Posted on 12/05/2005 2:12:21 PM PST by emiller
From her longtime political activism to her Oscar-winning acting, Jane Fonda has never done anything halfheartedly, and she brings this characteristic intensity to her faith. When she talks about "feeling the presence of the Almighty," her view of Jesus, and the way she prays, her voice wells from deep within her chest. You may know this voice from her films (among dozens of others: "Barbarella," "Klute," "On Golden Pond," and currently in theaters, "Monster-in-Law"), or from her aerobics videos ("feel the burn!"), or from film reels from the sixties, when she spoke out against the Vietnam War. Fonda, now 67, spoke with us recently about her spirituality.
(Excerpt) Read more at beliefnet.com ...
You will know them by their fruits. (Mt 7:16)
Best Hippie - Cindy S. - anti-war - communist liberal's prayer I've ever heard!!
You just forgot one thing - that these kooks look for: Glory!
"To Mine is the Kingdom and the Power (and all Glory!)."
Here's a review of The Gnostic Gospels which will give everyone an idea of what Jane is now about:
Reviewer: Bill Mydo "Founder of the Bill Mydo Institute (www.BillMydo.org)" (Twin Peaks, WA)< - See all my reviews Gnosticism ain't Christianity folks, in any way, shape, or form - despite Pagels' "scholarly" efforts to make it appear otherwise.
"The Gnostic Gospels," and "Beyond Belief," are Pagels' attempt to come up with a new, more appealing and politically-correct form of Christianity (eg. Gnosticism proclaims "God" is androgynous, or both man and woman, Mary Magdalene is elevated to the status of the first and greatest Apostle and is Jesus' wife and divine consort, Gnostic writings were suppressed by the "Patriarchical" Church, etc.,).
Pagels makes her claim by presenting to us supposedly "discovered" scripture that supports her position and provides an alternative to stodgy, stuffy, conventional Christianity. No mistake, those searching for a brand of "Christianity Light," will find a lot of appeal in her work.
But the fact of the matter is, anyone with even a minimal understanding of ancient history and the world's religions and philosophies will realize how bunk her theories and arguments are. For starters, the main premise of Pagels' case is simply wrong - Gnosticism isn't an "offshoot" of Christianity. This is a fundamental misconception.
Gnosticism goes back centuries BEFORE the Christian era. Perhaps as early as the Fifth Century B.C., a belief system developed in ancient Syria and Persia, that held salvation of the soul could be achieved by attaining a deep, mystic, and divine knowledge (based on the Greek "gnosis," for knowledge).
According to gnostics, humans were divided into a 3-tiered hierarchy. Those that possessed this knowledge, or gnosis, were a superior form of human being whose present and future destiny were not intertwined with those humans that, for whatever reason, did not "know." Those humans too influenced by matter were doomed. And somewhere in between were those who did not yet possess the gnosis, but could yet be saved.
Rather than believe in the good of creation, Gnostics regarded matter and indeed, the whole physical universe to be a defilement of the deity - the god of light/spirit - and taught that the ultimate end would be to overcome matter and be reunited with the parent spirit and realm of light/energy. This would not be achieved by submission to God's laws, or through Grace (God's forgiveness of man's sins) by acceptance of the living Christ - the Son of God and Redeemer.
Rather, the process was completely intuitive and esoteric. Redemption or salvation would occur by awakening the sleeping gnosis (knowledge/wisdom) or "God within" - through deep thoughts, reflection, and meditation - thereby freeing the good spirit imprisoned within the evil, physical body.
Does this sound like Christianity? Hardly. Gnosticism has more in common with the movies "Star Wars" ("The Force") and "The Matrix," than it does Christianity.
Gnostics were the New Agers of their day, and with the founding of the Christian Church and spread of Christianity, they incorporated and appropriated various elements of Christianity into their beliefs. NOT the other way around.
