Some predict that this book might become the most controversial Christian work of The Rod: Will God Spare It?: An Exhaustive Study of Tempo and millions of . It? An Exhaustive Study of Temporary Punishment for Unfaithful Christians at this well written and meticulously researched book will no doubt become one of.
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- Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life
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- The Rod: Will God Spare It? by Joey D. Faust -- Schoettle Publishing Company
For New Age the Cosmic Christ is seen as a pattern which can be repeated in many people, places and times; it is the bearer of an enormous paradigm shift; it is ultimately a potential within us. According to Christian belief, Jesus Christ is not a pattern, but a divine person whose human-divine figure reveals the mystery of the Father's love for every person throughout history Jn 3: Christian mysticism and New Age mysticism.
For Christians, the spiritual life is a relationship with God which gradually through his grace becomes deeper, and in the process also sheds light on our relationship with our fellow men and women, and with the universe. Spirituality in New Age terms means experiencing states of consciousness dominated by a sense of harmony and fusion with the Whole.
This fundamental distinction is evident at all levels of comparison between Christian mysticism and New Age mysticism. The New Age way of purification is based on awareness of unease or alienation, which is to be overcome by immersion into the Whole. In order to be converted, a person needs to make use of techniques which lead to the experience of illumination. This transforms a person's consciousness and opens him or her to contact with the divinity, which is understood as the deepest essence of reality.
The techniques and methods offered in this immanentist religious system, which has no concept of God as person, proceed 'from below'. Although they involve a descent into the depths of one's own heart or soul, they constitute an essentially human enterprise on the part of a person who seeks to rise towards divinity by his or her own efforts. Not everyone has access to these techniques, whose benefits are restricted to a privileged spiritual 'aristocracy'.
There are spiritual techniques which it is useful to learn, but God is able to by-pass them or do without them. That would contradict the spirit of childhood called for by the Gospel. The heart of genuine Christian mysticism is not technique: For Christians, conversion is turning back to the Father, through the Son, in docility to the power of the Holy Spirit. The more people progress in their relationship with God — which is always and in every way a free gift — the more acute is the need to be converted from sin, spiritual myopia and self-infatuation, all of which obstruct a trusting self-abandonment to God and openness to other men and women.
All meditation techniques need to be purged of presumption and pretentiousness. Here is a key point of contrast between New Age and Christianity.
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Our problem, in a New Age perspective, is our inability to recognise our own divinity, an inability which can be overcome with the help of guidance and the use of a whole variety of techniques for unlocking our hidden divine potential. The fundamental idea is that 'God' is deep within ourselves.
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We are gods, and we discover the unlimited power within us by peeling off layers of inauthenticity. Here theosis, the Christian understanding of divinisation, comes about not through our own efforts alone, but with the assistance of God's grace working in and through us. It inevitably involves an initial awareness of incompleteness and even sinfulness, in no way an exaltation of the self. Furthermore, it unfolds as an introduction into the life of the Trinity, a perfect case of distinction at the heart of unity; it is synergy rather than fusion.
This all comes about as the result of a personal encounter, an offer of a new kind of life. Life in Christ is not something so personal and private that it is restricted to the realm of consciousness. Nor is it merely a new level of awareness. It involves being transformed in our soul and in our body by participation in the sacramental life of the Church.
It is difficult to separate the individual elements of New Age religiosity — innocent though they may appear — from the overarching framework which permeates the whole thought-world on the New Age movement. The gnostic nature of this movement calls us to judge it in its entirety. From the point of view of Christian faith, it is not possible to isolate some elements of New Age religiosity as acceptable to Christians, while rejecting others.
Since the New Age movement makes much of a communication with nature, of cosmic knowledge of a universal good — thereby negating the revealed contents of Christian faith — it cannot be viewed as positive or innocuous. In a cultural environment, marked by religious relativism, it is necessary to signal a warning against the attempt to place New Age religiosity on the same level as Christian faith, making the difference between faith and belief seem relative, thus creating greater confusion for the unwary.
