A Practical Christian Pacifism by David A. Hoekema

An excellent introduction to Christian pacifism and a clear refutation of some of the straw man arguments leveled against the Christian vocation of nonviolence:

EXCERPT: 

OWS activist arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge

Pacifism is surrender. "The pacifist viewpoint is appealing in principle, but in practice it means surrendering to the aggressor," is a charge heard often. "Capitulation to the forces of evil cannot be moral."

The problem with this objection is that it equates pacifism with passive nonresistance. Pacifism is not synonymous with "passivism": the pacifist rejection of war is compatible with a great many measures for defense against aggression. In fact, pacifist theorists have urged the development of a civilian-based non-military defense, which would encompass organized but nonviolent resistance, refusal to cooperate with occupying forces, and efforts to undermine enemy morale.

The tendency to equate pacifism with "passivism" and capitulation reflects how little we know of the remarkable historical successes nonviolent tactics have achieved, even in the face of brutal repression. From the courageous Swedish and Danish resistance to Nazism to the transformation of Polish society by the Solidarity labor movement, and from the struggle for Indian self-rule led by Gandhi to the struggle for racial equality in the United States led by Martin Luther King, Jr., and others, nonviolence has been a creative and effective force. Whether nonviolent resistance can always overcome aggression and whether its cost in suffering and death will in every case be less than that of war is difficult to say, but at least it cannot be said that pacifism is merely a policy of capitulation.

full article here

Narcissism and Spiritual Materialism: The New Age Legacy

From EngagedZen.org:

Leafing through the books and looking at the titles, I was struck by the heavy emphasis on the notion that the vast majority of them were offering people something other than reality. The theme of altered, higher, better states of consciousness occurred repeatedly. I was surprised at the number of books dedicated to "angels." The recurrent thread throughout was that of personal entitlement, getting something, reaching or attaining something. All of it seemed demeaning in a way, a tacit acknowledgment that there was something missing, that an individual could find and possess by reading the book. I could not help noticing some of the customers browsing the titles, most appeared to be dissatisfied people desperately seeking some sort of answers.

There was a bulletin board, covered with advertisements for dozens of "healers," "body workers" and various "schools" of "mystical arts." This was very much what Trungpa Rinpoche used to refer to as "the Spiritual Supermarket" a plethora of offerings appealing to our sense of spiritual poverty, offering relief in the form of spiritual commodities, "higher" states of consciousness, travel to higher realms, secrets of the universe. All of it appealing to the underlying diaspora of separateness and disconnectedness that is all pervasive in the human condition.

The overriding theme in this spiritual supermarket was that there was something missing which could be provided by the products being sold. Nowhere was the notion evident that perhaps the real problem was that we had too much to begin with, and what we really needed was to let go. 

 Read the full article here

Facing Our Obsessive Patterns: The roots of the "seven deadly sins"

This article, from Pastor Theodore Notthingham, pinpoints one of the essential differences between Inner Christianity and modern Western Christianity.  What we know as the "7 deadly sins" weren't sins at all, but "distracting and afflictive thoughts" that undermine spiritual life.  The shift in perspectives is a symptom of the transition of Christianity from a school of transformation and liberation to a tool of the Empire:

This idea of the "seven deadly sins" is not original to the Catholic Church and is a reduction and distortion of the spiritual teaching that came before it and that has largely been lost to us.  In order to recover something of the original meaning, we must return to the fourth century and the middle-eastern lands where these teachings germinated.  It was the Greek monastic theologian Evagrius of Pontus who first drew up a list of eight human "passions": gluttony, lust, avarice, sadness, anger, acedia (sloth), vainglory, and pride. For Evagrius, these passions represent an increasing fixation with the self, with pride as the most egregious of them. These passions are brought into play by thoughts or images which Evagrius does not name "sins" or "vices" but rather logismoi, meaning distracting or an afflictive thoughts.  These thoughts might be identified in our day as deeply ingrained obsessive patterns that are reinforced by habit.

These obsessive thoughts undermine the spiritual life and require recognition and resistance.  They are not seen as a moral failing calling for repentance. Evagrius held that spiritual progress depends on close observation of thoughts as they arise in the mind. Thoughts are symptoms, not sins. They buzz around in the mind looking for cracks in the heart – points of weakness and vulnerability. Their Greek name, pathi (pathology), suggests that a person is brought by them to a state of passivity and slavery. In fact, they overcome the will, so that the person victimized by his or her passions no longer has access to their free will.

Ancient writers give us a surprisingly contemporary psychotherapy of the human soul. Nilus the Ascetic writes that the stomach, by gluttony, becomes a sea impossible to fill – a good description of any passion. The objects which the passions look for cannot satisfy them because objects are finite and as such do not correspond to the unlimited thirst of the passions.

The full article is here

'Magnetisation' to God

The Praxis Research Institute has a excellent collection of articles on the Christian Fourth Way and Inner Christianity, including a series on The Magnetic Centre.

The idea of 'magnetism to God' was first applied to this inner phenomenon, so far as we know, in the second half of the nineteenth century by the Russian hermit Saint Theophan the Recluse, who around 1860-1870 speaks sometimes about magnetisation to God, and sometimes about Gravitation to God.

