<p>Mini–I won’t pretend to be an expert on Thomasine or other gnostic type churches. i’m sure they work for lots of people. For me, from what I have meagerly read, they seem to fall into the category of “what can i get out of it?” religion–with emphasis on secret knowledge, enlightenment, etc. I’ll be an equal opportunity offender by saying I am seriously turned off by the “Jesus saves” version of Christianity. In both cases, it seems to be all about me.</p>
<p>I think that the more religion gets into mysteries, secret knowledge,and “salvation”, the less it has anything to do with Jesus’ radical call to act–the rest seems like navel-gazing to me. So gospels like St. Thomas seem to get away from the central call to do good. Thus, secret knowledge about what really happened that the “inner circle” knows, and the rest of the world is ignorant of, just doesn’t resonate for me. I’m sure that’s my failing, but there it is. </p>
<p>So I’d love to accompany you and that trip, but I don’t know that I’d get the same messages out of it.</p>