Surveying the Landscape
1. Its Out There
See if you can guess who this fairly well know Australia is – this is the intro to her autobiography… I spent most of my teenage years going to mass every Sunday with my parents and attending a catholic girls high school. It was pleasant to think that all I had to do was be good and obey the ten commandments and I would go to heaven. When I was 13 I had a favourite nun – sister Geraldine who taught at my high school. She was tough and cool and didn’t take crap from the school heavies. She told me one lunchtime that she had never had a boyfriend in her life that she had always loved God and that he had always loved her back and she always felt happy and good about herself. I was in high school hell at the time and in her words I saw freedom form the depressing nightmare my life had become so I decided to become a nun.
However the more I read the Bible and went to church the less I enjoyed it all and the less I believed it. I started to look for alternatives and to an angry 13 year old girl who didn’t want to be a Catholic any more the most obvious answer was Satanism. I explored this for a short while but found it depressing with its banal, perverse and cruel obsessions. Then I found boys and religion was out the window at least for a while.
Late in my teens I began to explore spirituality again and found my way into the new age movement. I got swept up by the positive thinking brigade. If anything bad happened in my life I would focus in on the positive and attempt to think only happy constructive thoughts. Consequently I felt frustrated and let down when I wasn’t able to avoid unpleasant experiences and it became quite a struggle to stay positive all the time. My wholesome interest in the New Age mutated into scepticism.
From here I began to explore neo paganism and became interested and intrigued by its strong connection with the land, being environmentally responsible and finding divinity in nature. I started to feel drawn to that mysterious and exotic word ‘witchcraft’. I felt very attracted to the fact that Wicca acknowledges many different gods and goddesses. But most importantly that they exist within the individual and not in the sky out of reach. I began to study natural healing because my witchy ancestors were primarily healers so at 21 I worked in a health food store by day, studied naturopathy at night and sang in a punk band on the weekend.
At 24 I had a call from a guy who wanted me to sing in his band. This band eventually became known as Def FX. It was during my time in the band that I came out of the broom closet and let people know I am a witch.
I have been a committed witch for 13 years now and I am also a journalist, rock singer, television and radio personality.
I am… Fiona Horne – probably Australia’s best know witch today.
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Some of you will have seen Fiona Horne on tv, and you will know who she is. I tell you her story because it is typical of the journey so many go on in seeking a new spirituality outside of established religion. And if you read her books you will find a very sincere devotee to the power of Wicca to bring meaning and direction to life. She is an influential person in the Australian spiritual arena today.
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Another of her ilk would be Ophrah – not a witch, but described by Christianity Today as one of the most influential spiritual leaders in America today – perhaps even all over the western world where her program is shown. This ex baptist now espouses the view that “one of the biggest mistakes we make is to believe there is only one way. There are many diverse paths leading to God.” She is described as a ‘postmodern priestess – an icon of church free spirituality’. And her tribe is growing. Oprah embodies the values of the new age & people like what she is saying.
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Some of you may have picked up a copy of the free magazine, Nova, from around the place and seen the incredible range of alternative spirituality that people are into. From pranic healing to psychic massage to emf balancing techniques to musical heaing, to shamanism the list goes on. There is even a new age vet and for those who want something different there is belly dancing for men to explore your chakra energy. These are all places that ordinary people are seeking to find meaning and purpose in life. And some would say they are finding it in these practices and experiences.
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Just about every bookshop you enter today will have a section devoted to alternative religion with titles by Deepak Chopra or Neal Walsh – author of conversations with God – books that show you how your life can be more powerful, fulfilling and spiritually real.
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2. Why Look at the New Age?
My point is that we are immersed in a world that is still seeking answers to life’s questions – 20 years ago secular humanism was where we were looking to for answers but– but it has been left behind as a philosophy and there has been a very definite return to the search for a spiritual foundation to life. A belief that God figures in there somewhere.
And the dominant mode for finding those answers in today’s world is in spirituality with a new age origin. Even some of the most bizarre stuff is worth a look people are saying. Any bloke who’s into belly dancing has got to be a bit desperate in my opinion! But some are!
Over the next three weeks (it was going to be two but I just need more time) we are going to take some time to look at what’s going on out there – what are people into – why are they into it – why are they bypassing the established church to get into it and how we can engage with them in a way that points them back to Christ?
This week will be an overview of what New Agers are about, where they are coming from and how their core beliefs compare to ours.
Next week we will look at what we can learn from the emergence and popularity of the new age. Because there are things we can learn
And then finally we will look at what we have to offer new age seekers and how we can engage effectively with them.
3. What Are We Talking About?
As we talk about the ‘new age’– more accurately now called ‘new spirituality’, or some are calling it ‘postmodern spirituality’ is by far the dominant spiritual motif that pervades almost every part of our culture. The ‘new age’ is the religious orientation of people in a post-modern society – and not just the under 30’s by any stretch – but anyone in this society who is immersed in its culture will be affected – that’s all of us.
