New Age teachings in the Church

You go to Church every week. You go to Church regularly not because you are a Christian; not because you are expected to be present in the Local Church at least once a week; you go because you find the sermons (from the Pastor or any invited speaker) are appealing to you and you love their teachings. There is no mention of sin; there is no call for repentance; there is no conviction of the Holy Spirit. In fact, things like immorality, sins and hell are seldom mentioned. Additional to the regular Sunday services the Pastor, now and then, invites the members of his congregation to attend teaching seminars as well. You like what your Church is providing for you to help you grow spiritually. At the same time all these teachings make you feel good. But very often there are hidden dangers in all these teachings. You see, all these teachings appeal to your soul (mind) and not your spirit and that is the reason why you feel good. The greatest danger in the contemporary Church is the extremely subtle prevailing New Age teachings. Satan wants you to get involved in the New Age movement (NAM) with its New Age philosophy and New Age psychology, so that the Church becomes ineffective in its purpose. He wants you to be a follower of the NAM and when you are convinced, door will be opened for him to usher in the Antichrist. Please read my earlier messages (postings) - "A Return to Biblical Christianity" and "The Foundation of Biblical Christianity."

What is the New Age Movement?

It is beyond the scope of this message to share more than just the outline of his vast topic. Here are som important points:

1. The NAM is difficult to define because there is no hierarchy, dogma, doctrine, or membership. it is both a religious and social movement. In fact, Western culture is currently experiencing a phenomenal, spiritual, ideological, and sociological shift. The NAM consists of an incredibly huge and well organized network consisting of thousands of groups, trust, foundations, clubs, lodges, and religious groups whose goal and purpose is to prepare the world to enter the "Aquarian Age" which, according to New Age followers, is dawning. It is spposed to bring in peace and enlightenment and reunite man with God.

2. Man is presently considered separated form God, not because of sin, but because of lack of understanding and knowledge concerning the true nature of God and reality.

3. The NAM has two basic beliefs - Spiritual evolution and Global Unity:

Spiritual evolution - For the most part, the NAM espouses evolution, both of body and spirit. Man is developing and will soon leap forward into new spiritual horizons - to become a divine being and mankind soon sees itself as god. Man's basic nature is good and divine with divine qualitites. Being divine, man can then create his own reality. If, for example, a person believes that reincarnation is true, that's fine because that is his realithy. If someone he knows does not believe in it, that is alright too because that is someone else's reality. They can each have a reality for themselves that "follows a different path." This is of course totally contrary to God's Word - God alone is the Creator (Isaiah 44:24) and that "reincarnation" opposes the Scripture (Hebrews 9:27).

Global Unity - This belief consists of three major divisions: man with man; man with nature; and man with God:

Man with man - The NAM teaches that we will all learn our proper divine relationship with one another and achieve harmony and mutual love and acceptance through the realization and acceptance of this proper divine knowledge. The New Age is looking for a single world leader who, with New Age principles, will guide the world into a single harmonious economic whole - one world government. It is also hoped that this leader will unite the world into a spiritual unity - one world religion.

Man with nature - Since the NAM says that God is all, and all is God, then nature is also part of God. Man must then get in tune with nature and learn to nurture it and be nurtured by it. In this, all people can unite. Some New Agers even worship the earth and nature.

Man with God - Since the NAM teaches that man is divine by nature, all people, once they see themselves as such, will be helped in their unity of purpose, love, and development. The goal is to fully realize our own goodness - contrary to Scripture (Romans 3:10 - 12).

Some general unbiblical views of the NAM

1. View of God - New Agers confuse the Creator with His creation and think that God is part of creation and not separate from it. The god of the New Ages is impersonal and benevolent - therefore he (it) would not condemn anyone. An impersonal god will not reveal himself nor will he have specific requirements as to morality, belief, and behavior. This is why reincarnation appeals so much to them. With it, there is no judgment, there is a second chance, a third chance, and fourth, etc.

It should be noted that because the New Ager seeks to elevate himself to Godhood, he must lower the majesty and Personhood of the true God. In other words, the universe is not big enough for one true God, but it is big enough for a bunch of little ones.

The NAM does espouse honesty, integrity, love, peace, etc. It just wants to do it without the true God. It wants to do it not on His terms, but on its own.

2. View of Jesus Christ - A major idea in New Age thinking is that of the "Christ consciousness." In other words, Christ is an office (ministry) rather than an individual, such as Jesus, whom Christians know to be The Christ. This idea of "Christ Consciousness" asserts that Jesus was not the only Christ, but that He equipped Himself to receive the "Christ Consciousness" - He was a great "spiritual master" just as supposedly also did Buddha, Krishna, and Mohammed. New Agers believe that Jesus Christ the "Christ Consciousness" at His baptism, and that it left Him at His crucifizion.

3. View of sin and salvation - There is no place for the concept of sin in the New Age. There can be no sin because there is no transcendent God to rebel against. There are no rules or absolute moral imperatives. Since man's true essence is divine and perfect, there is also no such things as "original sin." Since New Agers believe that each person is god, thereby having endless potential for self-improvement, sin is denied. Sin is merely igorance of one's "inner divinity." Because sin does not exits, there is no need for repentance or forgiveness, and Jesus did not die for our sins.

Salvation is not an issue for New Agers. The soul is part of the universe and never dies. it is reborn or reincarnated in different physical bodies in a succession of future lives.

4. View of man's destiny - The salvation of the world depends upon human beings. When enough people harmonize their positive energy and turn their thoughts to peace, the world will be cleansed of negative elements and New Age ideas will be realized in an era of spiritual enlightenment. Since man is intrinsically divine and perfect, his only real problem is ignorance of that fact.