In this regard, it is useful to remember the exhortation of St. Some practices are incorrectly labeled as New Age simply as a marketing strategy to make them sell better, but are not truly associated with its worldview. This only adds to the confusion. It is therefore necessary to accurately identify those elements which belong to the New Age movement, and which cannot be accepted by those who are faithful to Christ and his Church. The following questions may be the easiest key to evaluating some of the central elements of New Age thought and practice from a Christian standpoint.
Some of these questions applied to people and ideas not explicitly labelled New Age would reveal further unnamed or unacknowledged links with the whole New Age atmosphere. The New Age concept of God is rather diffuse, whereas the Christian concept is a very clear one. The New Age god is an impersonal energy, really a particular extension or component of the cosmos; god in this sense is the life-force or soul of the world. God is no longer to be sought beyond the world, but deep within myself. This is very different from the Christian understanding of God as the maker of heaven and earth and the source of all personal life.
God is in himself personal, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who created the universe in order to share the communion of his life with creaturely persons. Jesus Christ is often presented in New Age literature as one among many wise men, or initiates, or avatars, whereas in Christian tradition He is the Son of God.
Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life
Here are some common points in New Age approaches:. Other revelations about Jesus, made available by entities, spirit guides and ascended masters, or even through the Akasha Chronicles, are basic for New Age christology;. In the Christian Tradition Jesus Christ is the Jesus of Nazareth about which the gospels speak, the son of Mary and the only Son of God, true man and true God, the full revelation of divine truth, unique Saviour of the world: Isolated individual personalities would be pathological in terms of New Age in particular transpersonal psychology.
New Age is thinking based on totalitarian unity and that is why it is a danger The Christian approach grows out of the Scriptural teachings about human nature; men and women are created in God's image and likeness Gen 1. The human person is a mystery fully revealed only in Jesus Christ cf. GS 22 ,and in fact becomes authentically human properly in his relationship with Christ through the gift of the Spirit. The key is to discover by what or by whom we believe we are saved. Do we save ourselves by our own actions, as is often the case in New Age explanations, or are we saved by God's love?
Key words are self-fulfilment and self-realisation , self-redemption. New Age is essentially Pelagian in its understanding of about human nature. For Christians, salvation depends on a participation in the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, and on a direct personal relationship with God rather than on any technique. The human situation, affected as it is by original sin and by personal sin, can only be rectified by God's action: In the divine plan of salvation, human beings have been saved by Jesus Christ who, as God and man, is the one mediator of redemption.
In Christianity salvation is not an experience of self, a meditative and intuitive dwelling within oneself, but much more the forgiveness of sin, being lifted out of profound ambivalences in oneself and the calming of nature by the gift of communion with a loving God. The way to salvation is not found simply in a self-induced transformation of consciousness, but in a liberation from sin and its consequences which then leads us to struggle against sin in ourselves and in the society around us.
It necessarily moves us toward loving solidarity with our neighbour in need. New Age truth is about good vibrations, cosmic correspondences, harmony and ecstasy, in general pleasant experiences. It is a matter of finding one's own truth in accordance with the feel- good factor. Evaluating religion and ethical questions is obviously relative to one's own feelings and experiences.
His followers are asked to open their whole lives to him and to his values, in other words to an objective set of requirements which are part of an objective reality ultimately knowable by all. The tendency to confuse psychology and spirituality makes it hard not to insist that many of the meditation techniques now used are not prayer. They are often a good preparation for prayer, but no more, even if they lead to a more pleasant state of mind or bodily comfort. The experiences involved are genuinely intense, but to remain at this level is to remain alone, not yet in the presence of the other.
The achievement of silence can confront us with emptiness, rather than the silence of contemplating the beloved. It is also true that techniques for going deeper into one's own soul are ultimately an appeal to one's own ability to reach the divine, or even to become divine: New Age practices are not really prayer, in that they are generally a question of introspection or fusion with cosmic energy, as opposed to the double orientation of Christian prayer, which involves introspection but is essentially also a meeting with God.