Fifty years ago it was some form of Christianity that dominated the cultural landscape and formed our lifestyle and values – but today that is no more. Now N.A. spirituality is often seen as the starting point for anyone seeking. For those outside the church it is now the unconscious value base for 21st C life.
We are going to spend three weeks here because if we are a church that is dinkum about mission then we must have a handle on the patterns of thought that are taking place in our world and the ways in which we can meet them. This is an essential part of engaging in mission.
And I really want to say, the next three weeks are not intended to be an information fest!!!! I am not seeking to cram your head with more knowledge!! The last thing we all need in an information overload world is more information, but I am hoping that the learning we do will better equip us to be effective in our mission in this world.
And this focus on NA is particularly significant for us here in the hills! Its in our face – it’s a huge part of our local cultural context. You might have noticed that new agers seem to be more at home in the natural environment rather than in suburbia – we’ll see why that is a bit later. You may have noticed how many New Age shops there are in Kalamunda alone – a quick count would see three just in Haynes street and I haven’t even gone looking at all.
New Age philosophy is present in our workplace – leadership and personal development seminars teach you how to get in touch with your inner self so that you can be more empowered to work effectively – to reach your potential. Meditation is often a part of those seminars – visualisation and unleashing the power of the mind and all that is within – living on a higher plane – reaching a higher consciousness. Its all got a base in eastern spirituality, but it is becoming accepted in mainstream society.
And we will bump into people all the time who are deeply spiritual but their spirituality is unfamiliar to us. People who might want to comment on your aura, who might want to lay hands on you and pray for you, give you books and tapes, who might want to try and connect with the energy within you and heal you – people who are genuine and who really believe that what they are into is the best thing since sliced bread. Chances are you won’t know quite how to respond. You won’t want to shun them but you might not know how to respond without it seeming awkward or difficult.
Most of these people are not fruit loops – they are genuine spiritual seekers like us who really believe they have found something – something that works. I have a new age friend who prays for me – he prays to ‘god’ as he knows him. He believes his god – the divine power – answers his prayers.
Have I convinced you that we need to be up to speed on this? If we are serious about connecting in this world then we need to know what’s going on. We have all seen the signs but I think we often feel a bit at sea in knowing how to relate to people of that ilk.
4. New Agers Are Not the Enemy!
About 20 years ago now Tony Campolo wrote a book entitled ‘We have met the enemy and they are partly right’. His basic idea is that truth is not exclusively Christian – other religions and worldviews can have elements of truth. When Buddhists say ‘love one another’ we would agree with them. When Muslims say there is one God we would agree. When a Reiki healer says that supernatural healing is possible we would agree. ‘We have met the enemy and they are partly right’. Can anyone tell me the problem with that title though?
The problem is that people holding other world views are not the enemy – I imagine if Campolo were re-releasing that book he might give it a different title – but that title was to some degree reflective of the era in which it was written – the separatist era – where we didn’t mix too much with people who weren’t like us and where people who opposed us were even downright evil. The fact is even then communists weren’t all wrong – they were onto some things – some concepts of community that would even have support from scripture – they just forgot that sin exists which messes up our character and makes it hard to create a utopian society – especially if you’ve ruled out God!
So please hear this now – new agers are not our enemy.
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Satan is the enemy. New agers are people who God loves – who Jesus died for and who are seeking to express and experience spirituality in authentic ways. They are people with whom we may actually have a lot in common. We are both seeking deeper relationships with God – we are both finding our sense of meaning in life thru a spiritual dimension.
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In the Bible reading we heard today Paul did not see the Epicureans and the stoics as a threat or as the enemy. He saw them as valuable people, spiritual seekers and he treated them with respect and dignity as he entered their world. Paul saw their value to God and his love for them.
5. Seeking Real Faith
A major problem we need to acknowledge is that many of today’s new agers were yesterday’s church goers. Or they have bypassed the Christian church altogether because for whatever reason it doesn’t seem able to help them connect with ‘the divine other’ in a meaningful way – but they are still seeking. Many of them are abandoning established / organised religion for a movement with no set creed no regular meetings and no set practices.
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The question we face is how can we help these people who are genuinely seeking, find the truth that is Jesus Christ?
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How can we help them find the experience of spirituality they are looking for in the context of a relationship with God through Jesus Christ? Is it even possible?
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Is Christianity a faith for the 21st C – is it an experiential faith or is it simply a cognitive one – is just about learning and believing and learning some more.
