No More Creeds: How the Gnostic Gospels Are Transforming Christianity

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...since the fourth century, most churches have required those who would join to profess a complex set of beliefs about God and Jesus--beliefs formulated by fourth-century bishops into the ancient Christian creeds. Some, of course, have no difficulty doing so. Many others, myself included, have had to reflect on what the creeds mean, as well as on what we believe (what does it mean to say that Jesus is the "only son of God, eternally begotten of the Father," or that "we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church?"). I can recognize how these creeds came to be part of tradition, and can appreciate how Constantine, the first Christian emperor, became convinced that making-and enforcing-such creeds helped to unify and standardize rival groups and leaders during the turmoil of the fourth century. Yet how do such demands for belief look today, in light of what we now know about the origins of the Christian movement?

For nearly three hundred years before these creeds were written, diverse Christian groups had welcomed newcomers in various ways. ...The astonishing discovery of the gnostic gospels-a cache of ancient secret gospels and other revelations attributed to Jesus and his disciples-has revealed a much wider range of Christian groups than we had ever know before. Although later denounced by certain leaders as "heretics," many of these Christians saw themselves as not so much

as

, people who "seek for God."

The Church of the Heavenly Rest helped me to realize much that I love about religious tradition, and Christianity in particular--including how powerfully these may affect us, and perhaps even transform us. At the same time, I was also exploring in my academic work the history of Christianity in the light of the Nag Hammadi discoveries, and this research helped clarify what I cannot love: the tendency to identify Christianity with a single, authorized set of beliefs--however these actually vary from church to church--coupled with the conviction that Christian belief alone offers access to God.

Now that scholars have begun to place the sources discovered at Nag Hammadi, like newly discovered pieces of a complex puzzle, next to what we have long known from tradition, we find that these remarkable texts, only now becoming widely available, are transforming what we know as Christianity.