did the christian church sell out judas and give him the undeserved reputation of a monster?
did jesus go to the cross because judas betrayed him or because jesus told him to betray him?
what does the gospel of judas have to say about this?
dr. gordon heath lead a packed immersion through such questions. we talked about the conflict within the scholarly world about whether or not the gospel of judas even portrays judas in the positive light that the national geographic special claims it does. we talked about the difference between gnosticism and christianity and how some claim that christianity simply was the 'lucky winner' of the debate and that is why it is more popular than gnosticism.
dr heath talked about the beliefs held by some of this ancient sect and how it would impact our learning of god. we learned that were we to accept the teachings of the ancient gnostics we would throw out the idea of the trinity, the old testament, jesus' death on the cross, the resurrection and, effectively, everything we attach to the work of salvation accomplished by jesus. we could no longer see yahweh [ our god] as powerful and the 'real' god would never interact with us because matter [what we see, touch, smell etc.] is evil and too far removed from the spirit of god. our incarnate god would never contaminate himself by engaging with sinful humanity. god would be untouchable.
it was a powerful night full of discussion, debate and learning. next week gord concludes his two-week stay with us and we are going to dedicate more time to discussion because people did not want to leave but wanted to keep on talking [or listening]. hey, immersion is nothing if not community run so we look forward to even more engagement in the upcoming service.
c'mon out if you've got the time!
No comments:
Post a Comment