Dr. Jay Forrest

Since Gnostic Christians are not Fundamentalists, they do not believe what the Roman Catholic Church or the Conservative Protestant Churches believe. For example, Gnostics would not accept the infallibility or inerrancy of Scripture. Nor do Gnostic Christians usually take the Nicene Creed literally. As you can imagine, this makes finding a church home difficult, especially when accepting a Creed is required. For example, Gnostics would not accept the infallibility or inerrancy of Scripture. Some Gnostics do not go to church. As Willis Barnstone noted, “The Gnostic can go it alone, without clergy.” They simply practice their spirituality by themselves like the Desert Fathers and Mothers. Others just gather with friends in their home. Others Gnostics are looking for community. For those, I offer three possibilities. These are churches where you could be a Gnostic and be a member. I have been a member of all of these churches, except the Quakers. Definitely my loss. I have list...

Eschatology deals with the last things. This includes such things as the second coming, the millennial reign of Christ, and the end of the heaven and Earth. Individualized eschatology says that the second coming is not an event in the future, but the end of each individual person’s life. Jesus Christ comes for that person on their deathbed. That is the second coming of Christ. Many will argue against this viewpoint, saying that that’s not the natural reading of the scriptures. I will agree, but that is an allegorical reading of those same scriptures. Think of it this way, when I die is when I will be with the Lord. As Paul. The apostle said, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. That means that the second coming of Christ for me takes place at my death. Individualized eschatology solves a lot of the problems and difficulties that the church has had over the years. Everybody is always trying to predict when the second coming will take place. I predict it ...

This may seem strange to people who have followed my blog. I am a big fan of minimalism, so why would I advise people not to become minimalists? The answer is simple. Minimalism is a great tool, but a poor identity. A minimalist is simply a person with few things. Not much to get excited about, not much substance. Flourishing should be the goal, not minimalism. Minimalism is a tool to help eliminate the obstacles to flourishing, but minimalism is not the goal. Confusing the tool with the destination is not wise. Furthermore, becoming identified with a tool will result in being measured by the tool. For example, some people will claim because I have over 30 books that I am not a minimalist. But since I never claimed to be a minimalist, the criticism is hollow. My goal is not to have fewer things, my goal is to make sure things support my personal flourishing rather than hinder it. We own things, but we need to make sure that things don’t own us. Nonattachment is the key, and that has mo...

Wisdom has two eyes, in order to see reality truly as it really is. One eye is humility, the second eye is benevolence. By benevolence I mean volitional love. This is, willing the highest good of another without selfish intent. Wisdom must see with humility in order for self not to blind it. Wisdom must see with benevolence in order that ill-will may not blind it Humility and benevolence, these are the secret ways that wisdom sees through the illusions of self and conflict and gazes upon the true nature of things. If you are to see with wisdom, you must seek to see with humility and love with unselfishness. These are the ways of wisdom, the path to the true.

Socrates was a Greek philosopher who lived in Athens, Greece from 470 BCE to 399 BCE. Although not the first philosopher, he is credited as being the founder of Western philosophy and the first moral philosopher. Since he is the ideal of what a philosopher is, I thought it would be interesting if we followed Socrates’ example today. What would happen if we lived like Socrates? Well, firstly, we would not get a degree in philosophy. Socrates did not go to a University, rather he learned his father’s trade and became a stone worker. He was tutored in reading and writing. He served in the military and served in three campaigns. And after his father passed, he inherited part of his father’s estate. With the idle time, he started hanging out with some friends and started asking citizens of Athens questions to see if they were wise. He would pop their intellectual ego by showing they were unwise. Eventually, this would contribute to his trial and death sentence. Socrates was notoriously ugly...

“If a person is really involved in a religion and really building his life on it, he better stay with [it]…. You can keep an old tradition going only by renewing it in terms of current circumstances…. When the world changes, then the religion has to be transformed.” – Joseph Campbell Many are leaving Christianity because it is no longer meeting their needs. They see it as out of date and out of touch. The overwhelming evil in the world doesn’t make sense if there is an all good and all powerful being in charge. Gnostic Christians deny that God is in charge. Rather, Satan is “the god of this world” (2 Cor 4:4). The good God entrusted Adam with dominion over the earth, and he surrendered it to the devil. In this and many other ways, Gnostic Christianity improves on Catholic Christianity. As more and more of the Bible is questioned as to its historical accuracy, Gnostic Christians have always maintained that it is primary myths, metaphors, an...

