Gnosticism & Works Salvation

As a result of my summer reading I've become more and more convinced that the so-called evangelicals in North America really are semi-gnostic and hold to a works salvation. Let me explain.

First off the gnosticism. Most Christians if you asked them what happens when you die they would claim that we go to heaven. I'm not really sure what happens immediately upon death other than we go to be with Jesus. So, technically if Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, and the Father's dwelling place is heaven, then we go to heaven. Yet, most Christians would also assert that our body is just a shell and when we die the real person the soul/spirit goes to heaven. This is false and is not a biblical teaching. The Bible teaches that it is the whole person that is important. So, only a part of us goes to be with the Lord and we wait with our Lord to be reunited with our glorified bodies for the resurrection day. Most Christians are really Platonic in their view of death, i.e. bodies are bad and souls are good.

Second works salvation. Faith is a gift from God. Salvation comes through believing in Jesus Christ. Yet, people often brag about their faith. They will mock theologians claiming that they need more faith. Fair enough, we all need more faith. Yet, if faith is a gift from God (Eph. 2: 8-11) we should never put down others who don't have more of it. Instead we ought to pray for them. Salvation is often seen as something where you need faith to believe. So someone is not saved because they choose not to believe or their faith isn't strong enough. Sounds like faith is the work in this instance. One might say, my faith is stronger than yours, that is why I became a Christian. If we view faith as a gift from God, as we ought to, we would never make this claim. Instead we would be much more humble about the faith that we do have. Instead faith is preached as the medium to achieve salvation and faith is the result of an individual's effort to produce it.