Rating: 3.0

Gnosticism is one of the leading competitor beliefs to what we know as “orthodox” Christianity in the early days of the church. Gnosticism holds that any follower can experience a gnosis - a personal experience of God / Enlightenment.

This would seem to move Christianity very close to something that is more familiar to the students of Eastern mysticism - and this book makes a convincing argument that this was a viable thread within the early Christian tapestry.

As has been fictionalized in The daVinci Code, various political interests could not abide a sect that encourages the dissolution of central authority from Rome. As such, spiritual beliefs that call into question the holiness, right of the bishop (as a vessel of control) must be snuffed out. It’s a very good introduction but is short on depth — it’s a good start though!

Rating: 3.5

I thought this was an interesting book. I picked it up thinking that it would be a book on the “clash of civilizations” perspective on the West versus Islam (see Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations). Interestingly enough, the thesis was different than I expected.

Thesis: The globalizing marketplace creates conditions which accelerate and abet Jihadism (not strictly Islamist but Nationalist, Segregationlist, pro-Quebequois, etc.). Their interplay is bad for democracy.

What a pleasant surprise! I was expecting something along the lines of The daVinci Code - old artifacts, researching, shadow conspiracies, etc. There was an element of that, but what I thought was special about the book was the way it dealt with the topic of students in their senior year of college.

The students were hard working and intelligent, but they were all questioning against that great mysterious wall of graduation.. I loved the dynamics of 4 guys in a house — the disparate interests united by intelligence and ambition — it really captured the magic of your last semester — well my last semester (and year) anyway