What do Harry Potter, the Star Wars series, The Matrix, Masonry, New Age and the Raelian cult, which claims to have cloned the first baby, have in common? Their ideological soil. Identical esoteric ...

The things Neo-Gnostic seekers find lacking in Christianity-experiential insight, mysticism, a direct link to God-are already there I can’t be the only Christian reading Beyond Belief, Elaine Pagels’ ...

Mandaeans, who believe they are descendants of the disciples of John the Baptist, have scattered around the globe, fleeing ...

This week your professor continues a very brief introduction into the early rivals of Christianity. We know of a great many religious cults which existed in ancient times, most of which have vanished ...

The release in 1992 of celebrity literary critic Harold Bloom’s The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation was less than the smashing success that both the author and Simon & ...

There was a time when scholars of early Christianity labored in anonymity at the bottom of academic pecking orders. Then came Princeton professor Elaine Pagels, whose “The Gnostic Gospels” became a ...