The pastor of one of my former churches recently wrote his people to tell them what was wrong with the New Age movement. In so doing, he described almost perfectly what we believe. But he also tried to suggest why all those ideas were wrong. He has a good grasp of our beliefs, perhaps better than some of us. It's interesting to see our point of view expressed by someone who totally disagrees with it. Following are his descriptions.

MONISM. This is the belief that all is one and one is all. It says we all swim in one great cosmic ocean. History is not the story of man's fall into sin and its restoration by God's saving grace in Christ. Rather, it is man's fall into ignorance and his gradual ascent into enlightenment. But monism is counterfeit to what Jesus prayed for in John 17:21, which is possible only in Christian fellowship.

All IS GOD. If all is one, including God, then all is God - trees, rocks, books, and fish are all of one divine essence. A personal God is abandoned in favor of an impersonal energy force or consciousness. and if God is no longer personal, He doesn't have to be served. This says, "When I was a small child, I believed in God. As I got older, I stopped believing in God. When I grew up, I realized that I was God."

CHANGE IN CONSCIOUSNESS. If we are God. then we need to know we are God. We must become cosmically conscious, also known as self-realization, god-realization, enlightenment, or attunement. Their faith has no object, neither does their meditation, so it becomes an inward journey. To the Christian, the essential issue is not whether we believe or meditate, but who we believe in and what we meditate upon. We believe in God and meditate upon His law day and night.

CREATE THEIR OWN REALITY. New Agers believe they can determine reality by what they believe, so by changing what they believe, they can change reality. There are no moral absolutes because there is no distinction between good and evil.

MAKING CONTACT WITH THE KINGDOM OF DARKNESS. New Agers make contact with the spirit world, They call their medium a "channeler" and they call a demon a "spirit guide." The Scriptures call it "divination" and sin. What they are doing is making contact with the god of this world, not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,

ASK CHRIST TO KEEP US IN THE LIGHT OF HIS TRUTH. How can any thinking person, confessing to be a Christian, buy into this deception? Yet these or similar beliefs permeate our society and have a foothold in the church. As followers of Christ, we need to be alert to the deception of such thinking, always asking Him to keep us in the light of His truth when we encounter the great deceiver's lies.

Next time, we will look at these same ideas from the perspective of sub-atomic or quantum physics. It will be interesting to see which side today's physicists take.

Posted 4-15-05

Copyright: John W. Sloat 2005