Posted on 03/15/2003 7:02:09 PM PST by vannrox
Why do Christians dismiss New Age practices and beliefs? Despite being a committed Catholic, Cherie Blair has recently been ridiculed for dabbling in relaxation therapy, while the Catholic hierarchy has underlined its opposition to New Age spirituality with a 100-page document urging its flock to resist the lure of cranky, holistic "experimentation". Yet Mrs Blair, a highly-rated QC, is no fool. As a fully signed-up believer, she may presumably be considered capable of making informed decisions about matters of religion, as she does in other areas of her life.
As for the Vatican, its condemnation of alternative therapies and holistic lifestyle choices - which are almost always harmless to others - on the grounds that they are likely to lead innocent souls astray, looks somewhat questionable when set alongside Catholicism's current afflictions of systematic abuse and institutionalised degeneracy.
So often the churches remain stuck fast to rigidities of principle, which have the effect of disengaging them, and the hierarchies that run them, from the vicissitudes of real life. Church people lament the gulf between themselves and the secular lost, but do not seem to know how to bridge it. Those outside the church are there to be prayed for, it seems, but are also damned for their selfishness and attachment to dangerous idols of materialism. With its focus on the self, and its emphasis on lifestyle strategies, the New Age phenomenon presents all too soft a target to the Christian critics. But does holistic practice and belief really deserve this opprobrium? Admittedly, there is a good deal in the self-help industry - the most visible offshoot of people's burgeoning interest in alternative philosophies - that invites critique. There is little preoccupation in lifestyle magazines with much more than ways of making oneself feel better about that crummy job, that disappointing sex life or that widening girth. Such variations as there are on this theme of self-improvement tend towards making the home more attractive through the purchase of goods. Personal wellbeing is thus shamelessly equated with acquisitiveness. So far so bad.
But there is a side to New Age thinking that goes beyond self-interest to the responsible and communal. In such movements as Gaia, and in the followers of earth-based spiritualities like Druidry and modern witchcraft (or Wicca), can be discerned a genuine reverence for creation, encompassing all of life, and celebrating the deep-rooted folk traditions of our ancestors.
In its thoroughgoing concern for community, this belief goes way beyond much Christian theology, which has been too little concerned with ecological custodianship, and too much influenced by the appropriative theology of Genesis.
At New Age events may be found all sorts of spiritual resources that serve to revivify the central iconography of the Christian gospel. When the Burning Man - attended by a motley assortment of hippies, acidheads and eco-warriors - is set alight every Labour Day in the Nevada Black Rock desert, his destruction has obvious parallels to ideas of atonement theology, where sin is taken up and appropriated into God through Christ's self-sacrifice on behalf of humanity. Such an event may be as genuinely inspiring as any church service - and possess considerably greater connectedness to cultural mores and responsible social aspirations as well.
The best kind of religious thinking is by no means confined to Vatican pronouncements. It listens and learns from what it hears and sees. It makes use of certain valuable resources that it encounters along the way. Faith and belief acknowledge the transcendent in the cinema, at the food counter - in the entirety, in fact, of the messy business of living. The New Age rune-casters might have rather more going for them than the cardinals would like us, or Mrs Blair for that matter, to believe.
· Alex Wright is the author of Why Bother With Theology? (2002)
She discovered she had breast cancer and decided to treat it with tea bags. Whatever. It's too bad I can't take out a life insurance policy on her.
If you even have to ask this question means you have not one clue about Jesus or your own religion.
Yes, what I want is a church without principles! That's the ticket!
When the Burning Man - attended by a motley assortment of hippies, acidheads and eco-warriors - is set alight every Labour Day in the Nevada Black Rock desert, his destruction has obvious parallels to ideas of atonement theology, where sin is taken up and appropriated into God through Christ's self-sacrifice on behalf of humanity.
Well, the Black Mass also has elements of atonement theology, I suppose. Personally, I always thought Burning Man was extremely creepy, on the order of Sodom and Gomorrah.