In New Age there is no real concept of sin, but rather one of imperfect knowledge; what is needed is enlightenment, which can be reached through particular psycho-physical techniques. Those who take part in New Age activities will not be told what to believe, what to do or what not to do, but: Go where your intelligence and intuition lead you. The most serious problem perceived in New Age thinking is alienation from the whole cosmos, rather than personal failure or sin.
The remedy is to become more and more immersed in the whole of being. In some New Age writings and practices, it is clear that one life is not enough, so there have to be reincarnations to allow people to realise their full potential. Without the knowledge Revelation gives of God we cannot recognize sin clearly and are tempted to explain it as merely a development flaw, a psychological weakness, a mistake, or the necessary consequence of an inadequate social structure, etc. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity Some New Age writers view suffering as self-imposed, or as bad karma, or at least as a failure to harness one's own resources.
Others concentrate on methods of achieving success and wealth e. In New Age, reincarnation is often seen as a necessary element in spiritual growth, a stage in progressive spiritual evolution which began before we were born and will continue after we die. In our present lives the experience of the death of other people provokes a healthy crisis. Both cosmic unity and reincarnation are irreconcilable with the Christian belief that a human person is a distinct being, who lives one life, for which he or she is fully responsible: Christ — without any fault of his own — took on himself 'the total evil of sin'.
The experience of this evil determined the incomparable extent of Christ's suffering, which became the price of the redemption The Redeemer suffered in place of man and for man. Every man has his own share in the redemption, Each one is also called to share in that suffering through which the redemption was accomplished. He is called to share in that suffering through which all human suffering has also been redeemed.
In bringing about the redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the redemption. Much in New Age is unashamedly self-promotion, but some leading figures in the movement claim that it is unfair to judge the whole movement by a minority of selfish, irrational and narcissistic people, or to allow oneself to be dazzled by some of their more bizarre practices, which are a block to seeing in New Age a genuine spiritual search and spirituality.
Where there is true love, there has to be a different other person. Union is seen in Christianity as communion, unity as community. The New Age which is dawning will be peopled by perfect, androgynous beings who are totally in command of the cosmic laws of nature.
In this scenario, Christianity has to be eliminated and give way to a global religion and a new world order. On the one hand, it is clear that many New Age practices seem to those involved in them not to raise doctrinal questions; but, at the same time, it is undeniable that these practices themselves communicate, even if only indirectly, a mentality which can influence thinking and inspire a very particular vision of reality. Certainly New Age creates its own atmosphere, and it can be hard to distinguish between things which are innocuous and those which really need to be questioned.
The Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord. He is at the heart of every Christian action, and every Christian message. So the Church constantly returns to meet her Lord. The Gospels tell of many meetings with Jesus, from the shepherds in Bethlehem to the two thieves crucified with him, from the wise elders who listened to him in the Temple to the disciples walking miserably towards Emmaus. One of the attractive elements of John's account of this meeting is that it takes the woman a while even to glimpse what Jesus means by the water 'of life', or 'living' water verse Even so, she is fascinated — not only by the stranger himself, but also by his message — and this makes her listen.
The dialogue about the adoration of God begins: Jesus touched her heart and so prepared her to listen to what He had to say about Himself as the Messiah: They soon accepted the truth of his identity: They move from hearing about Jesus to knowing him personally, then understanding the universal significance of his identity. This all happens because their minds, their hearts and more are engaged.
The fact that the story takes place by a well is significant. This approach could yield a rich harvest in terms of people who may have been attracted to the water-carrier Aquarius but who are genuinely still seeking the truth. It is important to acknowledge the sincerity of people searching for the truth; there is no question of deceit or of self-deception. It is also important to be patient, as any good educator knows. It is a matter of letting people react in their own way, at their own pace, and letting God do the rest.
Guidance and sound formation are needed. The Age of Aquarius is conceived as one which will replace the predominantly Christian Age of Pisces.
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New Age thinkers are acutely aware of this; some of them are convinced that the coming change is inevitable, while others are actively committed to assisting its arrival. Christians have only to think of the difference between the wise men from the East and King Herod to recognise the powerful effects of choice for or against Christ. It must never be forgotten that many of the movements which have fed the New Age are explicitly anti-Christian. Their stance towards Christianity is not neutral, but neutralising: New Age traditions consciously and deliberately blur real differences: The idealistic intention is always to overcome the scandal of division, but in New Age theory it is a question of the systematic fusion of elements which have generally been clearly distinguished in Western culture.