How do you relate the Bible and the Valentinian writings in the Nag Hammadi Scriptures? First, what authority do the Valentinian writings have? Second, what authority does the Bible have? Third, how do the Nag Hammadi Scriptures and the Bible relate to one another? These are difficult questions and little consensus among Gnostic Christians. But more importantly, this has to be answered before we can even talk about beliefs. Unfortunately, there is a lot of ungrounded talk under the banner of Gnosticism. Most talk past one another. Everything strange and weird is found under the banner of Gnosticism. That is why these three questions have to be answered for the conversation can even begin.

How do you know that what you believe is true? That is the question known as epistemology or the “theory of knowledge.” I don’t think we can know very much for certain. We have to give up that search. But I do think we can discover how probable a claim to truth is. I will make a complex issue simple. You can tell whether a claim is probably true by applying the three C’s: correspondence, consistency, and consequences. Truth is the correspondence of a claim with reality. If what you claim matches reality then what you claim is true. If your claim doesn’t match reality then it is false. The important question is how do you tell whether or not your belief matches reality? By the objective and verifiable evidence for or against the belief. So the correspondence is mostly about a belief matching the available evidence. The next test of truth is the consistency of the belief with one’s whole worldview. Contraction is a sign that something is wrong, either the belief is false or part of one’s...

Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here” (John 18:36). When Church and State join forces you know that bad things are about to happen. This is not theory, this is history. When the Roman Empire made Catholic Christianity the religion of the state, soon after the persecutions followed. When Jesus was offered by the devil “all the Kingdoms of the world,” he refused (Matt 4). Now the Church in the United States is being made the same offer. Unfortunately, it is Boeing the knee to glory and power to a kingdom that belongs to this world. Jesus said, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.” Then why do some Christian want to create a kingdom on earth? This is against the wishes of Christ. And so we now have Christians who are willing to “fight” and kill for God. The sad part is th...

I am in pursuit of wisdom, because wisdom leads to flourishing, and flourishing leads to serenity. But what is wisdom? I don’t think we really know for sure. I have tried a number of times to define it, so here goes another attempt. Wisdom is the overall perspective from which one sees the true nature of reality and thus correctly interprets humanity’s relation to it. Many people mistake a set of virtues for wisdom. Prudence, for example, seems like a part of wisdom. But so does justice, courage, moderation, and humility. I think wisdom is the garden, while the virtues are the fruits. The virtues, like fruits, show evidence of the health of the garden, that is wisdom. But the fruits are not the garden, and the virtues are not wisdom. You cannot separate them, but you can distinguish them. So the question is, if you take away the virtues, what is wisdom? It is the overall perspective from which one sees the true nature of reality and thus correctly interprets humanity’s relation to it. ...

Gnostic Christianity began as one of many kinds of Christianity. It followed the teachings of the apostles Paul, Thomas, and John. Unfortunately, the organized institutional Church joined up with the imperial Roman Empire and decided that only one form of Christianity would be tolerated. Therefore, gnostic Christianity became a persecuted group, and eventually died out or merged with the Catholic Church. But Christians are beginning to stir. They’re beginning to wonder if a great mistake was made by marrying church and state. And the resulting Christianity has tried to control the hearts and minds of the entire world. It’s in the midst of this inner questioning, that gng Gnostic Christianity is beginning to have a revival. That is not a bad thing, that’s a good thing. Is not a heresy, it is a better way of being Christian.

“I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “Unless you are reborn, you can’t experience God’s kingdom.” – Jesus Christ (John 3:3 FBV) In Buddhism, people are reborn into five realms. There is the earthly realm, the animal realm, the ghost realm, the hell realm, or the heavenly realm. Each transition is a rebirth. When you die, you are reborn into another bodily manifestation. So Jesus makes perfect sense to a Buddhist. In order to go to heaven, you have to be reborn into a heavenly body. Even the Apostle Paul realized that our body “is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:44). That is, in order to go to heaven you have to have the right kind of body. Physical bodies don’t go to heaven, only spiritual bodies do. As Paul Said, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 15:50). The problem is that even a heavenly existence is temporary. It is still part of an existence that is impermanent, defective, and without an independent entity....

