Lesson 20

Tips on Witnessing to New Agers

The New Age—or Conscious Living—Movement is not a tightly knit movement. Rather, it is a term we use to describe a diffuse group of Eastern religious ideas as they have been filtered through Western culture in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Few people would label themselves New Agers, and most of those who adopt one New Age viewpoint may not accept another. Thus, when we deal with the New Age, we are not always dealing with a tight religious system. We can never assume we know what a New Ager believes—we need to spend lots of time talking with people to understand exactly where they are spiritually. In the 1960s, we heard about the Age of Aquarius, usually voiced in between heroin trips. Today the New Age is much more diverse—and much more commercialized.

1. Some Common New Age Beliefs

Douglas Groothuis summarizes some common New Age perspectives in Confronting the New Age (InterVarsity, 1988). Among them...

• Evolutionary optimism—We are preparing to enter the next great step in human evolution, a leap in consciousness into the Age of Aquarius in which we wake up to the God within us and see the establishment of a new world order. Some even say Jesus will usher in this New Age!
  
• Monism—Everything is one. Distinctions are just an illusion. I am just an illusion of an individual. In reality I am but an expression of the universal that is everything.

What we see—the illusion of diversity and distinction

• Pantheism—Everything is God. God is the universe, and the universe is God. Everything is therefore characterized by divinity, including us.
  
• Transformation of Consciousness—Through anti-intellectual, mystical activities like yoga, crystals, meditation, visualization, drugs, near death experiences, and channeling we experience the unity of all things, our true divine selves, the higher consciousness.
  
• Create your own reality—There is no objective moral law or commandments. We live according to our own standards. Since all is one, good and evil cannot be differentiated.
  
• Unlimited human potential—If you’re God, you can do anything if you believe in yourself. A Course in Miracles can show you how to create your miracle, too.
  
• Spirit Contact—Channeling brings us into contact with other spirits that exist in the oneness that we are. Christianity, of course, calls this demonic possession.
  
• Masters from Above: Angels—Angels and extraterrestrial beings in UFOs are both manifestations of the mystical spirit realm, servants from the stars who teach us the New Age.
  
• Religious Syncretism—Then true essence of all religion is the New Age, all religions being one. “Externals” like theology might be different, but the mystical core of them all is one.

2. Some Questions for those involved in the New Age

• Do you really believe that’s true? Can you really live it? I remember Deepak Chopra on PBS talking about how the physical body doesn’t really exist—it’s just an illusion. And I was amazed at the respectful, well-dressed professionals nodding in wonder at such a dumb statement. I wanted to grab them, shake them and ask, “Do you really believe that? Think about it!” I even called the station and complained that, were our children to follow Chopra’s teachings, they’d be walking in front of speeding cars, thinking themselves illusions. Chopra’s teachings cannot be lived out. They aren’t objectively true. It’s a neat idea, but it’s not reality. Nothing can really fulfill us if it doesn’t satisfy both the heart and the head.
  
• Is anything Evil other than not recycling? There is no basis, if all is one, to distinguish that which is good from that which is evil. If all is one, why is it okay to eat a head of lettuce but not a two-year old boy? Does this satisfy the will?
  
• Does this satisfy your heart? Ultimately, since the New Age isn’t objectively true, it works only to cover over the longings of the heart. After a while, the hunger for a deeper experience becomes a realization that you’re living a lie. Make-believe spirituality does not answer the real questions about our purpose in life. We all have a God-given need to worship, and the New Age offers no personal God. The New Age says we live for ourselves—it’s all about us getting more personal spiritual power. In this sense, it’s an incredibly selfish spirituality. But if the Bible is right in saying that we exist for God, then we’ll never find satisfaction in the New Age. 
  
• The New Age isn’t new. Have you seen what it’s done to India? They’ve had it for years.