It is not playing with words to say that New Age thrives on confusion. The Christian tradition has always valued the role of reason in justifying faith and in understanding God, the world and the human person. While this is a positive insight, recalling the need for a balance involving all our faculties, it does not justify sidelining a faculty which is essential for a fully human life. Rationality has the advantage of universality: Anything which promotes conceptual confusion or secrecy needs to be very carefully scrutinised. It hides rather than reveals the ultimate nature of reality.
It corresponds to the post-modern loss of confidence in the bold certainties of former times, which often involves taking refuge in irrationality. The challenge is to show how a healthy partnership between faith and reason enhances human life and encourages respect for creation. Create your own reality. The widespread New Age conviction that one creates one's own reality is appealing, but illusory. It is crystallised in Jung's theory that the human being is a gateway from the outer world into an inner world of infinite dimensions, where each person is Abraxas, who gives birth to his own world or devours it.
The star that shines in this infinite inner world is man's God and goal. The most poignant and problematic consequence of the acceptance of the idea that people create their own reality is the question of suffering and death: This is far from being a purely academic issue: Our limitations are a fact of life, and part of being a creature.
Death and bereavement present a challenge and an opportunity, because the temptation to take refuge in a westernised reworking of the notion of reincarnation is clear proof of people's fear of death and their desire to live forever. Do we make the most of our opportunities to recall what is promised by God in the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
How real is the faith in the resurrection of the body, which Christians proclaim every Sunday in the creed? The New Age idea that we are in some sense also gods is one which is very much in question here. The whole question depends, of course, on one's definition of reality. A sound approach to epistemology and psychology needs to be reinforced — in the appropriate way — at every level of Catholic education, formation and preaching. It is important constantly to focus on effective ways of speaking of transcendence.
The fundamental difficulty of all New Age thought is that this transcendence is strictly a self-transcendeence to be achieved within a closed universe. In Chapter 8 an indication is given regarding the principal documents of the Catholic Church in which can be found an evaluation of the ideas of New Age. But he also calls the attention of the faithful to certain ambiguous elements which are incompatible with the Christian faith: First of all, it is worth saying once again that not everyone or everything in the broad sweep of New Age is linked to the theories of the movement in the same ways.
Likewise, the label itself is often misapplied or extended to phenomena which can be categorised in other ways. The term New Age has even been abused to demonise people and practices. It is essential to see whether phenomena linked to this movement, however loosely, reflect or conflict with a Christian vision of God, the human person and the world. The mere use of the term New Age in itself means little, if anything. The relationship of the person, group, practice or commodity to the central tenets of Christianity is what counts. For example, there is a large number of pastoral centres, cultural centres and centres of spirituality.
Ideally, these could also be used to address the confusion about New Age religiosity in a variety of creative ways, such as providing a forum for discussion and study. It must unfortunately be admitted that there are too many cases where Catholic centres of spirituality are actively involved in diffusing New Age religiosity in the Church. This would of course have to be corrected, not only to stop the spread of confusion and error, but also so that they might be effective in promoting true Christian spirituality.
Catholic cultural centres, in particular, are not only teaching institutions but spaces for honest dialogue. These are precious resources, which ought to be shared generously in areas that are less well provided for. Encounters with these groups should be approached with care, and should always involve persons who are capable of both explaining Catholic faith and spirituality, and of reflecting critically on New Age thought and practice.
It is extremely important to check the credentials of people, groups and institutions claiming to offer guidance and information on New Age. This fits in with the New Age vision of moving into an age where the limited character of particular religions gives way to the universality of a new religion or spirituality.
