Wednesday, July 14th, 2010...11:15 pm
Jordan on Gnosticism versus History
“Throughout history, the Christian Church has had to guard against the heresy of gnosticism. Â Gnosticism is not an ordinary heresy, because it does not manifest itself as a set of defined beliefs. Â Rather, gnosticism is a tendency: the tendency to replace the historic facts of Christianity with philosophical ideas. Â Gnosticism is the tendency to de-historicize and de-physicalize the Christian religion. Â Gnosticism transforms history into ideology and facts into philosophy. Â Gnosticism tends to see religion as man’s reflections about God and reality instead of as God’s revelation of Himself and His Word to man. Â As a tendency, Gnosticism has always plagued the Church, and it is alive and well today, openly in “liberalism,” and in a more concealed fashion, in “evangelicalism.”
-James Jordan, Creation in Six Days, Canon Press, 1999, p. 71, emphasis original
Note: Chapter 4 “Gnosticism Versus History” should be required reading for every Protestant. Â Protestantism went dangerously gnostic in the nineteenth century, and we’re still trying to recover. Â See my earlier comments from my review of Holiness by Ryle.
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