I know you are super interested in Gnosticism and have a perfect understanding of it (in my mind, I’m visualizing the typical American Evangelical vocational pastor). The rest of you might not find it as fascinating — like some family members who try to read every post…Why?! — but stick with me—we’re going somewhere.

Let’s first objectively, as best we can, describe what Gnosticism is. In the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects, Gnosticism arose as a collection of religious ideas and systems. Gnosticism as an ancient belief system was in full force by the 2nd century. It has its roots before Christianity, emerging from the philosophical revolution Plato kicked off. The word gnosis means “knowledge,” and Gnosticism is all about discovering hidden, mystical knowledge that leads to spiritual salvation.

It’s important to note that, like Christianity, Gnosticism wasn’t a singular thing. It was a set of ideas with certain common threads, but it varied widely. Within Gnosticism, there were debates and disagreements, and the history and nuance of those debates were largely lost to time. This wasn’t the only debate back then either. The Christian world was already big by 200 AD and separated by the Mediterranean Sea. In the last century, we’ve made some incredible archeological discoveries, like the Nag Hammadi texts in 1945, that have opened a window into this barely known world. And we’re still learning—new discoveries in this realm aren’t slowing down.

Although Gnosticism was diverse and a bit “wibbly-wobbly,” certain key themes crop up repeatedly:

1. Dualism

Gnosticism presents a sharp divide between the material and spiritual worlds. The material world is seen as flawed, even evil, created by a lesser, imperfect deity known as the Demiurge. In contrast, the spiritual realm—linked to the true, unknowable God—is pure and divine. Conceptually, they viewed the Old Testament God as an evil god and Jesus as a spirit being from the good god…kind of.

Gnostics saw the material world as a prison for the divine spark within humanity. Their goal was to escape this physical realm, not redeem it. There were levels of deities and beings, both good and bad, with the ultimate being Abraxas, the ruler of the 365 heavens.

The Gospel of Philip (a gnostic text) says: “The world came about through a mistake. For he who created it wanted to create it imperishable and immortal. He fell short of attaining his desire.”

2. The Divine Spark

Gnosticism teaches that each person contains a divine spark, a piece of the true, transcendent God. This divine spark is believed to be trapped within the material world, which Gnostics view as flawed or even evil, created by a lower, imperfect deity. Salvation comes when you wake up to this spark and realize your divine origins, escaping the physical world and returning to the spiritual. To Gnostics, the material world acts as a prison, and salvation comes through gnosis—a special, spiritual knowledge that allows the divine spark within to reconnect with the higher realm of true divinity. By realizing this hidden truth, the soul can escape the material world and return to its original, pure state.

The Apocryphon of John: “It (the soul) was cast down into a body, which God made for it, locking it in a prison, for it had become forgetful, being bound by the bonds of the flesh.”

3. Salvation through Knowledge

In Gnosticism, salvation is achieved not through faith or works but through acquiring divine knowledge (gnosis). This knowledge allows the individual to awaken from the illusions of the material world and recognize their true spiritual essence. According to Gnostic teachings, the physical world is seen as a flawed creation, a trap that binds the divine spark within each person. Only through deep, mystical understanding can one transcend the limitations of the material and reunite with the divine source.

As the Gospel of Thomas suggests, “He who will drink from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him.” This hidden knowledge reveals the truth of our existence—that we are, at our core, divine beings obscured by ignorance and the material world. Salvation, therefore, is not something external, but a process of inner awakening, of remembering our divine origin and escaping the bonds of ignorance.

The Gospel of Thomas: “If they say to you, ‘Where did you come from?’ say to them, ‘We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image.'”

4. The Role of Christ

For Gnostics, Jesus wasn’t primarily a Savior who atones for sin, but rather a divine representative who brought this hidden knowledge (gnosis) to humanity. They saw Jesus more as a spiritual force of esoteric wisdom than as a physical Savior who died for the sins of the world. His physical death and resurrection? Not as important and symbolic – he may not have even been physical, according to them. What mattered was His spiritual message.

The Gospel of Thomas (Gnostic Text):
“Jesus said, ‘If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.'”

