My post on gnosticism and Walmart from the other day got picked up by a smaller link directory site. It generated a number of comments, some of which were awesome, and some of which were completely stupid, and a couple of which were food for further thought. There is one in particular which I think is worth addressing in more detail. It reads as follows:

Gnosticism failed because it was elitist. A religion that claims to offer secret knowledge to a small group of privileged insiders is never going to conquer the world.

The essence of gnosticism is its belief that most people are idiots. Our modern-day gnostics are the tinfoil-hat brigade who believe in a secret conspiracy that ordinary people are too stupid to perceive.

This couldn’t in fact be farther from the truth. Check out especially Elaine Paigel’s “The Gnostic Gospels.” In it, she details how many of the gnostic communities were in fact completely egalitarian. Women had just as much authority and ability to worship and administer as men. Further, many gnostic congregations had no set priests or bishops. At each meeting, members would draw straws to determine who would perform each role religiously.

Gnosticism itself wasn’t elitist - it just didn’t go around conquering and converting people by the sword like mainstream Christianity did. Gnosticism was also viciously suppressed by mainstream Christian churches who denounced it as heresy, legally persecuted members and practices, and even lead military campaigns and at least one crusade againt it.

The reason the Church felt like they had to stamp gnosticism out was because in gnosticism, the ultimate final authority rests in the individual, not in the hierarchy of the church (ie, elitism). Gnostics flouted rigid church rules, bypassed traditional interpretations of teachings and made up their own religious stories.

Gnostics did not and do not believe that most people are idiots. In fact, it is generally taught that all people have a spark of the divine in them and that this spark can be fanned and grown through intense inner struggle until they become Christ-like. Their teachings were not secret. All anyone had to do was look deeply within in order to tap into this vast resevoir of personal knowledg of God - gnosis. They thus believed that every person was a wellspring of strength, honor and grace.

I also have to marvel at the comment that person made about how a religion structured like gnosticism would never “conquer the world.” Since when is that the purpose of religion? I thought the purpose of religion was to give people a set of stories which helped them carve out a path of understanding of their own lives and intimacy with the divine.

Fantastic Planet also had a great post on a similar topic yesterday. A reader asked why the gnostic teachings seemed to be “encoded” in arcane symbolism and complex language. He had a lot of great things to say in response. Additionally, I think people forget that these teachings, at the time, were completely straightforward. They were not hidden at all. They were clothed in language and imagery which everyone at the time was familiar with and understood. Almost like they drew upon the “pop culture” of the time. It is only the passage of time culturally, and the subsequent diminishment and degradation by the Church of these symbols that they nowadays seem strange and esoteric.

Essentially, this too is the problem with the comments left by this person. They reflect a tradition of obfuscation by the mainstream Church to blind people to the fact that there was once and can still be an alternative to blind obedience to a corrupt hierarchy of elites who would sooner rule over you than nourish your own individual strength.