Oh no, not another Gnostic Gospel!!

I see from The Times (of London) this morning that another Gnostic gospel has come to light, accompanied by the typical calls for orthodoxyto be abandoned in favour of some Gnostic gobbledigook.  I paste in the full article below:

New Gospel Shakes Church to Foundations, by Rupert Hacksaw-Pimms.

The scholarly world was in turmoil last night when it was revealed that yet another early gospel had been discovered among a cache of papyri. Experts are already calling this the most exciting find since Nah Hammadi. The fragmentary gospel appears to give an account of the life of an unnamed messiah figure in the first century and is written by one St James of Steinman. Scholars have dubbed the work `The Meatloaf Gospel.’

Well-known expert on the apocryphal New Testament, Elaine Paycheck could scarcely contain her excitement when contacted by a reporter from The Times: `This discovery is earth-shattering, and highlights once again the heterogeneous nature of first-century Christian belief. For example, the church has claimed that belief in a heaven `up there’ was basic from the very start of Jesus’ ministry; but the messiah in the Meatloaf Gospel makes it clear that paradise is “by the dashboard light.” Further, while evangelicals have always thought purgatory was a late patristic development, a more nuanced position is given by the MG where the messiah figure, confronted by a follower who believes only in heaven and hell, indicates that “two out of three ain’t bad,” clearly indicating that belief in purgatory, even at this time, was, if not essential, at least an improvement on evangelical eschatoilogy. In addition, the MG provides evidence of the marginalisation of women in the text history of the gospels: we now know that John’s patriarchal statement that “man cannot live by bread alone” was originally based on the woman-affirming statement in the MG that “ a girl don’t only live by rock’n’rollin’ brew.”

Asked about what should be done about the MG, Dr Paycheck said that `at the very least, the church needs to abandon completely all her theology of the last two-thousand years. And, of course, I need to cash in as soon as possible to avoid being pre-empted by others – you haven’t told Dan Brown yet, have you?’

Renowned Gnostic scholar, Bart D Sihrmpson, believes that the Meatloaf Gospel further confirms his view that orthodoxy was not a given in the early church: `The MG demonstrates once again that the fundamentalist view of only four gospels, those of John, Paul, George and Ringo, with their simple gospel message that all you need is love, is simply untenable. Even with the traditional canon there are clear references to other authoritative writings – see, for example, the teaching of The Letter to Hey Jude. The MG is clearly part of this wider church writing and needs to be set firmly in the context of early gnosticism. There is the typical denigration of the material world in statements such as “life’s a lemon and I want my money back,” a sense of eschatological frustration in “”heaven can wait,” a strangely postmodern view of truth in “I’d lie for you (and that’s the truth),” a downplaying of martyrdom in “I’d do anything for love (but I won’t do that),” and much of the drama plays out against the background of night and darkness, though not, as the church has claimed, in the upper room but rather at “midnight at the lost and found.” Quite simply, the Meatloaf Gospel is a Copernican moment in Western civilization – and can I have my check now, please?’

Conservative reaction was predicatble. Tim `Lefty’ Right, Bishop of Cricklewood, has already written a response, `What Jim Steinman Really Sang,’ and French evangelical leader, Delboi Thomes, declared the Meatloaf Gospel to be `the product of a tiny mind, likely only to be understood by superannuated rockers of a certain age.’ Other renowned evangelical leaders are already planning mega-conferences at various luxury resorts to criticize those such as Paycheck and Sihrmspon for cashing-in on this discovery at the expense of orthodoxy (discounts available for parties of a 100 or more). Still, in a year when the Da Vinci Code rocked Christianity to its core, the discovery of the Meatloaf Gospel can only add to the overall confusion.