Genuine dialogue, on the other hand, will always respect diversity from the outset, and will never seek to blur distinctions in a fusion of all religious traditions. Those people who are invited to such groups need to look for the marks of genuine Christian spirituality , and to be wary if there is any sort of initiation ceremony. Such groups take advantage of a person's lack of theological or spiritual formation to lure them gradually into what may in fact be a form of false worship. Christian prayer and the God of Jesus Christ will easily be recognised.
There is no problem with learning how to meditate, but the object or content of the exercise clearly determines whether it relates to the God revealed by Jesus Christ, to some other revelation, or simply to the hidden depths of the self. The question of respect for creation is one which could also be approached creatively in Catholic schools.
A great deal of what is proposed by the more radical elements of the ecological movement is difficult to reconcile with Catholic faith. People's minds and hearts are already unusually open to reliable information on the Christian understanding of time and salvation history. Emphasising what is lacking in other approaches should not be the main priority.
It is more a question of constantly revisiting the sources of our own faith, so that we can offer a good, sound presentation of the Christian message. We can be proud of what we have been given on trust, so we need to resist the pressures of the dominant culture to bury these gifts cf. One of the most useful tools available is the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
There is also an immense heritage of ways to holiness in the lives of Christian men and women past and present. Where Christianity's rich symbolism, and its artistic, aesthetical and musical traditions are unknown or have been forgotten, there is much work to be done for Christians themselves, and ultimately also for anyone searching for an experience or a greater awareness of God's presence. Dialogue between Christians and people attracted to the New Age will be more successful if it takes into account the appeal of what touches the emotions and symbolic language. If our task is to know, love and serve Jesus Christ, it is of paramount importance to start with a good knowledge of the Scriptures.
But, most of all, coming to meet the Lord Jesus in prayer and in the sacraments, which are precisely the moments when our ordinary life is hallowed, is the surest way of making sense of the whole Christian message. The great religious orders have strong traditions of meditation and spirituality, which could be made more available through courses or periods in which their houses might welcome genuine seekers.
This is already being done, but more is needed. Helping people in their spiritual search by offering them proven techniques and experiences of real prayer could open a dialogue with them which would reveal the riches of Christian tradition, and perhaps clarify a great deal about New Age in the process. In a vivid and useful image, one of the New Age movement's own exponents has compared traditional religions to cathedrals, and New Age to a worldwide fair.
The New Age Movement is seen as an invitation to Christians to bring the message of the cathedrals to the fair which now covers the whole world. This image offers Christians a positive challenge, since it is always time to take the message of the cathedrals to the people in the fair. Christians need not, indeed, must not wait for an invitation to bring the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ to those who are looking for the answers to their questions, for spiritual food that satisfies, for living water.
The Mass is ended! He goes on to issue a challenge to Christians in this regard: To those shopping around in the world's fair of religious proposals, the appeal of Christianity will be felt first of all in the witness of the members of the Church, in their trust, calm, patience and cheerfulness, and in their concrete love of neighbour, all the fruit of their faith nourished in authentic personal prayer. Some brief formulations of New Age ideas. Some of these great beings are well- known and have inspired the world religions.
Some are unknown and work invisibly. We, therefore, work with Spirit and these energies in co-creating our reality. This is why we talk of a New Age. This new consciousness is the result of the increasingly successful incarnation of what some people call the energies of cosmic love. This new consciousness demonstrates itself in an instinctive understanding of the sacredness and, in particular, the interconnectedness of all existence.
The world, including the human race, constitutes an expression of a higher, more comprehensive divine nature. Hidden within each human being is a higher divine self, which is a manifestation of the higher, more comprehensive divine nature. This higher nature can be awakened and can become the center of the individual's everyday life.
Each Age has its own cosmic energies; the energy in Pisces has made it an era of wars and conflicts. But Aquarius is set to be an era of harmony, justice, peace, unity etc. In this aspect, New Age accepts historical inevitability. Some reckon the age of Aries was the time of the Jewish religion, the age of Pisces that of Christianity, Aquarius the age of a universal religion. In New Age, it is a state resulting from a new awareness of this double mode of being and existing that is characteristic of every man and every woman.
