VERITAS
"Engaging the New Age"
By Craig Branch
July - August 2006
In 1969 I was still taking the scenic route through college at an
urban university in Richmond, Virginia. The university was known for
its radical hippie population. The Fifth Dimension had just released
its award-winning gold record, "Age of Aquarius." Its popularity was
due to more than the upbeat melodic voices. The chorus, "This is the
dawning of the Age of Aquarius" symbolized part of a growing movement
in the culture which rebelled against cultural traditions (which was
termed "the establishment"). Since the culture's establishment
religion was Christianity, this growing segment saw alternative forms
of "spirituality" as not only acceptable but preferable. This movement
came to be known as the New Age Movement (NAM).
Many in the NAM used meditation or psychedelic drugs to achieve
mystical states of consciousness. There was a revival of
transcendentalism and attempts to become one with nature. John Denver
promoted his new age message in songs like "Rocky Mountain High." The
star power of the Beatles contributed to NAM's acceptability with
their allegiance to Mahari**** Mahesh Yogi and transcendental
meditation. Beatle George Harrison even endorsed the Hindu cult, Hare
Krishna, in his song "My Sweet Lord."
Even though I was not a Christian and didn't understand worldviews, I
instinctively recognized the NAM's conflict with traditional values,
and the irrationality of these new "spiritualities." Yet, with the
vacuum created by the retreat of the Church from theology, apologetics
and engagement with culture, the New Age Movement in all its
manifestations seduced millions.
After becoming a Christian, evangelism and apologetics became an
im****tant part of my life. And because of the permeating effect of the
NAM, I began to encounter people holding these views, and I noticed
that they were seeking acceptance for their philosophies and practices
in our cultural institutions (e.g., education, business, medicine,
psychology, art, entertainment, politics, s****ts, and even into
churches).
And it was not just non-Christians who bought into these flawed and
reprobate beliefs. Too often Christians are seduced by some of the
more subtle and disguised expressions of the NAM. Scripture warns us
to "see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and
empty deception, according to the traditions of men, according to the
elementary principles of the world rather than according to
Christ" (Col. 2:8). Too many Christians are vulnerable to deception
because of their neglect of Bible study, sound doctrine, apologetics
and worldview knowledge. As the writer of Hebrews admonishes us, one
problem is that many Christians have not been weaned from the milk of
their infancy to digest the solid food that "is for the mature, who
because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and
evil" (read Heb. 5:12-14). This is why we are addressing the NAM in
this issue of Areopagus Journal-to equip our readers to redemptively
engage people and movements in our culture, and to give discernment
for the protection of the Body of Christ.
What Is the New Age Movement?
" New Age Movement" is a general term for a rather large and diverse
body of spiritual philosophies and practices, though it is im****tant
to know that many in the movement no longer prefer or use the term
"New Age" because of its well deserved negative image. Instead one
hears terms like "Eastern Mysticism," "Higher Consciousness Movement,"
"Neo-paganism," and even the "Human Potential Movement." By whatever
name, it is a synthesis in varying degrees of Hinduism, Buddhism,
Gnosticism, the occult, Western materialism and narcissism. More
simply, one could say that it is a marriage of Western materialism and
hedonism with Eastern mysticism.
It is alien and hostile to the Judeo-Christian worldview. At its core,
it is a non-Christian way of understanding the nature of man, the
material and immaterial universe, God, reality, and human living, in
all their intrinsic relation****ps.
The basic postulate of the New Age Movement is that reality consists
of ultimately only one essence (monism). This essence or being has
various names, depending on which group one asks: God, god
consciousness (pantheism), Higher Self, Enlightenment, Brahman
(Hinduism), Nirvana (Buddhism), and even "Christ Consciousness." This
being tends to be defined as an impersonal energy or force.
Distinctions between matter and spirit, God and man, male and female,
creator and creation, good and evil, finite and infinite, are all
illusions (maya). For the New Ager, spiritual progress is achieved by
gaining access to the hidden knowledge (Gnosticism) that we are God,
and that we create our own reality, our own truth.
The origin of the particular expression, "New Age Movement," is
derived from concepts within astrology. Astrologers believe there are
twelve astrological ages based on certain alignments of the Earth's
"vernal equinox" as it moves through constellations (clusters of stars
with imagined shapes). These are the signs of the zodiac. It is
believed that these astrological ages have an evolutionary effect on
mankind. As the Earth's moon affects gravity and the tides, so does
the cosmic energy of the constellations' alignment supposedly affect
man's nature, personality, choices, and actions. Astrologers (and many
new agers believe in astrology) believe we are moving out of the Age
of Pisces and are at the dawn of the Age of Aquarius. They believe
this new age will bring in universal harmony, a oneness of the divine
with creation.
