Belief: It's Not What You Know

          Early Christianity was not without its controversies and divisions, no less than today.  The apostle Paul’s writings to the Corinthians make this clear.  The disagreements continued into the centuries to come.  One early school of Christian thought came to be known as the “gnostics.”  Among their teachings was the notion that only a select few had access to the necessary knowledge, or “gnosis,” that would gain them salvation or escape from this physical world.

          In time, the gnostics were considered a sect that did not represent the core of Christian teaching, or “orthodoxy.”  However, there are remnants of Gnosticism that linger on.  One of the values of learning the disputes in ancient church history is the way those same issues arise among the people of God even today.  What’s new is old.

          There is a version of Christianity that suggests that you have to believe in certain precepts in order to attain salvation.  They may be the four spiritual laws, or twelve abiding principles, or seven habits, etc., but what they have in common is a presumption that agreement with these precepts leads to salvation.  Salvation becomes a head game, a matter of what you know, or what you think.  And if you don’t think like I do, or know what I know, then you are lost.

          Those last few sentences should sound familiar because they describe the practice of many contemporary Christians; and it is a modern manifestation of Gnosticism.  Almost every church has a few gnostics.  And some of them can be rather virulent. 

          There are passages in the New Testament of the Bible that seem to lean in a gnostic direction, as Paul’s words to the church at Colossae:  “I became [the church’s] servant according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints (Colossians 1:25).”   However, in context, the mystery that Paul is revealing is never intended for a select few but for all the world.  Paul is constantly crossing both geographical and socio-ethnic boundaries to reveal this mystery to all.  And the “mystery” is not so much a body of knowledge as it is a witness to the living presence of Christ available to every believer.

          Belief, then, is not about WHAT you know, but WHO you know.  Or rather, the assurance that you are KNOWN by a God who loves you enough to be with you in your darkest hour, even in the midst of suffering and death.  The essence of Christian belief is not a body of knowledge that sets you apart from everyone else, but the revelation that God loves the world so much that God enters into the worst aspects of the human condition in order to redeem, reconcile, and make new.

          The problem with modern versions of Gnosticism is that they still make salvation into something that believer has to do (or think).  But in orthodox Christianity, the source of salvation is always in what God has already done.  So, salvation is not about thinking the right thoughts, or even believing the right things.  Salvation is about trusting the love God has for us.  The apostle Paul writes to the Corinthian church, " if I understand all mysteries and all knowledge . . . but do not have love, I am nothing (1 Cor. 13:2)."

          I am reminded of the words spoken by priest, Blackie Ryan, in a novel by Andrew Greeley.  Father Ryan says that he doesn’t believe everything the church teaches but what he does believe in, he does so with all his heart.  I invite you not so much to agree with every doctrine of the church (though don’t be so hasty to dismiss it all), but to trust with all your heart the love that God has for all humanity, and thus, for you.  It’s not what you know, it’s Who knows you.