5. View of good or evil - New Agers distort the distinction between good and evil. They believe that because "all is One," ultimately there is neither good nor evil. There are no moral absolutes in the New Age. They think that a person can trascend his consciousness and go beyond the bounds of moral distinctions, so that even murder sometimes becomes an acceptable way of serving one's gods!

6. View of Satan - The Biblical (or traditional) view of Lucifer as the Devil or Satan is clearly absent in New Age literature.

7. View of future life (reincarnation) - New Agers believe in the ancient Eastern religions concept of reincarnation - through a long process of rebirths, man can eventually reach spiritual perfection. They often place animal rights above human right, because many New Agers believe animals are reincarnated souls. They also teach that what a person sows in this life, he will reap in the next life in his reincarnated state.

New Agers misrepresent Church history, the doctrines of Christianity, and often twist the Scripture to spport the idea that original Christianity taught reincarnation.

New Age philosophy in today's Christian ministries

The influence of New Age philosophy in today's Churches is as certain as the coming of the Antichrist. Both are imminent.

Paul said, "Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day (Second coming of Jesus) will not come unless the falling away (apostasy) comes first, and the man of sin (the Antichrist) is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalt himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God" (2 Thess. 2:3, 4, NKJV, emphasis added).

Notice that God allows the coming of the Antichrist so that the Lord "will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming" (Verse 8).

All Churches in the world are being influenced by the New Age philosophy in varying degrees. The NAM is the "falling away" (apostasy) of Biblical teaching. Ultimately when the full teaching of the New Age (as described in the above sections) is being fully manifested in the Church, the Antichrist will reveal himself.


Two man-centered Church growth methods


I have chosen two different Church growth methods; both are men-centered where the New Age philosophy has already made an inroad - Rick Warren's Church growth method and the Natural Church Development (NCD) method.


Rick Warren's Church growth method


Rick Warren adopted a typical human approach to Church growth and spiritual development, since the standards that he set in the determination of success have a very poor doctrinal basis. His non-offensive gospel has been defined so vaguely that from a human point of view, it is acceptable to virtually everybody. People are not offended by it because sin and its dreadful consequences, which is God's wrath upon sinners, are not mentioned. The full implications of Jesus' death on the cross, where He shed His blood and laid down His life to serve God's death penalty upon sinners (Romans 6:23), is not explicitly proclaimed.


What he does proclaim is a general identification with Jesus Christ, and the many blessings that He has in store for us. Christianity is so positively and beneficially presented, and rendered so acceptable to sinners by associating it with modern music and worldly methods of spiritual motivation, that great crowds are drawn into the Church.


The main objective of Rick Warren is not doctrinal purity but the outward growth of the Church. He claims that doctrine is so unimportant that God will not even ask about it: "God won't ask about your religious background or doctrinal views" (Rick Warren's book - The Purpose Driven Life, page 34). On the contrary, the Bible says:


"Whoever trangresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son" (2 John 9, NKJV).


Rick Warren openly associates with the strange, mystical practices of Eastern origin. He teaches pagan "prayer" practices such as "breath prayers" which are designed to induce altered state of consciousness. He consults compromisers such as Robert Schuller and encourages other to do the same.


Sadly, if Rich Warren and other Chrsitian leaders fall for New Age schemes and devices rather than exposing them, they will take countless numbers of sincere believers in Christ down with them. It will be the blind leading the blind, as they further and further into the deceptive ditch of the New Age and its spirituality. Undiscerning Christians who think they are on the narrow way preparing the way for Jesus Christ, may discover too late that they had actually been on the broad way preparing the way of the Antichrist!


Natural Church Development (NCD) method


The founder himself said NCD is an ecumenical movement (Page 24 of his book - "Color your Word with NCD"). Everyone should know that "ecumenical movement" is a New Age practice and terminology. Furthermore, the founder claims that he and his two friends (an organizational scientist and a trained psychologist) have made the commitment to invest the rest of their lives and all their expertise into the development of the NCD network (Page 15). Notice that "network" speaks of "global" which is akin to the New Age philosophy.


The founder is confused when he compares "God is light" (1 John 1:5) with the creation of light (Genesis 1:3).


John said, "This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5, NKJV, emphasis added).



"Light" in the context of the above verse, is an emblem of purity, truth, knowledge and without the corrupt nature of sin. "Darkness" is of the opposite.


In the creation of light - "Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light" (Gen. 1:3).


"Light" in this case, is physical light. Notice that New Ager usually cannot tell the difference between the spiritual and the physical.


The main objective of NCD is to create "balanced" Christians which lead to the creation of "balanced" Local Churches. According to the founder, individual Christians and the Church can achieve "balance" by applying his principle of "Trinitarian Compass" which consists of three color zones - red, blue and green. God communicates to Christians with these three colors which are the three revelations of God. Red zone stands for "salvation (evangelism) revelation"; blue zone stands for "personal (individual walking with God) revelation" and green zone stands for "creation (interreligious) revelation," (Page 51).


The "health" of a believer and of a Local Church depends on how balanced are these three colors (Page 176). According to the NCD philosophy no believer can be a true Christian and no Church can be a true Church unless and until they have achieved this "balance." What garbage! May the Lord be merciful to the thousands of Pastors who have been deceived and introduced NCD to His Local Churches! Pastors wake up from your slumber!


Conclusion


It is hoped that most God-fearing and Bible-believing Christians will not fail to see that all these man-made and man-centered doctrines are greatly influenced by the New Age Philosophy.