In the twentieth century we spent much of our time believing and understanding and rationalising and for that era it was what we needed to do. Liberalism was undermining the truth of the scriptures and it needed to be fought – but what ended up happening was that we drifted into becoming ‘believers’ rather than ‘experiencers of God’. Now the landscape has change and many of us are even saying we need to re-invent our own faith so that it is still authentically biblical, but is also very real and something we experience on an every day level. If we don’t we will not connect with the dominant group in our society who are seeking something real.
Let me say without seeking to be sensational in any way, that many new agers are probably way more spiritual in their approach to everyday life than many conservative evangelicals. And that raises some questions.
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Acknowledgements
And to be fair I really need to say that the stimulus for what I’m sharing with you comes from a booklet I read by Ross Clifford – the principle of the Baptist Theological College of NSW. Ross has spent the last 10 or 12 years researching and engaging with new agers and he is probably one of the sharpest guys in the world on this stuff – not just on what they believe – many have written on that, but on how to meet them and point them to Christ.
Ross began his journey by attending the Body Mind Spirit in Sydney a number of years ago – after some opposition. Now he attends festivals in various places around the world where he erects Christian stalls in the middle of all the new age stalls. He works with Acts 17 as his paradigm for ministry.
He has been misunderstood and criticised for his efforts but I actually think he is one of the best models of mission that we could look to. I have got 8 of his books on approval from Koorong for those who would like to read more. And I can recommend his book as possibly the best you will read in this area. Its insightful, its fair in its critique of new age philosophy and it is mission focused.
The Bible Reading
This morning we read from Acts 17 and over the next three weeks you will hear the same Bible reading each Sunday – you’ll hear it from three different versions because I want us to hear it and reflect on it and use it as the basis for our own understanding of how we engage in mission in this area.
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It’s a model of incarnational engagement and dialogue – of speaking to others with gentleness and respect. Of finding common ground from which to communicate the gospel rather than confrontation and polarisation. You might want to study it on your own or in your home groups.
To interact like Paul did on this occasion we have to have some grasp of what we believe and how it compares to what others believe. It was said that Paul was speaking of the “good news about Jesus and the resurrection” that was the core of his message – and it was new to them. But Paul had also taken time to look around their city and make some connections with what they were on about.
He saw their idols to unknown God’s – he understood the presuppositions they were operating from. He knew possible ways he might offend and possible ways he might connect. He approached the Gentiles in the marketplace very differently to how he would have the Jews in the synagogue. He began by affirming their genuine spirituality and went on from there.
We’ll come back to Paul’s approach over the next two weeks but for now /I just want to hone inlet’s try and hone in … What is a new ager? What do new agers believe? Are there any common threads of thought in this strange eclectic mix?
Someone has said defining the New Age is like trying to nail Jelly to the wall. It can’t be pinned down. An attempt would read something like this:
Slide 7 “The new age movement is a loosely structured network of individuals and organisations who share a vision of a new age of enlightenment and harmony and who subscribe to a common world view based on monism (all is one), pantheism (all is God) and mysticism (the experience of oneness with the divine)”
The new age movement has no set of creeds or dogma however there are several unifying factors that clue us in to the new age mindset. I’m just going to mention three that will clue us in.
Firstly the Undergirding belief of the new age is that of
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1. Monism & pantheism / pan en theism – this is the theory that sees everything as one. Everything in the universe is of the same substance. There is no distinction between creator and creation – man, metal, timber, water, God – we all share the same essence. The conclusion from monism is, if all is one then all is God – therefore we are God. Everyone and everything is God.
All being God is known as ‘pantheism’ – pan = everything, theism relating to ‘god. New agers either subscribe to pantheism or panentheism – that all is ‘in’ God. He is the ultimate personal being and the universe exists within him like a baby in a womb.
Shirley Maclaine put it like this. “There is an urgent need for people to recognise the power within themselves, to know themselves as a spark of God… Begin with self; recognise the god within, and the result will be the recognition, with tolerance and love, that everyone else possesses God within as well. In other words we are each part of God experiencing the adventure of life” That’s a good summation of classic new age thought.
Where do we stand on this as Christians? Very clearly we see a distinction between creator and creation – we do accept that we are made in the image of God – but the scriptures teach that God is separate from his creation. All is not God and we are certainly not God. Roland is not God – I am not God – thank God!
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We looked at Paul in Athens today clearly stating that God is different from us.
(Acts 17:24-27 NIV) "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. {26} From one man he made every nation of men.
In Acts ch 14 when Paul and Barnabas were in Lystra and had performed miracles in the city the people tried to offer sacrifices to them. The response of the apostles was that they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: {15} "Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.
Pantheism actually raises a conundrum of issues as well. For example, in regard to evil – if all is God then we must assume that God commits evil when we do. If I am God then we I sin God sins.
For most of us who are Christians it sounds absurd to imagine everything as god. It would be a sad old world if we were all God. However if you hold a monistic world view it then stands very much to reason that we are gods waiting to be enlightened to our godness. We need to appreciate that presupposition when we come to engage with new agers.
