The New Age Movement

Big Idea: The New Age movement claims that everything is interconnected and divine, contradicting biblical Christianity while impacting various aspects of American culture.

Key Facts

The New Age movement has been described as “the fastest growing alternative belief system in the country.” It is a loosely connected group of individuals and organizations sharing a vision for a new era of enlightenment and harmony known as the "Age of Aquarius." Core beliefs include monism (all is one), pantheism (all is God), and mysticism (experiencing oneness with the divine).

The movement is diverse and not a cult since it has no formal creed or central organization. It includes holistic health practitioners, ecologists, political activists, educators, goddess-worshipers, reincarnationists, astrologers, and others. Despite this diversity, a common vision and worldview tie its adherents together.

Key characteristics include:

• Syncretism - Combining and blending various, even contradictory, religious and philosophical teachings.
• Monism - Viewing life as a divine oneness, where all is interconnected, like waves in a cosmic ocean.
• Pantheism – Believing that God is all and all is God, often conceptualized as an impersonal force or energy.
• Deification of Humanity – Seeing humanity itself as divine.
• Transformation – Personal realization of oneness leads to individual and global transformation, as people take responsibility for the world.
• Ecological Orientation – Since all is one, harming nature is seen as harming ourselves.
• Coming Utopia – Envisioning a future with a one-world government, global socialism, and a unified New Age religion.
• Spirituality – Embracing practices like Eastern meditation, altered states of consciousness, reincarnation, and channeling, while rejecting organized religion.

The number of New Age followers is uncertain, but interest in astrology, spiritism, psychic experiences, and Eastern religions is rising, along with New Age products and bookstores. Notable books include A Course in Miracles, Out on a Limb by Shirley MacLaine, and The Celestine Prophecy.

The Impact of the New Age Movement

• Health Care - New Agers promote holistic health, focusing on the whole person and the flow of energy rather than physical matter. Common practices include acupuncture, acupressure, therapeutic touch, and biofeedback.
• Psychology - Rooted in the New Age worldview, the human potential movement emphasizes "empowerment" through affirmations and visualization, based on the belief that individuals are their own god and can shape their reality.
• Ethics - With the belief that all is one, moral distinctions between "right" and "wrong" are seen as relative. Destiny is considered self-created, even for victims of crimes. For example, Shirley MacLaine speculated that her daughter's acting teacher "chose" to die in a tragic accident. Reincarnation and karma are believed to eventually resolve all justice.
• Politics - A one-world government is viewed as essential to acknowledging humanity's unity. Key priorities include ecological conservation, nuclear disarmament, addressing overpopulation and starvation, transcending traditional gender roles, and redistributing global wealth.
• Education - Many textbooks have eliminated Christian references and added New Age concepts like Eastern meditation, Indian spirituality, yoga, chanting, visualization, and "values clarification," allowing students to define their own values.
• Business - The human potential movement has impacted businesses by enhancing productivity, improving employee relations, and encouraging motivational seminars aimed at unlocking individual potential.

Factors Giving Rise to the New Age Movement

19th-century Transcendentalism shifted American spiritual thinking by prioritizing intuitive knowledge over empirical evidence as the pathway to truth. This philosophical foundation laid groundwork for later mystical movements that would bypass rational analysis in favor of inner revelation.

The revival of occult practices brought spiritism, astrology, and related supernatural interests back into mainstream American culture. These ancient practices found new audiences hungry for spiritual experiences beyond conventional religious boundaries.

Secular humanism's limitations became apparent as human reason alone failed to satisfy deeper spiritual longings. When rationalism failed to answer life's big questions, people sought meaning elsewhere, allowing the New Age movement to emerge.

The counterculture of the 1960s fostered a significant cultural openness to alternative spiritual beliefs. American society was primed for New Age concepts due to anti-materialist values, utopian visions, ecological awareness, a rejection of traditional morals, and interest in occult practices.

Eastern religious ideas flooded into North America, introducing practices and beliefs that directly paralleled emerging New Age teachings about the nature of God, reality, human identity, and spiritual transformation. This cross-cultural pollination provided both philosophical content and practical techniques that became central to New Age spirituality.

Theology

Authority

New Agers believe the Bible contains hidden, mystical meanings, particularly in Jesus’ teachings, accessible only to a select few. They believe that Scripture supports the idea that everything is one, all is God, and humanity is divine. They also accept insights from figures like Buddha, Krishna, and even UFO encounters and spirit channelers. In contrast, Christians interpret the Bible plainly, allowing for figurative language but rejecting esoteric symbolism. They affirm Jesus’ teachings as clear and exclusive, deny the validity of channeling, and reject contact with the dead.

God

New Age theology sees God as an impersonal Force, Consciousness, or Energy, blurring the lines between Creator and creation. Christianity, however, teaches that God is personal, both Creator and sustainer of the universe. Christians argue that pantheism merges the Creator with creation and does not solve the problem of evil, highlighting that Jesus did not teach pantheism.

Christ

New Agers view Jesus as a human who achieved Christ-consciousness by learning from Eastern gurus, seeing him as one of many enlightened teachers. Christians believe that Jesus is uniquely and eternally God, and they reject the idea that he traveled to the East or that "Jesus" and "the Christ" are different beings.

Humanity

New Age beliefs suggest that humans are divine and have the ability to shape their own reality. Christianity teaches that humans are finite creatures, accountable to their Creator, and do not share in God’s divine nature.

Salvation

New Agers reject the idea of humanity's sin, seeing struggles as a lack of awareness of one's divine nature. They reject the need for salvation or atonement, instead believing in reincarnation as a path to eventual reunion with God. Christians, however, affirm that sin is humanity’s core problem, requiring salvation through Christ’s atoning death. They reject reincarnation, teaching that people die once and then face judgment.

End Times

New Age eschatology varies by group. Some believe a figure named Maitreya will lead the New Age, while others expect a mass "Second Coming" where the cosmic Christ will embody everyone. Christians believe that Scripture teaches the physical return of Jesus, rejecting other messianic figures or incarnations.

Tips on Witnessing to New Agers

Tips for Witnessing to New Agers

1. Start with Common Ground – Engage on topics where you likely share similar values, such as ecology, human rights, social justice, or critiques of humanism.
2. Highlight the Superiority of Jesus’ Revelation – Emphasize the objective, historical revelation of Jesus Christ as superior to subjective, mystical revelations.
3. Address the Problem of Evil – Ask thoughtful questions, such as: If all is one and all is God, does that mean evil is also one with good?
4. Challenge Relativism – Gently expose the inconsistency of the claim that “all truth is relative.” If that statement is true, then it must also be relative and not universally valid.
5. Contrast God’s Nature – Compare the personal, relational God of Christianity with the impersonal Force or Energy of the New Age worldview.
6. Teach Biblical Truth About Life and Judgment – Explain that humans live once, die once, and then face judgment (Hebrews 9:27), rejecting the idea of reincarnation.
7. Identify Humanity’s Core Problem – Show that humanity’s fundamental issue is sin, not ignorance of divinity, and that salvation comes through Christ’s atonement.
8. Build Relationships with Kindness – Befriend New Agers with patience, humility, and kindness, as instructed in 2 Timothy 2:24-26. Avoid quarrels, and instead gently guide them toward truth in the hope that God will grant repentance.

These steps aim to guide others to the hope and truth in Christ, not just to win arguments.

Bibliography

• Groothius, Douglas. Unmasking the New Age. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1986.
• Rhodes, Ron. New Age Movement (Zondervan Guide to Cults & Religious Movements). Grand Rapids, Zondervan 1995.