New Age Spirituality...and ministering to New Agers

I started writing this prior to Hurricane Florence and I was reading some religious articles. In my last blog, I wrote about God not being found in The Shack and someone posted on my facebook, "He's found between your ears and in your heart." While that is true enough, that isn't the whole truth. Matter of fact, that is very much the answer I would expect from someone didn't read my article and who practices New Age Spirituality. Then my mind turned to the music I like; I am 39 (almost) and love the music of the 1960s; especially the Woodstock/Free Love era. 
One of my favorite songs is "The Age of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In." However, I never really caught on to the new age lyrics as I do now: 


Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind's true liberation
Aquarius

Generally, New Age thought supports the theory of organic evolution, but extends the concept to the evolution of the spirit. This is the concept of "Evolutionary Godhood," where the next step in evolution won't be physical, but spiritual. The principles of evolution are constantly moving mankind toward god-consciousness, where man and reality connect in unified enlightenment. The "fittest" already understand this reality, while the "unfit" (such as Christians and other proponents of dogmatic worldviews) act as a hindrance to evolutionary forces. Many New Age practices are designed to accelerate the evolutionary push into the spiritual realms. These practices include: (i) astral projection, which is training your soul to leave your body and travel around; (ii) channeling spirits, so they may speak through you or guide you; (iii) crystal usage, which purifies the energy systems of your body and mind; and (iv) visualization techniques, which include everything from basic mental imagery to role playing of animals or divine creatures. In a nutshell, Evolutionary Godhood means that mankind will soon see itself as god. This is often referred to as the "Christ principle" or "Christ consciousness." New Age teaches that we are basically good and inherently divine, and ultimately, we can create our own reality.

The second major doctrine of the New Age movement is "Global Unity." This concept typically consists of three parts: 
Man Unified With Man. One New Age principle is that we will all realize our proper divine relationship with one another and achieve pure harmony through the acceptance of this divine knowledge. With relational harmony comes economic unity. With economic unity, we can achieve political unity (a single world government) and spiritual unity (a one world religion). 
Man Unified With Nature. Another New Age principle is that god is everything, and everything is god. Therefore, nature is also part of god. We must be in harmony with nature. We must nurture it and be nurtured by it. Mankind is no different than any other animal. We must live in harmony with them, understand them, and learn from them. Actually, many in the New Age movement refer to the union of earth and nature as "Gaia." Gaia is revered, respected, and even worshipped as a god by some. American Indian rituals are also popular in the New Age movement because they focus on the elements of nature and man's relationship to them. 
Man Unified With God. Since man is divine by nature, all people can realize their "divinity" and contribute to the unified purpose of man, earth and nature. The ultimate goal in life is to fully realize our own divine goodness. The New Age god is impersonal and omnipresent. He (it) has not revealed himself (itself) to mankind, and therefore, mankind is not accountable to any notions of moral law or absolute truth. There is no objective morality in the New Age philosophy. We should have tolerance for all systems of truth, meaning and purpose. We should create a world of pure relativism, where morality and religion are strictly relative to each person's individual notion of reality itself.

•    God is in everything (pantheism) 

•    All things are one (monism)

•    Man is God

•    Mind creates reality

•    One’s own experience validates the truth 

•    The Son of God (John 11:4)

•   "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30).

•   "No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).

The New Age movement is all about monism (all is one), pantheism (all is God) and  mysticism (experience of oneness with the divine). New Age has two major stages of doctrine: 

New Age: The Doctrine of Evolutionary Godhood

New Age: The Doctrine of Global Unity

All of this can be summed up in the simple points of: 

Instead, the typical New Ager believes:

A true understanding of New Age practices makes one thing clear: Eastern practices cannot be blended into Christianity to produce something better. New Agers are Universalists, believing that all paths lead to God. They fault Christians for being intolerant and narrow-minded. But God's word anticipates this: "Enter the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the path that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matthew 7:13, NIV)

1. Whom do you believe Jesus is?

2. Whom did Jesus say He is?

3. What did Jesus say about other spiritual paths?

4. Jesus was either who he said He was or He was a fraud. Given His claims, we can't logically believe he was only a great teacher, for He would have been teaching falsehood rather than truth (this is an argument by C. S. Lewis).

5. Jesus alone is "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).

Sharing Jesus with New Agers can be difficult; and you will get discouraged, but remember New Agers are in a lot of confusion. That's because they haven't found the Truth, but only what fits into the spiritual perspective they have constructed. As in the Garden of Eden, the lie has never changed.

But neither has the Truth. Don't be discouraged if you don't see immediate results from sharing with New Agers. In many cases – like my own – when they finally come to Christ, it's because God had been planting seeds and watering for a long time. Just keep praying and loving and sharing the words of Jesus because in many instances they will not want to hear this; but they need to hear and know that Jesus loves them.