September-October 1998
New Age Challenge
by Barbara Curtis
You're bound to run into it sooner or later. At work, your children's school, the library, on the magazine rack at the grocery store. It can catch you by surprise.
It's the New Age. New Age ideas are poison. As one who traveled many nooks and crannies before finding the truth of Jesus Christ, I know from experience that the New Age must be taken seriously.
What exactly is the New Age? Impossible to narrow down, the New Age is actually a vast smorgasbord of beliefs and practices. Each New Ager fills his tray with whatever assortment fits his appetite. All is liberally seasoned with self-centeredness.
Looking back, however, I can see that my own search through the New Age, though self-centered, was sincere. Seven years of meditation, mantras, visualization and even New Age tithing were motivated by a deep desire to know God. And God eventually filled the desire of my heart. I came to know Jesus not as just another spiritual teacher, but as the true Son of God, who died for my sins so that I might have a personal relationship with a real and personal God.
Be Prepared
Knowing that there are those like me whom the Lord has led out of New Age darkness and into his light may be just the inspiration you need next time you are face to face with some lost soul.
When that opportunity comes, be prepared. Christians need to know:
· What are the underlying beliefs of the New Age?
· How can we discern their influence?
· How do we communicate the truth to those who think they already have it?
Although there are many branches of New Age thought and practices -- ranging from meditation to firewalking -- they stem from an ancient stock. The roots of the New Age tree spread around the globe to India. One would think that the human condition of a country dominated by Hinduism should speak louder than words about the truth of the religion. But the New Ager does not hear it.
Instead, the typical New Ager believes that:
· God is in everything (pantheism),
· All things are one (monism),
· Man is God,
· Mind creates reality,
· One's own experience validates the truth.
New Agers do not believe in the existence of evil, therefore they do not accept man's problem as separation by sin from God. Instead, they believe that each of us has forgotten his own divinity. Therefore the New Age solution is to seek "higher consciousness" through meditation, breathing exercises, Yoga, diet, crystals, channeling, spirit guides and more. Each of these diverse practices has the same purpose: to awaken the god in man.
A true understanding of New Age practices cannot be blended into Christianity to produce something better. Many New Agers are Universalists, believing all paths lead to God. They fault Christians for being intolerant and narrow-minded.
Room for Jesus
The good news is that, in a way, the New Ager's broad acceptance holds the key to getting him back on the straight and narrow. Let me explain.
I have never met a New Ager who did not hold Jesus in high regard. This may confuse Christians who are unaware of the profound difference between the true Jesus and the watered-down Jesus of the New Age. As a New Ager, I believed that Jesus was one among many great spiritual teachers. My favorite guru liberally sprinkled the sayings of Jesus among those of Eastern religion.
How can we reach those under such subtle deception? Not surprisingly, the answer is Jesus himself. Since Jesus is "the way and the truth and the life," he himself can be the common ground on which the New Ager and Christian can meet, though one stands in the darkness and one in the light.
Five Steps
I take a five-step approach when I talk with New Agers:
1) Who do you believe Jesus is?
2) Who did Jesus say he is? The Son of God (John 11:4). "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30).
3) What did Jesus say about other spiritual paths? "No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).
4) Jesus was either who he said he was or he was a fraud. Given his claims, one cannot logically assert he was only a great teacher, for he would have been teaching falsehood.
5) Jesus only is "the way and the truth and the life" (John 14:6).
New Agers are in a lot of confusion. Take heart when you share with them the truth about Jesus. Don't be discouraged if you don't see immediate results. In my own case, God planted many seeds -- many bits and pieces of thought -- before I finally accepted the truth that Jesus was indeed his Son. All the while, God was reaching for me and preparing my heart to receive him.
New Agers have eaten from the tree that tells them they can be like God. The lie has never changed. Neither has the truth.
But God is still more powerful than any lie, and he never stops reaching for those in darkness. He reaches through Christians who understand the danger and can reveal the truth about the forbidden fruit.
