New Agers are a diverse lot of spiritual seekers

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Two Minutes to Eternal Life My God-Story

“How to Evangelize New-Agers” by Cky J. Carrigan, Ph.D. (June 2003)

Who are New-Agers?

New-Agers are a diverse lot of spiritual seekers who are not genuine Christians. There may be as many as fifty million new-agers in America. You will find them in every part of your world, even in your congregations. You may work or worship with a new-ager, be a neighbor to one, or have one in your circle of friends or family. They often appear to be Christian from a distance because they are spiritual. After all, they talk about God, spirit, love, faith, hope, and healing. Many even talk about Jesus and the Bible. But, they do not ascribe the same meanings to these terms that genuine Christians do. In short, new-agers are spiritual people who embrace one or more key New Age teachings.

What is the New Age Movement?

The New Age Movement is an American and European form of ancient eastern religious beliefs (Hinduism and Buddhism), combined with divination, earth-based religions, self-help theory, alternative healing techniques, astrology, and other non-Christian religious practices. Therefore, the New Age Movement is not really new at all, though it is new to America.

The New Age Movement is a religious movement represented by a large number of autonomous groups and individuals that engages in religious activities from inside and outside existing traditional religious organizations. It is not an institutional religion like Christianity, Islam or Mormonism. There is no organization that encompasses it and no spokesman that speaks for it--yet. The New Age Movement is presently composed of an unorganized body of individuals united by several non-Christian beliefs.

How Did the New Age Movement Get Is Start?

1860 - In the middle and late eighteen hundreds, three religious movements arose that introduced some features of eastern religions to New York City and Boston--the cultural and academic centers of America. From these geographical bases, the New Thought Movement, Spiritualism, and the Theosophical Society spread to colleges and universities and small free-thinking subcultures throughout American populations centers.

1960 - Eastern religious ideas smoldered for about one hundred years until they reached full flame during the counterculture movement of the nineteen sixties and seventies on college campuses. The Beatles validated eastern religious beliefs and popularized them. One Beatle, George Harrison, even became a Hindu and wrote a popular song devoted to the worship of Lord Krishna, a Hindu deity, entitled “My Sweet Lord.”

1970 to Present - The first magazine devoted to the New Age Movement was published in 1972, but the growth of this movement peaked in the mid-eighties. Then, along came an African-American female daytime talk show host that revived the New Age Movement and catapulted it to the center-ring of the three-ringed-circus of popular culture. Oprah Winfrey is now the most influential preacher of New Age ideas and she wins converts every day in staggering numbers—many from Baptist churches.

What Do New-Agers Believe?

As a general rule, new-agers believe the following six religious tenets:

Pantheism - God is everything and everything is God. God is not a personal being, but an impersonal force. Since God is everything and humans are something, then humans too are God.
Monism – Everything individual thing is really one thing. All apparent distinctions of individual things are merely an illusion. There is no difference between God and the world, for the world is God and God is the world (pantheism).
Reincarnation – Everyone will be reborn after death as a new baby and continue this cycle for an indefinite number of reincarnations. Future lives are improved by positive karma in this life and visa-versa. This means that everyone has existed in many past lives before the present one. This is a variation of the classical Hindu view which teaches that everything (animals, plants, minerals, and humans) is reincarnated after its death or destruction. Some new-agers hold the Hindu view.
Divinity of Humanity – Since everything is God or divine (pantheism), then humans are divine. The problem of humanity is that it has forgotten its divinity. Enlightenment is discovering one’s divinity and is achieved by astrology, yoga, transcendental meditation, past-life regression, soul travel, channeling spirit guides and other means.
Moral Relativism – Since there is no personal living God who sets ethical standards and models them (pantheism), human actions are neither good nor bad. Therefore, there is no universal code of ethics that everyone must follow uniformly. Every individual is the supreme judge of his own conduct.
Religious Pluralism – The essence of all religions is the same. No single religion can lay exclusive claim to all religious truth—especially Christianity. New-Agers resist telling anyone that they are wrong about religion since every religion is true at some point. They also take offense when anyone claims that another religion is false.

What are the Signs of the New Age Movement in Popular Culture?