Flowing out of monism and pantheism is
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2. Personal and planetary transformation
This is the Primary Objective of the new age.
Which is a long way of saying that the priority for a new ager is to recover their godlikeness through ‘enlightenment’, ‘attunement’, self actualisation – whatever it may be called.
Its essentially coming back to what is believed to be our own true divine identity which we have lost. This ‘transformation’ occurs through a shift in consciousness and when our consciousness is transformed then we can escape the lie of our finiteness and realise our true potential.
Its why so much of the new age relates to practices like meditation, creative visualisation, the use of the imagination, self hypnosis and the like. These ‘psychotechnologies’ seek to reconnect us with the divine in each of us.
Through these various means people reach what is also known as Christ consciousness, nirvana – whatever – its finding the deity within yourself.
The planetary transformation idea occurs as a critical mass of personally transformed individuals take responsibility for the socio-political dimension of the world. This will be the ‘new age’.
For us – The Christian’s primary responsibility is be reconciled to God and to live in a relationship with him. To accept our place as a fallen creation and to enjoy God’s forgiveness and restoration.
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Jesus said ‘I am the way the truth and the life – no one comes to the father except thru me’. We can know God but we are not God.
Finally we look at the creed of the new age which is that there is no creed. You take a bit from here, a bit from there. Its why its called postmodern spirituality – because it embraces the core values of postmodernity.
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3. Its known as Syncretism / eclecticism – where there is no exclusive devotion to any one set of teachings. Its Myo religion.
A new ager will feel ok reading the bible – they just won’t see it as an authoritative source of truth. It will be a helpful book with some great teachings – but then they will only be great teachings if they work for you.
One new age writer has said ‘We honour the truth and beauty of all world religions, believing each to have a seed of God, a kernel of spirit that unites us’.
New agers will draw their beliefs from a wide variety of sources, some that may seem fairly bizarre – but at the end of the day the reason for acceptance will be primarily because they feel right to them, they like them and they work.
If you don’t like what’s being taught go and hear someone else teach. There is a high degree of pragmatism in the new age – if it doesn’t work then find something that does work for you.
That means that the teaching that is right for you may not be right for me. One of the highest priorities in new age thought is tolerance – the acceptance of another person’s way of finding enlightenment. So it means we need to tread carefully with the whole issue of biblical authority because it will be a highly contentious issue with a new ager.
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The implication of this of course is that Bible can make no claim to be God’s only revelation to mankind – let alone authoritative or reliable. Which is in direct conflict with the teaching of scripture itself.
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Maybe in this short glance at the New Age you look and see some very different understandings from our own – some ideas that you find hard to grasp, but lets be aware that there are openings in the hearts of those in the new age because they have spiritual awareness – they are seeking. What we need to know is how to flick the switches that will kick them into exploring who God is and what we are on about. Rather than flicking the switches that cause them to erect barriers to us.
It means we need to know who we are and what the core of the gospel is so that we can confidently engage.
Chris Seay a US pastor writing in leadership magazine – a journal for pastors says “One of our greatest obstacles is that the people we refer to as "the lost" may be more spiritual than most of us pastors. It is difficult to teach spiritual disciplines of prayer, study, and meditation to people who are seeking to know God with more clarity and passion than we are.”
I think there’s more than a kernel of truth in that. Perhaps the first step towards any kind of missionary involvement in this world is the development of an authentic spirituality that we would want to export. To make sure the flame of authentic Christ centred spirituality is burning brightly in our own lives.
New Agers are open – I believe they are open to the gospel if it is communicated in ways that are genuine and in ways that they can experience. Next week we will look at some of the forgotten truths that new agers can remind us of.
To finish: let me just share with you the words of Billy Graham at the Amsterdam 2000 conference. Because I think they give us a sense of where to head.
“I do not believe that we should spend our time cursing the darkness. I do not believe we should spend our time in useless controversy, trying to root out the tares while harming the wheat. I do not believe that we should give in to the forces of evil and violence and indifference.
Instead, let us light a fire.
Let us light a fire that will banish moral and spiritual blight wherever we go.
Let us light a fire that will guide men and women into tomorrow and eternity.
Let us light a fire that will roll back the poisons of racism, poverty and injustice.
Let us light a fire of renewed faith in the Scriptures as the Word of God, and in worship and evangelism as the priority of the Church.
Let us light a fire of commitment to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to the ends of the earth, using every resource at our command and with every once of our strength.
Let us light a fire in this generation that, by God’s grace, will never be put out.”
Let us light a fire that will help our new age neighbours in this community find their way to the divine father who loves them and who wants to know them. Let us fan into flame the fire in our own hearts so that they will see Christ alive in us.