American Evangelicalism’s Hidden Gnosticism

In today’s evangelical world, we see a form of dualism at work, even though it’s not always acknowledged. There’s an unspoken division between “spiritual” and “real-world” activities. The spiritual things—going to church, reading the Bible, doctrine, voting, prayer, worshiping, tithing—are the “upper story,” the things that “really” matter. Everything else—work, leisure, Mondays, sex, TV—lives in the “lower story,” which is seen as less important or even irrelevant to the spiritual journey.

We can see it in how we think of “ministry” as a “higher” calling. It is and it isn’t. Ministers, as we use the word now, are held to higher standards because of the words they speak and the way they lead people. “Ministry,” however, is not meant to be done “in” church – it’s meant to be done by the church in life (Ephesians 4:11-12). In the world at large, this same division can be applied to our political divides. This bifurcation is far from an Evangelical thing – every addict has it too. It’s part of the temptation we all have – to deny reality while justifying ourselves. The categories and what’s in them change while the upper and lower story structure remains the same.

This mindset has always been passed down in human history at no fault of ourselves. We simply assume it and perpetuate it. Francis Schaeffer, in his famous “trilogy,” described this upper-lower story dynamic in stark terms. He said, “The tragedy of our situation today is that men and women are being fundamentally affected by the ideas which have infiltrated the thought forms of our generation, even though they may not be aware of it.” This is how a whole group of people, whether ancient Jews, Pharisees, modern Evangelicals, or society at large can miss something and even massacre an ethnicity while feeling justified under their divine banner.

Schaeffer, a prominent Christian theologian and philosopher, proposed a dichotomy in modern Western thought that he referred to as the “upper story” and “lower story.” This dichotomy explains how modern culture tends to divide reality into two separate spheres: the sacred (upper story) and the secular (lower story). He critiqued this division as leading to a fragmented understanding of truth, where spiritual and moral truths are separated from facts about the material world. This same dichotomy Dallas Willard got a hold of and tore it apart (The Divine Conspiracy). He said, “The greatest issue facing the world today is whether Christians will become disciples of Jesus Christ and learn how to live the life of the Kingdom of Heaven.”

This mindset creates an unhealthy division between what we believe and how we live. Evangelicals, like the Gnostics, often focus on “spiritual” knowledge as the key to salvation. That “knowledge?” Trusting in doctrinal concepts and being loyal to a church body that has the Bible right, as if we even understand that. It’s “all about a personal relationship with Jesus” while clearly not being so. It’s Gnosticism with an emphasis on the divinity of Jesus. Perhaps we think we’re doing Jesus a favor and throwing Him “praise” but I wonder what His view of all this is. Whether it’s memorizing Bible verses, worship songs, devotional books, Christian music, attending church, or adhering to specific doctrines, the focus is often on getting some ambiguous knowledge right rather than transforming our earthly lives. Meanwhile, the “real world” is left to its own devices, unredeemed and unexplored.

A Gnostic/Evangelical Comparison

This brings us to the striking similarities between ancient Gnosticism and modern American Evangelicalism. I’ve spent over 20 years observing Evangelicalism firsthand, preaching it, and leading others to Christ: it has more in common with Gnosticism than it can admit right now. The following table is not meant to be dead on but rather convey enough of the gist to get the point across – let’s see if it works:

Kings & Pharisees of Today

Jesus was dealing with this kind of thinking in His time. In His dealing with them, He dismantled the masks and insecurities propping them up. The Pharisees of His day were obsessed with outward religious rituals while neglecting the “weightier matters” of justice, mercy, and love. Back then, every king was a divinely appointed figure to maintain order at God’s mercy, then a pope, and eventually we’re here. They assumed salvation would come politically and societally much like we do. They assumed that because they followed the religious law to the letter, they were righteous, and the problems of the nation must have been caused by the “sinners” around them. It’s an “us” vs. “them” mentality – something more kin to sin than premarital sex is. Does anything sound familiar?

In many ways, modern Evangelicalism has done the same. What’s different is that they emphasize the divinity of Jesus while neglecting His humanity and have had 1000 years of theologizing. By focusing on the right beliefs and social behaviors, they’ve created a system where faith is more about conforming than about embodying the love and ministry of Christ. It’s not difficult to see how this mirrors Gnosticism’s focus on secret knowledge as the path to salvation. Well, maybe for those with eyes to see it.