Barbara Curtis is an award winning Christian author.
Good News and Bad News |
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| NEW AGE MOVEMENT | CHRISTIANITY |
| Good News: There are many paths to God.
Bad News: Salvation is based on human effort. Bad News: No assurance of what will happen after death. |
Bad News: There is only one way to God.
Good News: Salvation is based on God's grace and received by faith as a gift. Good News: Assurance for believers that we will be found right with God, based on the already completed work of Jesus Christ. |
| Good News: Sin is not an issue with God.
It can be dealt with on the level of the human mind.
Bad News: Forgiveness is not possible because moral laws are like the laws of nature -- it is inevitable that we will reap what we sow. |
Bad News: Sin carries real consequences. It causes
us to be separated from God.
Good News: Forgiveness is possible because the source of moral law is the Person of God himself, and persons are capable of forgiving. |
| 1. The meaning of salvation is for the
individual to merge into the impersonal Oneness.
2. Salvation is based on human effort. 3. The language of salvation points to Jesus as our example of what a self-actualized person is like. 4. The language of salvation points to a standard of perfection that must be met in order to achieve salvation (or enlightenment). 5. Salvation is a gradual process whereby we strive to manifest our perfection. |
1. The meaning of salvation is for the individual
to be reconciled with the Person of God.
2. Salvation is based on God's grace. 3. The language of salvation points to Jesus not only as our example of what a person living in submission to God is like, but it also speaks of him as our Substitute for the death penalty we deserve to pay because of our sin. 4. The language of salvation points to humanity's sinfulness, which means we cannot possibly merit salvation. 5. Salvation is an immediate gift that can be received by faith in Jesus Christ. |
| The Meaning of Faith: Faith is trust in
the healing powers of the mind. It is founded on the idea that in our true
selves we have perfect health.
The Results of Faith (the Good News): The results of faith are guaranteed because faith is based on predictable forces, such as the mind and the perfect health that resides within our true selves. The Meaning of Failure (the Bad News): The failure to be healed reveals a lack of adequate faith or very possibly a spiritual defect within that is manifesting itself. |
The Meaning of Faith: Faith is trust in the power
of God to heal and trust in the wisdom of God as to whether or not to heal
us.
The Results of Faith (the Bad News): The results of faith are not guaranteed in this lifetime because faith is based on God's sovereign and loving will, not on ours. The Meaning of Failure (the Good News): The failure to be healed does not mean personal inadequacy, nor does it alter one's confidence in God's love, because he has guaranteed that he will heal us in his time, as evidenced by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. |
For He Is Our Peace(How God rebuilt our marriage on His foundation) Hey, how does this one sound, honey? 'For he is our peace, who hath made both one'." Tripp, my new husband, reluctantly pulled his eyes from the Sunday paper and regarded me with a thin, patient smile. For days I had been searching through our recently united collection of spiritual books for just the perfect quote to adorn our wedding announcements. "Where did you get this peace thing?" "It's from the Bible." Even back in 1983 we owned a Bible, though I'm not sure which of us had brought it into the marriage. It was just one of the innumerable books layered on bookshelves throughout our little house. "The Bible?" Tripp's eyebrows lifted quizzically. I might as well have suggested Aesop's Fables as a resource. Tripp and I were New Age seekers. We each had embarked on a solo search for the truth years before. When we had finally met a few months ago, we recognized each other immediately as soul mates. We meditated together daily. In emptying our minds to achieve higher spiritual realms, we had even had visions of our past lives which reinforced our feeling that we truly belonged together. Friends and family tried to put the brakes on our relationship, warning us to slow down. After all, I had two daughters from my first marriage, and Tripp, seven years younger than I, had little history of responsibility. How could he take on the burden of a ready-made family? Nevertheless, after three intense, inseparable months, against everyone's advice, we eloped. We were married at sunset on the California coast by an innkeeper who dutifully intoned passages containing all the muddled theology we had so far pieced together. None of it was from the Bible. Unchurched in our younger years, when we began feeling the need for God in our lives, we had turned our gaze eastward. Books like the Bhagavad Gita and the writings of charismatic gurus were the ones that collected no dust on our shelves. That is why Tripp was probably a little skeptical as he took the Bible and read the passage I pointed to. He paused, reflected, then said quietly, "Well, if it sounds good to you, it sounds good to me."
