Subtitled “The Secret Gospel of Thomas”, Beyond Belief  is a scholarly and at times  passionate attempt to stretch the boundaries of Christianity.

  An award-winning Religious Historian at Princeton, Elaine Pagels begins this work with sharing a personal tragedy: the diagnosis of a terminal lung condition for her two year old son; a son who had already gone through open heart surgery as an infant.

 The experience brought Pagels back to a church group, essentially for the presence: “the presence of a group joined by spiritual power into an extended family.” And this sets the mission of Pagels and of the task of  her book—discovery of answers to questions that should be basic to most Americans: “What is Christianity, and what is religion, and why do so many of us find it so compelling, whether or not we belong to a church, and despite difficulties we may have with particular beliefs or practices? What is it about Christian tradition that we love—and what is it that we cannot love?”

 Pagels shows her expertise with a comprehensive analysis of religious history of the 1st through 4th centuries—“from Christ to Constantine.” Why this period has been of little interest to the American Public—or the world, for that matter—is a bit of a mystery. Fundamental Christians do have a well-developed blinder system that many simply describe as Faith; and the secularists, already rebuffed by irrationality, appear simply not to care.  

But. Christianity is the world’s most practiced religion, with number 2, Islam, also holding revered status for Jesus. This is a huge, perhaps the number one cultural influence on people and their behavior in this world. Isn’t that enough to warrant close examination? Certainly the churches and the religions themselves are not great encouragers of historical analysis.  Most clergy have known of the little publicized data of early Christianity but have been strictly guided as to what is “fit for the pulpit.”

 Pagel’s book would be a great place for many to enter what should be a genuine controversy: Why the gospel of John—essential to the shaping of modern Christianity—should have been chosen over the gospel of Thomas—one of the recently (1945) discovered “Gnostic Gospels” found in Nag Hammadi, Egypt.  Both Gospels were written about the same time, around 100 C.E. Both deviated from existent Christian groups and texts (e.g. the “synoptic gospels” of Mark, Matthew and Luke) and both shifted emphasis from the End of Time (maybe because it hadn’t happened yet) to the beginning of time, connecting Jesus with a primordial light from the beginning of the entire universe.

 Constantine and the early church chose John. Read Pagels and see what you think about that choice.