In my explorations of gnosticism over the past year or so, I’ve encountered time and again mainstream Christians criticizing gnosticism on the grounds of it’s being “elitist.” I recommend Jeremy’s piece on that for a solid gnostic response to that accusation. At the same time though, I’d like to mentally try on what I imagine their thought process as being, and see if we can’t uncover any new ways of looking at regular Christianity in the process.

My argument in the past has been that gnosticism is inherently egalitarian because it presupposes that all humans have within them a divine spark. Thus everyone has the same starting point and potential.

But the truth of the matter is simply that - from a gnostic perspective - not everyone brings that spark out to its fullest possible realization. As Jesus says in saying 70 of the Gospel of Thomas:

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you.”

According to this gnostic method of thinking, everybody starts out at the same place and has the same options before them. The difference comes in according to the choices and level of effort that people put into realizing their potential. So since people end up at different points - some experience Gnosis, and some don’t, Christians claim this as the basis that gnosticism is inherently elitist.

While we’re trying to get inside their heads, I think we can provisionally agree that this makes sense on a certain level. To re-phrase it, there are certain experiences of God which are only accessible to certain people. Okay, sounds good? Let’s proceed.

In the same breath, regular Christians will often make the follow-up statement that mainstream (non-gnostic) Christianity IS totally egalitarian. But really, is it? Just as you have to “bring forth what is within you” in gnostic thought, you have to “accept Christ as your personal savior” in normal Christianity. Doing so unlocks secret levels in the video game of religion which are not accessible to ordinary folks, non-Christians. The point is that you have to make a choice and a concentrated effort to get there, just like in gnosticism (or at least in their imagined version of gnosticism - vortex experiences typically come uninvited).

In fact, we could make the argument that the only “truly” egalitarian form of Christianity would be Universalism, which claims that Jesus saves everybody across the board, no matter what - no questions asked, no holds barred, etc. You don’t have to make any efforts, decisions, promises, commitments or anything. Any other form of Christianity is inherently elitist, because certain experiences of God are restricted. Maybe the barrier of entry is lower in most mainstream sects of Christianity than in much of gnosticism (or maybe not, depending on who you ask), but there still exists a barrier nonetheless. And no amount of angry Christian email that I’ll get over this for the next few weeks will be able to argue it away.