Those last lines sounded so promising. I loved the way they looked engraved on the creamy formal announcements, just as I treasured my crystal collection or the pictures of various spiritual masters arrayed on our meditation altar. A picture of Jesus was there, too. Tripp and I thought of Jesus as a great teacher, as worthy of our attention as all the others. Believing that all paths led to the same God, we felt that Christians were misguided and narrow-minded. We delighted in the vast smorgasbord of New Age ideas and practices, and the unlimited freedom to choose those we wished to blend into our own unique belief system. Our discipline paid off. Using positive affirmation, we started with nothing and within four years had become very well off. By contributing ten percent to eastern spiritual organizations, we enjoyed the benefits of New Age tithing: giving so that more will be returned. Materially, there was little that was not within our reach. With the addition of three sons, we now had five healthy children. And yet there was a flaw in this picture of perfection. My husband and I, each seemingly so in harmony with the universe, could not achieve harmony in our marriage. We argued about everything. No amount of money, success or achievement made it easier for us to get along. Tripp and I were both stubborn, strong-willed people. Believing in our own divinity only made matters worse. How could two gods ever live happily under the same roof? The New Age had taught me nothing about submission or compromise; instead, it had assured me of my right to be happy and to use any means I needed to change unpleasant realities. I decided I had made a mistake. Tripp was not my soulmate, after all. Before I could take any action, God intervened. Spinning the dial on the radio one morning, I heard about a conference designed to give strength to marriages. In a last-ditch effort to save ours, I signed us up for the following weekend. Despite many bitter words on our way to the conference, by some miracle Tripp and I did not turn back. At the first night's session we learned how God's plan for marriage differed from the world's. Because the family is God's building block, the leaders said, Satan sought to destroy it. Like a tide, the bitterness I felt towards my husband began slowly to recede. The next day for the first time we heard about a God who cares about us and wants us to "have peace with [him] through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1). This was radically different from the vague impersonal religion I had been practicing. Furthermore, we were told that sin had separated us from God,"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). I was not divine, after all! Humility began to flow into my heart like gentle streams into a parched land. No wonder my life had never worked. Even our best efforts were inadequate to bridge the gap between man and God. I had never heard anything like this before. Jesus was more than a spiritual master! I prayed silently, confessing that I was a sinner and asking Jesus to become my Lord and Savior. Through my tears, I looked beside me and saw my husband crying, too. We came home as different people. Tripp and I became avid Bible readers, and in this manner realized that we had been born again (John 3:3). We burned our meditation altar and threw away our New Age books and tapes, our pictures and idols. Gone as well were our beliefs in astrology, reincarnation and pantheism. We found a church that taught God's word clearly and entered there as babes, not as the highly evolved spiritual beings we had thought ourselves to be. "What are they into now?" our children, our parents and our friends asked. Yet as they saw our relationship being healed, their hearts softened. One by one, our children put their faith in Jesus. Day by day we learned of God's care for us as he healed our wounds from the past and blessed our family with love and peace. Twelve years have passed since then. Tripp and I are still the same strong-willed people. We have walked through peak experiences and valleys of grief, but we have walked together. Although we still have areas of disagreement, they no longer threaten our commitment or our love. Each of us has learned to live in submission to each other and to our Heavenly Father. We see that his plan was always that our home be established on him. He is our peace, he made us one (Ephesians 2:14, KJV). -- Barbara Curtis |
PT REPORT: FROM CRYSTALS TO CHRIST
Debunking the Cosmic Christ
Who is Jesus? Modern answers to this question range from countercultural human hero to New Age Cosmic Christ. In his book, Jesus in an Age of Controversy, Denver Seminary professor Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D., offers a careful look at the person and teachings of Jesus Christ in light of the many distorted claims being made about him today.
