The New Age Movement and the Culture War--vanity

This is my attempt to pinpoint some of the problems of our culture by focusing on a religion that has become popular, especially in the cultural centers of our country, and alerting good Christians of all denominations of what we are up against.

The New Age movement can actually be best understood as a broad spectrum of non-Christian philosophies and practices that can be categorized as New Age Spiritual Humanism. The cornerstone of this humanism is the belief that man is divine in nature, and therefore essentially 'God' or an enlightened 'God-Man.' New age man, believing himself to be divinely perfect and ultimately all-powerful, sets himself up on a cosmic throne. Man becomes his own deity.

Just as secular humanism offers its own type of anti-religious deceits to certain types of people, so does spiritual humanism offer spiritually based counterfeits to an entirely different strata of people in our society, people who hunger for and search for spiritual meaning, truth and fulfillment in their lives.

The following are excerpts from a book by the now deceased Randall Baer entitled "Inside the New Age Nightmare," who at one time was a leader in the New Age movement before converting to Christianity.

"The New Age is an extremely difficult movement to define with any anything other than general statements. There are no centralized organizations controlling doctrines, activities, or agendas. No single committee, council or organization dictates doctrine or agenda. This has allowed room for an immense variety of philosophies to flourish via all manner of diverse individuals and organizations."

"The New Age movement has so many faces and directions to its overall agenda that it has infiltrated into every facet of American society in both obvious and very subtle underlying ways. From religion, business, and politics, to music, education and science, the new age has wormed its way into the fabric of western civilization--more so than people realize."

"There's a basic credo that says 'create your own reality according to what feels right for you.' For example, whether a person chooses to be homosexual, bisexual, monogamous, polygamous, or whatever, is OK as long as 'It's right for me' or "It's done with love and no one is hurt." It's all relativistic."

"There are two overlapping but different major schools of New Age thought: the first viewpoint is known as the consciousness renaissance, which sees mankind currently experiencing the beginning of a new spiritual and sociopolitical awakening, a modern day super renaissance destined to lead man into a new era of enlightened spiritual humanism. This perspective sees the awakening of 'unlimited human-god potential' as the means by which heaven on earth will become manifest. In essence, as man achieves higher states of god-consciousness through new age practices, heaven will dawn on earth..but only through the dawning of man's enlightened higher consciousness." [True psychobabble at its finest.]

"The second major branch of New Age thought is termed 'Quantum Leap of Consciousness.' This says we are on the brink of a new age, a whole new world. In the *twinkling* of an eye, mankind's awareness, our collective consciousness, is going to make an instantaneous quantum leap into the heavens. Everything will change in a flash of divine light. Get ready...your heavenly heritage awaits you."

"When sufficient momentum is generated by enough people having developed 'higher consciousness' then the entire world will be ready to make a collective quantum leap into a higher dimension of heavenly realm. This quantum leap of consciousness model is directly tied to some form of divine intervention. Furthermore, this school of thought maintains that some other world teacher or council of ascended masters will have divine authority...not Christ."

"Another variation of this skewed theme is that it is not the personal and visible Jesus who returns, but rather Christ consciousness that descends into the minds of all earthly inhabitants. Some new age fundamentalists do predict that a literal apocalypse is imminent and that it will be brought about by mystical, extraterrestrial, or cosmic sources."

"The Quantum Leap of Consciousness viewpoint is much more predisposed to the metaphysical-occult end of the spectrum. In particular, the predominant themes lie much towards spiritism, witchcraft, psychic powers, sorceries in a myriad of forms. Channeling, crystal power, contacting your "higher self," going to geographical vortexes, goddess worship, world peace meditations, self-empowerment seminars, interpersonal development and sex workshops, and telepathically contacting UFOs." [hello heaven's gate!]

From what I have read on the subject, some New Age literature will show that some New Agers sanction the persecution of Christians. They do so on the basis of the need to remove those who refuse to accept or attempt a spiritual uniting of humanity. In their opinion, dissenting voices must either be converted, silenced or removed. That, of course, is the rub--the new age of luuuuv and harmony may have to be repressive for a time to usher in their version of peace on earth.

In effect New Age religion is just another revival of the same old remanufactured lie told to Adam and Eve in the garden--that man is at the center of the universe--man as deity.

Good post. Nice comments.

I would add that one of the distinguishing aspects of New Age religion or spirituality is, as you said, the concept that each person is, or has god living within them; but in order to "let god out," one must go through certain methods or disciplines. For example: meditation techniques; use of certain "tools" like crystals; and so forth.

I mention this reliance upon "methodology" because this feature has crept into the Christian churches as well: if only we do this or that, God will manifest Himself to us in a fuller way. It becomes a reliance upon human-implemented methods which promise deeper "spirituality."

The thing which distinguishes Christianity from the rest of the world's religion -- be they New Age, or cultic (such as JW, Mormons), or other religions such as Hinduism or Islam -- is that the world's religions are based on works and human effort, while Christianity is based on grace -- what God has done, and continues to do on our behalf.

Thanks for posting your comments. I have been doing some reading on geographical vortexes...or what some call power spots. What else can this stuff be called other than occult or demonic? Hard to believe so many people are so lost that they believe such garbage--but apparently there are more than I realized.

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