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In my entire life I have yet to find anything that applied the term holistic to itself that wasn't nuts.
Because "New Age" practices and beliefs are rooted in the occult and there is nothing new about them.
This the crux of the problem. It doesn't matter whether a practice is inspiring. It doesn't matter how much good a false religion has in it.
What matters...The only thing that matters... is whether or not a religion is ordained by the Creator and reconciles the creation to the Creator.
A religion that produces super relaxed socially acceptable and responsible citizens that are distanced from their creator is vain, worthless, harmful, deadly on an eternal scale.
I'm reminded of the Jim Jones cult. If you watched the documentary, they preached love and acceptance like crazy. And they took people in warts and all. In a practical sense, they out-Christianed the Christians. And they grew. And then they all committed suicide because their foundation was not the Creator but a charismatic and deranged man. A man who spun a web that was 98% truth, had some excellent practices in it, but that 2% lie was a whopper.
I'm also reminded of Islam. Our public school taught my 6 year old daughter in kindergarden that in Islam people gave to the poor during Ramadan. Giving to the poor is a good practice, who can argue that. However, it doesn't redeem Islam, which teaches it's people to hate the Jews and Christians and not to be friends with them. Moreover, it rejects Jesus which comdemns Islam's followers to hell as they will stand before God and account for their works without the shield of forgiveness.
Some of the practices that New Age does such as relaxation techniques or self improvement or mere practices that the New Age movement has appropriated. Some of these practices are not bad and are in fact good. But other practices within the New Age movement such as Astrology, Spiritism, Witchcraft, etc are horrible terrible sins which the Creator has warned bear very serious consequences. So having some good practices does not redeem the New Age.
On the other hand, the New Age does not make a practice evil simply because they have chosen to incorporate it. Self-help movements were around long before the New Age movement. Similarly, the gays have appropriated the color purple. Does that make the color purple bad? No, The gays have no right to a color that God made, let them make their own color.
Wow. That's really sad.
The only time I've seen a breast cancer patient turn down chemo was a pregnant women. She wouldn't abort. Told me she would die for her child and she did.
If she's not in heaven, I don't know who is.
Imagine that. A church stuck to principle?!? We can't have that now. Everyone has to be one big happy family believing in some sort of deity that has no power, no condemnation for sin, and encourages us to do whatever makes us happy. Hey wait a minute!! That sounds a lot like....
Same ol', same ol'. Repackaged, reformed, and still trying to get Christians not to be so much of a stick in the mud. Thanks, but no thanks Mr. Wright. If you bothered to pick up a Bible (found in one of those churches that sticks to principles), you'd see even less than 100 years after Christ's first visit, the devil was trying to delude Christians with the same message. I'll stick to my ol' time country Southern Baptist church where God's message is taught
I believe the Bible invites the reader to compare the truths held within to the events of their lives and human history. This is one of the greatest strengths of The Word in my humble opinion. As a result it would be very hard for new age mumbo-jumbo to compete with Judeo-Christian principles on their own turf.
That is, unless you simply forsake truth for all the emotional gratification promised by the earth/goddess/wikka/wookie/gaia followers. It is a hollow gratification but is delivered instantly.
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This comment should be enshrined on buildings throughout the country.
That's too bad. I tell you I've seen some pretty bad ones myself. We lived in Asheville NC (Dan Rather called it the new 'New Age Capitol of the World' back in 96 or so) and there were people that caught up on everything from crystals to tones to rubbing all sorts of strange things on oneself as some sort of cure. These 'doctors', especially the ones involved in tone therapy, would sell packages starting at $1000, that guaranteed curing just about anything. And they had a booming business as well. Southern Living magazine back in the mid 80s named it some sort of retreat and the place filled up with old folks from Florida (locals called 'em half-backs) looking for a place to retire. I guess these quacks just followed the money
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