Pagels paints early Christian church fathers who developed the Canon as repressive, threatened control freaks who were bent on creating unthinking, unquestioning dogma. Pagels couldn't be more wrong and misses the point entirely.
With regional and philosophical offshoots and sects of Christianity spiraling out of control during the first several hundred years of Christianity (Gnosticism, Marcionism, Manichaeans, Docetism, Arianism, etc.,), the hand of the early church was forced: it either define itself as a faith and find some common belief system or doctrine that could be agreed on by those that espoused to be "Christians" - or risk dying out, degenerating into a plethora of splintered factions and cults, as numerous other religions and philosophies had done so before and since.
How is this any different than the history of the world's other great philosophies/religions, like Confucianism, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam - the very word itself meaning "submission." If a religion or philosophy doesn't have a unique and defining set of beliefs or doctrine, what is it exactly that its adherents are adhering to? But please don't bring that fact up to Pagels and her Ivory Tower contemporaries. Remember, its only P.C. to bash Christians...
So, over the course of hundreds of years, the Church strove to define itself. In doing so, it determined which beliefs (through decrees and doctrines adopted by Ecumenical Councils like the Nicene Creed) and writings had Authority. Writings that were true Scripture (that is, prophetic or divinely inspired) were deemed Cannonical and those which were not were Apocryphal or Heretical.
Much to the contrary of the Book's title, there was and is nothing "secret" about the "Gospel of Thomas," (the existence of the writings have been known and their contents debated and rejected centuries upon centuries ago). Nor was it ever actually considered a true "Gospel" - that is, Scripture accepted as Canon or authoritative within the Church.
In fact, there are dozens of New Testament books and writings - some of them nothing short of absurd (Google "The Acts of Andrew" for a great example) - that were deemed Apocryphal by the early church. The fact of their existence, in and of itself, does not confirm that some wild, wonderful, secret shortcut to salvation was stamped out by a reactionary, threatened church. Far from it.
In fact, the best reason of all the great majority of New Testament Apocryphal writings were rejected is that, like the so-called Gnostic Gospels, they were composed centuries after the end of the Apostolic age. Therefore, their authorship and authenticity in providing insight on Jesus Christ and the Apostles is at best, questionable. At worst, the documents are complete bunk.
The tenets of Gnosticism - its elitism, its belief that man is co-substantial, or of the same substance as God, and numerous others - are utterly and irreconcilably incompatible with Christianity. Anyone with half a brain can see that and understand why it was deemed so, so many centuries ago.
Translated:
I have had 0 morals my whole life. Drugs, 3ways, etc, etc..... Betrayed my country.
Now I'm getting old. No man wants anything to do with me. Sex was the only thing I had going for me.
The majority of the country will never forgive my actions.
So I'm going to find god so I can try to get into heaven and feel better about myself.
She's not, unless you define "saved" as having a feeling of the divine presence (which is not, of course, a male) as being saved. No thought of or remorse for sin. Nope! Oh...and a great budding love for gnosticism. That's how she's defining it.
I saw the little commie while I was stationed at Ft Bragg in May `70
We had gone to a KFC in Fayetville to pick up a bucket of chicken and she was in there with about 3 or 4 goon bodyguards,she had on Levi`s with holes in the knees.
She was there for a big FTA rally.
For those too young ,the last letter in FTA stood for Army
Also still have a Janis Joplin ticket that she was too wasted to come on stage to do about a month earlier
You appear to be correct, of course.
It is interesting how Gnosticism rears its head every 200 years or so.
Perhaps, but I will be waiting in line with some mighty fine people.
There are many sons (and a few daughters!) of Vietnam vets who will take up any slack in the event of untimely demise.
Unlike the Viet Cong who were loving and showed me all around their country and even showed me weapons that would fire on the evil Americans.
Dear Jane:
Jesus loves you but he likes me more....
Jimmy Carter as a spiritual role model....??????
Amen to that.
Save me a place,I'll bring the beer.
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