The more it spreads, the more it will assist in the transformation of interpersonal conduct. Steiner believed it had helped him explore the laws of evolution of the cosmos and of humanity. Every physical being has a corresponding spiritual being, and earthly life is influenced by astral energies and spiritual essences. It links beings as diverse as ascended masters, angels, gods, group entities, nature spirits and the Higher Self. For Alice Bailey, a great day of supplication is needed, when all believers will create such a concentration of spiritual energy that there will be a further incarnation, which will reveal how people can save themselves For many people, Jesus is nothing more than a spiritual master who, like Buddha, Moses and Mohammed, amongst others, has been penetrated by the cosmic Christ.
The cosmic Christ is also known as christic energy at the basis of each being and the whole of being. Individuals need to be initiated gradually into awareness of this christic characteristic they are all said to have. Christ — in New Age terms — represents the highest state of perfection of the self. Hence they are useful in self-transformation. They are used in various therapies and in meditation, visualisation, 'astral travel' or as lucky charms.
From the outside looking in, they have no intrinsic power, but are simply beautiful. Jung, a former disciple of Freud. Jung recognised that religion and spiritual matters were important for wholeness and health. The interpretation of dreams and the analysis of archetypes were key elements in his method. Archetypes are forms which belong to the inherited structure of the human psyche; they appear in the recurrent motifs or images in dreams, fantasies, myths and fairy tales.
It was originally used for divination, but has become known as the symbol for a system of personality typology consisting of nine standard character types. It became popular after the publication of Helen Palmer's book The Enneagram , 97 but she recognises her indebtedness to the Russian esoteric thinker and practitioner G. The origin of the enneagram remains shrouded in mystery, but some maintain that it comes from Sufi mysticism. The initiation process takes people from a merely external, superficial, knowledge of reality to the inner truth and, in the process, awakens their consciousness at a deeper level.
Salvation, in this context, coincides with a discovery of the Self. Human beings are said not to have full control over this power, but their good or bad actions can accelerate or retard their progress. The whole of creation, including humanity, is seen to be moving inexorably towards a fusion with the divine. Reincarnation clearly has an important place in this view of a progressive spiritual evolution which is said to begin before birth and continue after death.
Human beings are said to become aware of their place in this holistic vision of global reality by expanding their consciousness well beyond its normal limits. The New Age offers a huge variety of techniques to help people reach a higher level of perceiving reality, a way of overcoming the separation between subjects and between subjects and objects in the knowing process, concluding in total fusion of what normal, inferior, awareness sees as separate or distinct realities.
In the first centuries of Christianity, the Fathers of the Church struggled against gnosticism, inasmuch as it was at odds with faith. Some see a reborth of gnostic ideas in much New Age thinking, and some authors connected with New Age actually quote early gnosticism. However, the greater emphasis in New Age on monism and even pantheism or panentheism encourages some to use the term neo-gnosticism to distinguish New Age gnosis from ancient gnosticism.
Blavatsky claimed to have contact with the mahatmas, or masters, exalted beings who together constitute the Great White Brotherhood. She saw them as guiding the evolution of the human race and directing the work of the Theosophical Society. When they first became known during the Renaissance, they were thought to reveal pre-Christian doctrines, but later studies showed they dated from the first century of the christian era.
Hermetic speculation has strengthened belief in an ancient fundamental tradition or a so-called philosophia perennis falsely considered as common to all religious traditions. The high and ceremonial forms of magic developed from Renaissance Hermeticism. Humanity fits into the universe as part of a single living organism, a harmonious network of dynamic relationships.
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The classic distinction between subject and object, for which Descartes and Newton are typically blamed, is challenged by various scientists who offer a bridge between science and religion. Humanity is part of a universal network eco-system, family of nature and world, and must seek harmony with every element of this quasi-transcendent authority. Various techniques of personal transformation are used more and more by companies in management training programmes, ultimately for very normal economic reasons. Transpersonal Technologies, the Movement for Inner Spiritual Awareness, Organisational Development and Organisational Transformation are all put forward as non-religious, but in reality company employees can find themselves being submitted to an alien 'spirituality' in a situation which raises questions about personal freedom.