Dallas Willard once said, “We don’t believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true.” How we act is like the world is bad – Gnosticism again. We approach the biblical Gospel from our insecurities and not our freedom. As Dallas Willard also pointed out, it’s upside down. Just as in Genesis 3, we weren’t content with the fruit of the Tree of Life given to us in Christ. Like Gnostics, we ignore the life, creation, and reality before us because we think there’s a different reality God is more preoccupied with.

A Theology of Escape

Another parallel between modern Evangelicalism and Gnosticism is the emphasis on escaping this world. Many Evangelicals believe that the material world is ultimately destined for destruction, and the goal is to leave it behind and ascend to heaven. Salvation is reserved for after death, not today in this world (2 Corinthians 6:2). This is Gnosticism 101: the physical world is corrupt and the spiritual matters. We’ve redefined terms like “flesh” and “sin” to mean close-but-not-quite things to maintain our comfortable theological systems. We’ve blinded ourselves from our own sins so we can help others with theirs.

This isn’t the Gospel Jesus preached. The Gospel isn’t about escaping the world—it’s about redeeming it. As Paul says in Romans 8, all of creation is groaning, waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. The material world matters because God made it, you, everyone, and has never stopped redeeming it. Jesus wanted salvation for people right then and there – not for 2000 years of us to still be scratching our heads waiting for His impending coming. Faith may be understood looking backward, but it is only lived forward in the questions and possibilities of God’s reality, not ours. We are not God but boy do we think we know Him and can tell others how to, ignoring John’s retort about loving people and knowing God being essentially the same (1 John 4:20-21).

The Challenge Before Us

If there’s one thing I hope we take away from this discussion, it’s that the lines between Gnosticism and modern Evangelicalism are blurrier than we’d like to think. The good news is that we don’t have to stay stuck in this dualistic mindset. Jesus offers a better way: a fully integrated life where heaven and earth are united, where faith isn’t just about what we believe but about how we live.

I’m almost 40 now, and the faith people encouraged me to get right when I was entering my first rehab is not what anyone expected. Looking back and reflecting on all these years, from my upbringing through bible college and churches to now, it’s clear to me that Evangelicals have absorbed more Gnostic ideas than they realize. One of the main differences, and why they assume they aren’t Gnostics, is their “belief” in the divinity of Christ. The early Church debated that, and today we’re stuck in our views. Today it is only about Jesus’ divinity while His humanity gets a respectable hat tilt.

The American church, reacting to science and modern advancements, entrenched itself in theological premises that emphasized Christ’s divinity so much that it overshadowed His humanity. But Jesus was fully human and fully divine. We’ve considered plenty of what it meant that he was divine. What of his humanity? We need a faith that reflects that truth, a one-story faith that sees all of life—spiritual and material—as sacred. Perhaps then we can have love also as the central “doctrine” we all adhere to above all else.

The uncomfortable truth is that the Evangelical Church has not been working. Over the last 20 years, the number of Americans who identify as white evangelical Protestants has fallen from 33% in 1999 to 21 percent in 2021. This means its children are leaving, a problem I was taught about in Bible college 20 years ago. The faith of parents isn’t working – I’m talking to us parents as a former youth pastor now with kids who have my baggage. I’m suggesting it’s an issue worth your honorable Berean consideration, but I feel that way about much of the content on Drunk Pastor.

The people in the Church and the world are going through an identity crisis. We’re blaming outside circumstances and situations. That’s never been the problem and it’s time for us to grow up in our faith. Bluntly, my former faith blames people for not agreeing with its beliefs and creates drama so it can feel justified. It’s holding on to its assumptions and demanding its rights. It sounds a lot like an alcoholic I used to know.

There’s hope, though, and I’m ridiculously optimistic about what’s coming. Today, we’re aware of it finally. The masks are falling and centuries-long assumptions crumbling. It’s a great time to be alive. We can do better and hand it off to our kids with our full faith and permission for them to do with as they want. My kids, or at least their kids, need not be stuck with our past narratives and baggage. We don’t need to swing the pendulum back to another extreme; we just need to learn from history, understand our past, and pursue a more integrated and holistic faith, a real one. This requires rigorous self-honesty. We do not have to be stuck in a cycle forever. We just need to get over ourselves and let Jesus defend himself. What is it to us? We just follow Him.