Theophan was a major investigator in this field of the Christian interior life. Under the Aegis of the Synod of the Russian church he spent seven years researching sources in the Middle-East before he became a bishop, and then a hermit.   He travelled round the monasteries of Syria, Egypt and Palestine, finding manuscripts which he had copied and shipped over the Russian, where he translated them...

This idea of magnetisation to God clearly expresses the higher stages of hesychastic prayer, prayer of stillness, which concerns the stage where, when the psyche reaches a certain point on the path, it is then 'rapt in God,' being drawn away from the attraction of the world by the glory given by God within him.

Read the series at the Praxis Institute website.

Praying the Gnostic Rosary

New!

The Order of the Recitation of the Gnostic Rosary
(The Rosary of the Pneuma Hagion)

Part of a new series of praxis-oriented booklets from the AGC.

An easy-to-use guide to praying the Gnostic Rosary, a contemplative practice using meditations from the Nag Hammadi codexes and related texts and from the Gnostic Church of Jules Doinel, Tau Valentin II.


From the introduction:

The Holy Rosary of the Pneuma Hagion is a contemplative  Gnostic method of prayer. With the Holy Rosary we meditate the mysteries of the Gnostic story:  the Silence of the Ineffable One, the emanations of the Aeons of the Pleroma, the fall and redemption of Sophia, the incarnation of Jesus the Divine Soter, the maturity of the pneumatic seed, and the Bridal Chamber.  The prayers and meditations are taken from the Nag Hammadi library and related texts as well as the Catechism of the Gnostic Church by Jules Doinel, Tau Valentin II.

In meditating on the mysteries, we create a space for the Holy Spirit to reveal these mysteries to and in us in a profound way.  Just as importantly, you are joining your prayers to those of Gnostics, saints, and angels who are  interceding for the perfection of the pre-existing ekklesia and the restoration of all things.

Available at Amazon.com

Kindle Version

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TalkGnosis for 7/25 - What Sets Us Free: Gnosticism & Liberation

What is useful and necessary...

For what is useful and necessary to salvation, such as the knowledge of the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, and also of our own soul, are wholly requisite; and it is at once beneficial and necessary to attain to the scientific account of them. And to those who have assumed the lead in doing good, much experience is advantageous; so that none of the things which appear to be known necessarily and eruditely by others may escape their notice. The exposition, too, of heterodox teaching affords another exercise of the inquiring soul, and keeps the disciple froth being seduced from the truth, by his having already had practice beforehand in sounding all round on warlike instruments of music.

- Selections from the Prophetic Scriptures of Theodotus

I thought that Gnostics didn't believe in dogma?

From the Alexandrian Gnostic Church FAQ:

Q: I thought that Gnostics didn't believe in dogma?

A: That depends on how you define "Gnosis," "Gnosticism," and "dogma." 

While our conception of the Divine Ground of Being is apophatic, meaning that ultimate reality cannot be described in words, it is also true that "truth did not come into the world naked, but it came in types and images. The world will not receive truth in any other way." (Gospel of Philip).  Dogmas are a vehicle for Truth to be revealed.  It is when they are seen as ends to themselves, that dogmatism becomes a barrier to experience of the realities behind dogma.  Unfortunately, an often justified response to oppressive spiritual organizations has led many to "throw out the baby with the bath water," robbing individuals of the benefits of the rich and efficacious practices and a meaningful context for spiritual experience.

"Dogma" comes from Latin and means “philosophical tenet”, from the  Greek word δόγμα, meaning “opinion or tenet.”  In an ecclesiastical context, dogma includes the teachings and practices that shape a community's experience and practice.   Teachings about methods of meditation and prayer, the texts and rubrics of liturgical worship, the common language and images invoked - all of these make up the dogmas of a spiritual assembly.

There is a common tendency to posit "esoteric" or inner teachings as being somehow opposed to mere exoteric forms.  But there is no conflict between the two - the exoteric part of a spiritual tradition consists of the forms (cosmology, soteriology, ecclesiastical structure, ritual practice, etc.) and the esoteric part is the inner knowledge gained by applying those forms to the inner work of liberation.  To draw water from a well, you need a bucket - the exoteric forms are not opposed to the inner reality, they are a container to hold and transmit it.

Many contemporary seekers characterize "gnosis" as a general mystical experience, detached from specific historical or doctrinal context.  While we honor and respect all sincere seekers of spiritual truth, our understanding of Gnosis is drawn from the writings of the classical Gnostics, who defined Gnosis in very specific - dogmatic - terms.  The oft-quoted Excerpta Ex Theodoto describes Gnosis as "the gnosis of who we were, of what we have become; of where we were, of wherein we have been cast; of whereto we speed, of wherefrom we are redeemed; of what birth truly is, and of what rebirth truly is."

In other words, Gnosis isn't a vague mystical experience, it is a deeply personal apprehension of very specific spiritual truths.  Dogmas - spiritual practices, philosophical frameworks, and a shared mythos - provide a context to experience, explore, and share those truths.  For this reason, many Gnostic writings explicitly focus on expounding a very specific world view and body of teachings, such as found in The Gospel of Philip, The Hypostasis of the Archons (The Reality of the Rulers), The Authoritative Teaching, the Gospel of Truth, and others.