganised spirituality to make sense, the God of the Bible himself must be changed - hence his book must be changed too. Ancient Gnosticism rejected the Judaeo-Christian God, demoting him to the rank of an 'archon' who created one flawed world and made a lying claim to be the Almighty Creator of the whole universe. The radical feminist and homosexual lobbies are looking for a way to cut loose from what they see as the patriarchal God of Scripture and his creational ethics, and Gnostic theology provides the knife. The Lord will be replaced by many powers but over all the goddess Sophia. According to Ptolemy, a gnostic theologian of the 2nd century, she is the true origin of creation: 'They say the Demiurge (the Creator) believed that he had created all this himself, but in fact he had made them because Achamoth (another name for Sophia) had prompted him.'

Sexual revolution

Actually the sexual revolution is one of the driving forces behind the New Age religious project. 'Sex . . . is the means by which enslavement to the powers is perpetrated,' says Douglas M. Parrot, one of the translators of the Nag Hammadi texts. A programme of sexual liberation is therefore an integral part of the gnostic system. Monism tolerates no dualism, such as male/female and therefore opens the door wide for homosexuality, lesbianism and bisexuality to be accepted as perfectly normal. We need liberating from the Creator we find in Genesis. 'Christians must realise,' writes Dr. Jones, 'that the religious feminist movement carries with it a frontal assault on the normativity of creational heterosexuality and beyond that, upon God himself as creator.' It is interesting to reflect that with embryonic Gnostic heresies in mind, the apostle John goes out of his way to frame chapter 1 of his Gospel in a way reminiscent of Genesis 1 and insists that the Saviour and the Creator are one.
With a Gnostic worldview in place, everything is ready to promote the new spiritual experience. This is not the experience of faith and repentance of biblical spirituality, but the experience of religious ecstasy, altered states of consciousness and inner power. All this leaves little room for the self-denial, deferred pleasure, obedience and humility to which Christ called us. Ultimately of course, the new spirituality coalesces with many strands of popular psychology (especially Jungian), for it is based on a monism which must finally reduce God to the human self. It is a spirituality of power (a power to be master of one's own destiny) which is actually the original sin in Eden; to be as God, but will be clothed by the smooth words of many churchmen in terms of 'enriching' existing Christian traditions.

Toronto and Bishop Spong

Here is Peter Jones's nightmare vision of what lies ahead as we approach 2000 AD. Of course the millennium is a Christian celebration, but this Gnostic 'Christianity' will be to the forefront. With so much of the church wedded to an agenda of peace, unity and tolerance at all costs, it is difficult to see how, in the short-term, anything can stop the triumph of the goddess and the devastation she will wreak in families and society. Many bishops, I fear, will fall over themselves to espouse and promote this new gnosticism as the original Christian faith. Is this the line that Bishop Spong hopes to exploit at this summer's Lambeth Conference one wonders?
One fears, too, for many 'evangelicals' for different reasons. Many who have started on the road of ecstatic spirituality through the Toronto blessing and altered states of consciousness are now casting around for a theology to fit their experience. They already seem to be investigating a downgrading of the biblical view of the sovereign creator God and could easily end up buying into this neo-Gnosticism, if they have not already done so.
Some may feel that Dr. Jones has merely cobbled together a string of quotations from the lunatic fringe of the US religious left and is over-exaggerating the dangers. But the evidence indicates that he has hit upon something vital.

Spirit Wars: Pagan Revival in Christian America

Return of the demons

Gnostic Bible

Sexual revolution

Toronto and Bishop Spong

JEB

Dr John Benton

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