There are hundreds of variations and dimensions of this movement.
Astrology, Goddess wor****p, Eastern Mysticism, Hinduism, Buddhism,
Taoism, Hare Krishna, Transcendental Mediation, Contemplative
(Centering) Prayer, Qi Gong, Yoga, Tai Chi, Feng Shui, Wicca,
Christian Science, Unity School of Christianity, Kabala, and many
more. Some key leaders/gurus include DeePak Chopra, ****rley MacLaine,
Oprah Winfrey, Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup book series), M. Scott
Peck, Joseph Campbell, John Edwards, Neale Donald Walsch, Madeline
L'Engle, James Van Praagh, Suze Orman, Jean Houston Marianne
Williamson, and others.
Moreover, there is the extremely popular field of "alternative" or
"complementary" medicine. This includes "energy medicine," therapeutic
touch, reiki, homeopathy, acupuncture, some herbology, reflexology,
applied kinesiology, iridology, aroma therapy, color therapy, and
more. These alternative medical practices are having such an impact in
our culture that we are devoting our entire next issue to it.
Cultural Impact of the New Age Movement
There was a time in Western culture when belief or practice in these
kinds of things was relegated to a lunatic fringe. But with the
cultural retreat of the Church and the resulting growth of postmodern
relativism, a greenhouse for new age thinking has arisen. According to
Barna and Harris Poll research, today some 35% of Americans believe we
can communicate with the dead. 20% believe in a new age concept of
God. 21% believe in reincarnation (25% more are "not sure"). Only 57%
don't believe astrology is scientific. Celebrity wor****p, the
influence of the media, man's basic narcissist, hedonistic nature, and
the dominance of relativism in our culture have all contributed to the
growth of new age spirituality.
In fact, the NAM has infiltrated many aspects of Western culture. I
will survey a few examples in what follows.
New Age in Public Schools
In 1979 the U.S. Third District Court of Appeals, affirmed an earlier
decision by the district court that declared that Transcendental
Meditation was religious in nature and therefore was prohibited from
use in public schools. It is a violation of the Establishment Clause
of the First Amendment of the Constitution (Separation of Church and
State). Many forms of new age thought and practice were being used in
public schools. Courses were utilizing meditation techniques,
centering, progressive relaxation, guided imagery, visualization, and
contacting spirit guides (often called the child's "higher self").
Proponents of these new age techniques and philosophy often attempted
to sidestep the identification of being a "religion" and identify with
"spirituality" to escape resistance from dogmatism or legal
instructions. In the judge's opinion, he wrote of the clear need for
the courts to broaden the traditional theistic definitions of
religion. For example, to say that yoga is not religious is like
proponents of prayer in public schools saying that prayer should be
offered in public schools because it is not a religion.
Despite the court's decision, today there are still many popular
school programs using new age assumptions and techniques such as
Pumsy, D.U.S.O, Quest, Growing Healthy, Tactics for Thinking, and many
more. They are especially employed in guidance counseling curricula,
gifted programs, physical education (to reduce stress), and creative
writing, all under the banner of "self-esteem." Even the very popular
drug prevention program, D.A.R.E., contains some of these faulty new
age approaches. Today, yoga is the latest craze and Transcendental
Meditation is attempting a comeback. Again, all of these and more are
illegal, but Christian parents must be educated if we are to win the
winnable legal battles. (1)
New Age in Business
Business Week ran a cover story in late 1999 titled "Religion in the
Workplace" and wrote, "Today a spiritual revival is sweeping across
cor****ate America as executives of all stripes are mixing mysticism
into their management." (2)
The quest for the competitive edge in many businesses is thought by
some to be connected to increasing employees' "human potential." So
businesses have been quite a mission field for new age programs and
leaders. They connect human potential and achievement to new age
philosophy and practice. Programs like Landmark/Forum, Heart Math,
MSIA, Tony Robbins, and others are offered to employees. Often,
participation in these programs is mandatory.
At least in government jobs, employees have a right to challenge these
types of programs. In 1988, the EEOC issued a policy governing
"training programs conflicting with employees religious beliefs." The
policy noted that employers are increasingly making use of "training
programs designed to improve employee motivation, cooperation, or
productivity through the use of various so-called 'new age'
techniques."
The problematic techniques mentioned in the policy were "meditation,
guided visualization, yoga, walking in fire, focus on changing
employees attitudes and self concepts by promoting increased self-
esteem, assertiveness, independence and creativity in order to improve
over-all productivity." The policy rightly warns that these techniques
are intrinsically religious and cannot be required of employees whose
own views are incompatible with them. (3)
Some of the figures in the business world who are conducting "new age"
training include Tony Robbins, star of infomercials, and business and
human potential seminars. Robbins strategically calls himself "the
coach of success." Defined by Robbins, success is "to live your life
in a way that causes you to feel tons of pleasure and very little
pain."