Barbara Curtis: Why did you write Jesus in an Age of Controversy?
Douglas Groothuis: To defend rationally the real Jesus of Scripture and history against New Age revisionism and to show that Christians have good reason to worship Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Q. Why is the identity of Jesus so important?
A. In order to receive forgiveness and eternal life from God, we must be rightly related to Jesus, his one and only Son. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." This involves knowing who Jesus is as Savior and Lord, and trusting him as our only hope of salvation.
| New Agers like to depersonalize Jesus by speaking of a Cosmic Christ that permeates the universe. |
Q. How can we be sure the New Testament is a reliable record of Jesus' life?
A. This is a huge question. I deal with it in the first two chapters of my book.
The main argument is that the New Testament writers were in a good historical position to write truthfully about Jesus. They were either eyewitnesses or consulted with eyewitnesses.
The New Testament documents themselves have tremendous manuscript evidence-over 5,000 Greek manuscripts supporting part or all of the New Testament. Christians need not believe the New Testament merely by a leap of faith. The Holy Scriptures can stand the test of historical scrutiny.
Q. What view of Jesus is held by New Age thinkers?
A. They believe he was one of many enlightened masters or gurus who tapped into the Christ Consciousness or Universal Energy. He is an example of what all of us can do when we tap into the same impersonal energy within ourselves.
They deny Jesus' exclusivity as our only Lord and Savior. They also twist his teachings to make it look like he taught pantheism and reincarnation. I refute these ideas in detail in my book.
Q. What is meant by the Cosmic Christ, and how does this relate to the Jesus of the Bible?
A. New Agers like to depersonalize Jesus by speaking of a Cosmic Christ or impersonal force that permeates the universe. They believe it is more important than the historical person of Jesus. Biblically, the reign of the ascended Jesus is cosmic, but he is a personal Lord, not a cosmic principle.
Q. Have you known many New Age Seekers who have found the true identity of Jesus Christ?
A. Yes. To move from the New Age to the reality of Jesus, people must realize their own sin before a holy God and their need for Jesus' atoning work on their behalf. They must also know that Jesus Christ is the Incarnation. New Age claims that all human beings are divine must be rejected.
Q. How can believers effectively evangelize New Age seekers?
A. Listen to their stories and experiences before you share the gospel. Pray earnestly for them to be able to hear the truth and not be deceived. Explain the terms of Christianity very clearly, since New Agers often use Christian terms without their biblical meaning. Show them the logical problems with the New Age world view, such as their belief that we are all gods and that there is no real evil in the world. Emphasize that God is a personal being -- not a universal energy -- that Jesus alone has the credentials to save us.
Maybe you could give them Jesus in an Age of Controversy if they show an interest! I wrote it to communicate with non-Christians as well as followers of Jesus.
Q. How did you become involved in this aspect of Christian ministry?
A. I was interested in New Age ideas during high school and in my first year of college. After I converted in 1976, I began to sense a need to reach people involved in Eastern and occult ideas. That led to my books (including Unmasking the New Age and Deceived by the Light) on the subject. Christians need to give a reason for the hope they have so that the lost might be won to Jesus Christ.
If you would like to read more about the New Age movement, we recommend Understanding the New Age by Russell Chandler, 1988, and The New Age Movement (How to Respond) by Philip H. Lochhaas, 1995.
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Douglas Groothuis' book, Jesus in an Age of Controversy (Harvest House, 1996), provides a straightforward, easy-to-understand study of unbiblical views about Jesus. This outstanding resource about the Jesus of the Bible is available for a gift of $7. You may order it by calling Plain Truth Ministries at 1-800-309-4466 . |