Confessing Evangelical

In the comments to my post on Gnosticism, Larry describes how Tori Amos has become the latest of many to embrace the notion that Gnosticism represents a more woman-friendly religion than creedal Christianity (apparently Amos "was particularly intrigued by the notion that Jesus' teachings had been edited down to favor the church fathers over the church mothers, diminishing the role of women and almost writing Mary Magdalene out of the story altogether").

Amos (and anyone else labouring under the delusion that Gnosticism was more friendly to women than Christianity) would do well to read Gavin White's chapter on Gnosticism that I quoted in that previous post. One section I didn't quote at the time deals with the belief that Gnosticism "had a respect for the feminine which was lacking in orthodox Christianity". But, as White writes:

...even some of those who promote this view agree that in Gnostic documents the male is to the female as the divine is to the human. And if the argument rests on the feminine names of certain Gnostic deities, we should look at the part they played in the Gnostic scheme of things.

For many of these gods, we know nothing other than their name, but one about whom we know quite a bit is "Sophia" (the Greek name for Wisdom):

And in Gnostic thought she was the one who yearned to see the Father, and her desire having become detached it became Sophia Achemoth who was expelled from heaven and led to the formation of the world.

This is not very different from the myth of Adam and Eve in blaming it all on a woman [Ahem. Up to a point, Lord Copper], and we are left with the conclusion that any religion of the day took it for granted that women were inferior or cursed, and worked this into their system by an appropriate myth. The Gnostics were no exception.

Setting aside the question as to whether this is a fair representation of Genesis 3 and of how it functioned in the early church, White does make a very good point when he goes on to say:

But there is a difference between Christianity and Gnosticism here, in that Christianity seems to have mistakenly soaked up a lot of the hostility to sex and hostility to women which were common in that era, while Gnosticism seems to have made that hostility basic to its system.

As White concludes:

As in so many other respects, Gnosticism which rejected the world was actually closer to the teachings of the world than Christianity.

And ain't that always the way?