Robbins employs a controversial new age, humanistic methodology called
neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) which promises that, by modeling
and the power of positive thinking, human potential is unlimited for
everyone. Robbins dramatically "proves" his point with fire-walking
exercises in which seminar participants demonstrate the power of
overcoming fear and mind-over-matter by walking barefoot over a bed of
hot coals.
Robbins' approach is problematic on a number of levels. His promises
are more new age than biblical (in his books he often twists Scripture
to sup****t his beliefs), the NLP can be very manipulative and
unethical (mind control) and even "fire walking" is deceptive since
there is nothing supernatural about it. Hot coals are slow enough
conductors of heat that anyone can walk quickly across them without
being burned. Notice Robbins doesn't stand on the coals for more than
a few seconds.
Another leading light is Stephen Covey. Covey is a Mormon who also
uses a number of new age perspectives in his human potential programs
and books. All truth being God's truth, Covey does apply some biblical
principles, but he mingles them with Mormon and new age ones. Because
Mormonism teaches that we can become Gods (like their once-human God
did), there is an affinity with the NAM. Covey promotes numerous New
Age techniques in his works, the most famous of which is Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People.
New Age in Medicine
As mentioned earlier, one of the most prolific areas of new age
permeation is in the field of alternative "medicine" (sometimes called
holistic or complimentary medicine). Americans are preoccupied with
health and personal fitness. And some are unsatisfied with
conventional medicine, especially with the rising cost of health care.
New age therapies or products offer low cost, noninvasive (except
acupuncture), "natural," approaches to health rather than the
conventional route of drugs or surgery. And since many "illnesses" are
psychosomatic, the anecdotal success of new age therapies gains them
some credibility. Again, this issue is so serious and complex that ARC
is devoting our next issue of Areopagus Journal to it.
New Age in the Media
Oprah Winfrey was ranked by a Gallup poll a few years ago as the #4
most influential woman in history. Oprah's positive self-esteem and
sensitive, relevant style, taps into the psyche of many woman and some
men in America.
She was raised in a black Baptist Church in Mississippi, a deacon's
daughter, was ***ually abused by male relatives, became a promiscuous
teenager, and gave birth to a baby boy out of wedlock who died in
infancy. But then "repenting" returned to the church in Nashville and
began to speak frequently in Nashville Churches with a special
emphasis on practical spirituality.
When her television career began taking off, Oprah frequently featured
a spiritual dimension (calling her show "my ministry"). She gradually
began to promote more and more new age guests, and the viewer could
see her own changing understanding of Christianity. For example, she
frequently has New Age guests such as Marianne Williamson, Deepak
Chopra, Betty Eadie, Dannion Brinkley, M. Scott Peck, Sophie Burnham,
Marilyn Ferguson, ****rley MacLaine, Kevin Ryerson, Sara Breathnach,
James Van Praagh, Gary Zukar, and Iyania Vanzant.
Oprah has spoken forth her own universalistic new age convictions. For
example, she related how she heard, as a Baptist, that God was a
jealous God and now responds, "Come on-lets get over it-a jealous God
is an insecure God...I believe in a FORCE-whatever that force is I
call God." Another direct quote: "I am just trying to open a door so
the people can see themselves more clearly and perhaps get them to
God, whatever they may call that."
****rley MacLaine publicly stated on her show that she seeks God's
guidance by going inside her own true Self and waits for an answer,
then "Boom, the answer would come." Oprah responded, "That's just what
the Bible says, 'Ask and it shall be given, seek and you will find.'"
Oprah went further by proclaiming, "As I read more of ****rley
MacLaine, crystals, and Marilyn Fergusons's The Aquarian Conspiracy,
it seems to me to say exactly what the Bible has said for years. It is
just that many of us were brought up with a more restricted limited
vision of what the Bible said."
Because of the popular respect for Oprah, her endorsements of new age
guests make a cultural difference. For example, when she announced she
had purchased 1,000 copies of her Marianne Williamson's book, Return
to Love (a new age version of the Bible), the publisher received over
200,000 orders by the end of the day. Deepak Chopra's book sold
130,000 copies the day Oprah promoted it on her show.
Another revealing example of the penetration and seductive influence
of the NAM is the success of the Chicken Soup book series by Jack
Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen. Canfield has a long history as a leader
in the infiltration of new age teaching programs in public schools. He
too conducts self-esteem seminars.
