Many religions depart from their best spiritual insights the minute they decide they need to get organized. In the Christian case, there was a lot of emphasis in the Gospel of Thomas on the individual nature as offspring of God which was completely dropped out of the teachings of the Church once it got organized.

An expert on NPR said the other day that although the rationale for this cutting is not really known, it would seem to be that they needed more emphasis on the kinds of lessons that made people manageable, rather than self-determined, for the sake of getting the church to grow. Obviously an organizationally successful decision, but arguably a less spiritual one. And the Christian church is not the only one to suffer this strange transformation when organizing, I believe.

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