|
"The Gospel of Judas" & The Da Vinci Code - Modern-day Gnosticism |
| On Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006, we celebrated the great
Feast of Light, the day that has made it possible for us to be called
Christians, to live as Christ asks us, and to know that salvation is
possible. Easter is the day of days, the season of seasons, the
feast of feasts. It is the day on which we are most proud to call
ourselves Christians.
Sadly, and ominously, the world does not share our joy. Instead, it wants to destroy the very meaning of Christianity. We continue to be assaulted by attempts, both popular and scholarly, to gut the very essence of our faith. Next month will see the release of the movie of The Da Vinci Code (which I hope no one will go to see). This is based, of course, on the wildly successful best-selling book that attempts to subvert Christianity in general, Catholicism in particular. The film's co-producer, in fact, describes the movie as "conservatively anti-Catholic" (as quoted in The New York Times). Conservative or not, anti-Catholic is anti Catholic. And now, National Geographic is promoting the discovery and publication of "The Gospel of Judas." This 3rd-century document paints Judas as the good guy, doing what he did on the orders of Jesus. Scholars, some, sad to say, Catholic, are jumping all over this document as though it reveals something new. The early Church, in fact, knew all about these Gnostic writings (Gnosticism is a heresy), and they were denounced by St. Irenaus in his famous book, Against the Heretics (written in the late 2nd to early 3rd century). Again, The New York Times quotes Elaine Pagels, who has made a career of defending the Gnostics, saying, "Yet those early Christians who loved and revered such texts did not think of themselves as heretics...". Well, of course, they didn't - no heretic does. That doesn't make them any less heretical. These views were not simply one of a number of conflicting schools of Christianity. They were, and still are, wrong. Yet, the Gnostic writings that are the basis of the nonsense in both The Da Vinci Code and "The Gospel of Judas" are being used to try to re-write Christian history, and to turn Christianity (and again, I must stress, Catholicism) into a religion of opinion, not truth. Why mention all of this during Easter? Because today is the day we must boldly and unequivocally proclaim our adherence to the Truth. And then we must go forth and live what we proclaim - today and every day. If Jesus is reduced to a mere human being, then Easter means nothing, and Christianity is a lie. It is time to reclaim our faith, and to confront those who would destroy it. We cannot cooperate with the destruction. If we call ourselves Christians, then let's proudly live as Christians. Rev.
Father Thomas Shaw - Pastor of St. Patrick's Church (Elkhart) |