Canfield and Hansen are only editors of the series and have only had a
few of their own new age stories in the books. However, their choice
of contributors is telling. The original feel-good book contained
articles by at least 25 new agers, one Mormon, and seven self-esteem
gurus. This trend continued on the subsequent volumes.
Unfortunately, marketing and profit again takes the lead over
discernment and responsibility in Christian media. Spring Arbor, the
major Christian book distributor, has continued to carry these books
for years. Canfield, a good marketer, even produced a Chicken Soup for
the Christian Soul where a number of Christian authors naively or
irresponsibly contributed stories-lending credibility to the whole
series.
So, after reading these the few examples, you can begin to understand
that the NAM is diverse and diffused. In a culture that is becoming
more and more pluralistic, frivolous and narcissistic, it becomes a
greenhouse for the growth of these new age philosophies. And, because
of the lack of doctrinal knowledge, apologetics and worldview
training, the lines of truth are tragically blurred and discernment
weakened even in the Body of Christ.
One doesn't have to look far for the signs. Barna's recent research
update (May 1, 2006) that "Harry Potter's Influence Goes Unchallenged
in Most Homes & Churches," points out that 78% of church-going teens
have read and seen the movie/book series, but only 4% have experienced
any teaching or discussion in church about the occult spiritual themes
embedded in this attractive medium.
Contemplative Prayer
When Paul warns the Church to be aware and beware of Satan's
deceptions, he goes as far as to say that Satan "disguises himself as
an angel of light" and "his servants also disguise themselves as
servants of righteousness" (2 Cor. 11:3, 14-15). Satan often will take
some truth, a somewhat healthy teaching or practice, and mix his
poison in it. Then it becomes more dangerous because of its
attractiveness.
We live in a culture of busyness, consumerism, superficiality,
distractions, and an insatiable quest for more to make us happy. And
too often the prayer or devotional life of Christians become mostly a
perfunctory, formalistic, rationalistic exercise. This creates a
context for the growing popularity of practices like "Centering" of
the Contemplative Prayer Movement and praying through the Labyrinth.
These approaches, developed and popularized by Roman Catholic monks,
Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating and Basil Pennington incor****ate eastern
meditation and a new age universalism in their "contemplative"
approach. Segments of the controversial "Emerging Church Movement,"
literal churches, and even conservative but controversial churches
like the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, MO promote
these techniques.
Conclusion
As you will learn, there is nothing "new" about this movement. It has
its roots in the original fall of man in Genesis 3. Satan tempted man
with the lie that if he stepped out to access the secret knowledge or
wisdom (Gnosticism), his eyes would be opened (enlightenment) and he
wouldn't need to submit to the sovereign God anymore for he will be as
God himself (Gen. 3:1-5).
One result of the Fall is that man, not being able to escape being
made in the image of God, invents counterfeit spiritualities. Thus,
early on God explicitly condemned some of the current practices of the
NAM (Deut. 18:9-14; Lev. 19:26, 31; Jer. 27:9-11).
As Christianity began to spread in the West, the culture began to
reflect in varying degrees Judeo-Christian concepts of reality, and
ancient Gnosticism was no match. But in recent times the Church has,
by and large, lost its moorings and its primary calling to be
contagious and not innocuous. The result is a cultural return towards
man's basic sinful natural state of rebellion toward God's authority
and a bankrupt philosophy of relativism and pluralism.
Read and study through the articles in this issue of Areopagus
Journal. Go farther by ordering the books we recommend. Order
information packets on specific topics you need in order to have more
in-depth knowledge. Also, go back and read our past journals that
cover some aspects the NAM not found here such as our issue on yoga,
or the issue, "Who Do Men Say That I Am?" which contains an article
about the New Age Jesus. Additionally, our journal, "They Became
Fools," significantly clarifies the underlying nature of cults and
other religions. And make sure you have "Do We Have the Right Books?"
our issue on biblical canonicity, which responds to the lost Gnostic
books made popular by Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code.
"See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty
deception...rather than according to Christ" and "Always be ready to
give a defense to anyone who asks, yet with gentleness and
respect" (Colossians 2:8; 1 Peter 3:15).
Craig Branch is the Director of the Apologetics Resource Center,
Birmingham, Alabama.
NOTES
1. Order our book, Public Schools: The Sorcerer's New Apprentice which
exposes the widespread strategies and programs of New Age activists,
and provides a systematic, proven way to eliminate it from your
schools http://www.arcapologetics.org/articles
2. "Religion in the Workplace," Business Week (Nov. 1999): 52.
3. See "Main programs conflicting with employees Religious
Beliefs" (EEOC regulation under the Civil rights Act of 1964-Title
VII).
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