Americans, including many Baptists, are falling for New Age ideas at an alarming rate. For example:

More than half of us believe in psychic healing, spiritual healing or mind healing.
About half of us believe in extrasensory perception (ESP).
Nearly four in ten believe in ghosts of the dead, while more than one in four believes that communicating with the dead is possible.
Twenty-five percent believe in reincarnation.

Fifteen million practice Hindu yoga, doubling in five years.
General audience films like Lion King, Pocahontas, Star Wars and Harry Potter that promote some New Age beliefs are blockbusters.
Eastern martial arts centers can be found in every community.
Transcendental Meditation (TM) is promoted in many workplaces and schools.
Psychic services are a multi-billion dollar industry.
Tarot cards are widely available at national chain book stores.
Eastern and occultic healing techniques are widely accepted.
Astrological predictions mar the pages of nearly every daily newspaper.
Chicken Soup for the Soul series and other new age books are national bestsellers.

How Can You Witness to New-Agers?

Listen to Their Story and Tell Yours – New-Agers generally prefer religious experience to religious dogma. For them, feelings usually trump reason. Because of this, it will be especially relevant to a new-ager if you share your own Christian religious experience, even though we know that religious feelings by themselves can not be trusted without the objective validation of the Bible. Tell them how you felt at your conversion, how you feel about being a Christian, how you feel about Jesus Christ, and how you feel about your own spiritual journey. This approach may be very uncomfortable for many of you, but you will find it an effective way to witness to people devoted to New Age teachings.

Prepare for Diversity - People associated with the New Age Movement are diverse, so you should never assume they believe every doctrine typically associated with New Age. New-Agers do not all believe all of the same teachings with the same intensity. Because of this, during the early stages of your encounter, you must be careful to find out exactly what your New Age friend believes. Then, tailor your conversation to overturn those particular incorrect beliefs. Otherwise, you might find yourself spending too much time and mental energy overturning some belief that your friend does not hold.

Create Crisis of Belief - New Age evangelism is a kind of interfaith evangelism dedicated to sharing Jesus with people who are already devoted to a religion that can not take them to heaven. New-Agers are not agnostic or apathetic about religion. On the contrary, they are devoted believers of a false religion. They usually have to be convinced that they are wrong about what they presently believe in order to be open to embracing what you want them to believe—Christianity.

New Age evangelism almost always requires what I call preparing the soil of the soul. Most new-agers are fairly secure in their beliefs and see traditional Christianity as a flawed religion consisting mainly of ancient morals and an ancient way of looking at the world. One way you can prepare the soil of the soul is to create a crisis of belief in New Age principles. You may create a crisis of belief by gently overturning the key features of their beliefs while pointing out the superior alternative of Christianity.

Challenging Pantheism and Monism: In order for the pantheism and monism of the New Age to be true, the material world would have to be an illusion. But, all the evidence available to us demonstrates that the material world as we know it really does exist. Additionally, if pantheism and monism of the New Age were true, then the vast majority of new-agers would be hypocrites, since they highly value and seek health, long life and material things—all illusions. Also, if God is a force, like gravity, and not a person, then why do many new-agers relate to God as if God is personal?
Challenging Reincarnation: The New Age explanation of reincarnation demands a steady-state of human population which is not the case. In 1900, the population of the world was one billion. In 2000, it was six billion. Ask your new-age friend to do the math and rethink his commitment to the new age concept of reincarnation.
Challenging Moral Relativism: Most new-agers live as though moral absolutes (rules) exist while confessing that they do not. For example, they lock their homes and cars and bristle if you cut them off in traffic. New-agers have plenty of rules they expect others to follow. Ask the new-ager to explain the contradiction here.
Challenging Religious Pluralism: Most people devoted to New Age principles profess religious pluralism when they are not really tolerant of any religion that is exclusive, especially Christianity. Therefore, they actually are religious exclusivists like Christianity, and not pluralists at all. Additionally, you may ask your New Age friend why he favors New Age principles over all other religious principles if all religions are valid.

A Final Word

Look for new-agers in your world and…..

· Pay attention to them

· Prepare for a Gospel conversation with them

· Be very Patient with them

· Pray for them