I am a student of Gnosticism because I am a specialist in Christian mysticism. The Gnostics were among the first mystics. This is important to remember, because later mystics had to distance themselves from the Gnostics in order to survive. And even now, telling you their secret, could cast the heresy label on them. But the Gnostics were not heretics, they were lovers of God and seekers of union with God. It was the institutional church that went astray seeking power and control through their union with the Roman government. They rendered to Caesar what was God’s. Or you can see it as a repeat of Israel’s reject of God as their King and the election of a human King (1 Sam 8:7-8). The Roman Church replaced Jesus Christ as the Head of the Church with a human Pope as the Head of the Church (Eph 5:23). But there are a bunch of different groups calling themselves Gnostic, and many varied beliefs. And modern scholarship is still confused about the whole subject of Gnostics and Gno...

I am afraid that any guidance I give you here will be misunderstood unless I first define what I mean by a philosopher. There are at least two kinds of people that are called philosophers, the academic professor of philosophy and the lover of wisdom. To be honest, it is only recently that lovers of wisdom are again being called philosophers. I am not sure all the academics are happy about this. But it is not like most academic philosophers were pursuing wisdom anyway. They weren’t. The fact is that in the hands of academics philosophy has become irrelevant, boring, and neglected. There was a time when philosophy was a way of life, a heroic quest for wisdom, and the doorway to the good life. Now that the pursuers of wisdom are reclaiming their title of philosopher, some are stepping forward to put barriers between the lover and the beloved. In answering the question “How to Become a Philosopher”, one University answers, “Going to an accredited university to earn your BA in philosophy is...

It is interesting, in fact, fascinating, that those who are interested in Gnosticism tend to speculate all over the place. They bring in occult ideas such as alchemy, Kabbalah, and astrology. But their interests and mine are different. I’m in a quest to discover the historic Christianity. I want to understand the early Christian background, so that I know what Christianity was like in the first and second centuries. And from that Christianity, draw out the best version of Christianity to confront the modern world. I’m calling that version of Christianity, “Gnostic Christianity.” Because the only type of Christianity that can survive the modern era, is one that embraces myth and science, but doesn’t confuse them The context of early Christianity is Judaism, the Essenes, Greco-Roman philosophy, and the Mystery Religions. Religions. These are the areas of study that I’m interested in and that have relevance to the formation of early Christianity.

You can certainly leave Christianity but it does not leave you. Your liberation from it is delusion. Christ is the way. You can certainly run away, but then you are no longer on the way. – Carl Jung (Red Book) Christianity is the foundational myth of Western civilization. Myth is what provides context and perspective to our lives. They create the interpretation of consensus reality we live in. Christianity is the myth we are given. The Bible is, with its many myths, the foundational document of western civilization. “For a while,” notes one psychologist, “literally, there was only one book and that book was the Bible.” But the Bible and its story formed the lexicon out of which all others books emerged. The Bible was the fundamental text, for upon it most other texts were dependent. The psychologist cited the work of William Shakespeare as one of several “texts that influenced more other texts” before identifying the Bible as the ultimate source of all “lin...

Abortion is a tough subject to address, with a lot of disagreement. I believe that the Episcopal Church has taken the wisest position on the subject. I agree with them when they state the following: All human life is sacred from its inception until death. The Church takes seriously its obligation to help form the consciences of its members concerning this sacredness. Human life, therefore, should be initiated only advisedly and in full accord with this understanding of the power to conceive and give birth which is bestowed by God. It is the responsibility of our congregations to assist their members in becoming informed concerning the spiritual and physiological aspects of sex and sexuality. The Book of Common Prayer affirms that “the birth of a child is a joyous and solemn occasion in the life of a family. It is also an occasion for rejoicing in the Christian community” (p. 440). As Christians we also affirm responsible family planning. We regard all abortion as having a tr...

I find I have a malady of the mind. Call it regret or a desire for a do-over. Here are the symptoms. I realize that my choices have limited my options and I think, I should have done such and such. If I knew then what I know now, I would have done such and such. Then I could have done such and such. Sometimes there is regret, sometimes it is just a wish to do things differently. But the could of, would of, should of scenarios play on and on. I know, as the Stoics would point out, the past is not under my control. And if it is not under my control, drop it. Let it go. These could of, would of, should of scenarios are a waste of time. As I write this, I wonder if this is where belief in reincarnation gets some of its support. It would be nice to redo my life and correct my mistakes. I have made more than my share. Many of my mistakes have hurt other people. How can I not have regrets? But the Stoics are right, of course. I can’t undo the past by running improvement scenarios in my head. ...