Freemasonry or a mystery association magical, esoteric-occult, gnostic, theosophical etc. In the ancient Vedic period it referred to the ritual action, especially sacrifice, by means of which a person gained access to the happiness or blessedness of the afterlife. When Jainism and Buddhism appeared about 6 centuries before Christ , Karma lost its salvific meaning: In the doctrine of samsara, it was understood as the incessant cycle of human birth and death Huinduism or of rebirth Buddhism.
There is only one universal being, of which every thing and every person is a part. Inasmuch as New Age monism includes the idea that reality is fundamentally spiritual, it is a contemporary form of pantheism sometimes explicitly a rejection of materialism, particularly Marxism. Its claim to resolve all dualism leaves no room for a transcendent God, so everything is God. A further problem arises for Christianity when the question of the origin of evil is raised. It is fusion with the universe, an ultimate annihilation of the individual in the unity of the whole. Experience of Self is taken to be experience of divinity, so one looks within to discover authentic wisdom, creativity and power.
In the great wave of reaction against traditional religions, specifically the Judaeo-Christian heritage of the West, many have revisited ancient indigenous, traditional, pagan religions. Whatever preceded Christianity is reckoned to be more genuine to the spirit of the land or the nation, an uncontaminated form of natural religion, in touch with the powers of nature, often matriarchal, magical or Shamanic. Humanity will, it is said, be healthier if it returns to the natural cycle of agricultural festivals and to a general affirmation of life.
Some New Age composers claim their music is meant to build bridges between the conscious and the unconscious, but this is probably more so when, besides melodies, there is meditative and rhythmic repetition of key phrases. As with many elements of the New Age phenomenon, some music is meant to bring people further into the New Age Movement, but most is simply commercial or artistic.
Its origins were in idealism, of which it was a popularised form. God was said to be totally good, and evil merely an illusion; the basic reality was the mind. Since one's mind is what causes the events in one's life, one has to take ultimate responsibility for every aspect of one's situation. They are kept hidden by a code of secrecy imposed on those initiated into the groups and societies that guard the knowledge and techniques involved. In the 19th century, spiritualism and the Theosophical Society introduced new forms of occultism which have, in turn, influenced various currents in the New Age.
Every element of the universe is divine, and the divinity is equally present in everything. There is no space in this view for God as a distinct being in the sense of classical theism. Despite fierce criticism from scientists, parapsychology has gone from strength to strength, and fits neatly into the view popular in some areas of the New Age that human beings have extraordinary psychic abilities, but often only in an undeveloped state. It can be seen as the heir to movements in the early 20th century that promoted a world government.
The consciousness of the unity of humanity sits well with the Gaia hypothesis. Sometimes it is a matter of becoming consciously aware of unconsciously held beliefs that determine our life-situation. Positive thinkers are promised health and wholeness, often prosperity and even immortality. In the early s Leonard Orr described rebirthing as a process by which a person can identify and isolate aoreas in his or her consciousness that are unresolved and at the source of present problems.
As opposed to Indian religions or those derived from them, New Age views reincarnation as progression of the individual soul towards a more perfect state. Death is nothing but the passage of the soul from one body to another. The Rosicrucian Fellowship contributed to the revival of astrology in the 20 th century, and the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rosae Crucis AMORC linked success with a presumed ability to materialise mental images of health, riches and happiness.
It has been attractive in New Age circles because it stresses harmony with the forces of nature and healing. There is also a romanticised image of indigenous religions and their closeness to the earth and to nature. While there have always been attempts to contact the spirits of the dead, 19 th century spiritualism is reckoned to be one of the currents that flow into the New Age.
It developed against the background of the ideas of Swedenborg and Mesmer, and became a new kind of religion. Madame Blavatsky was a medium, and so spiritualism had a great influence on the Theosophical Society, although there the emphasis was on contact with entities from the distant past rather than people who had died only recently.
Allan Kardec was influential in the spread of spiritualism in Afro-Brasilian religions. There are also spiritualist elements in some New Religious Movements in Japan. The name was given new emphasis by the Theosophical Society, founded by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and others in Theosophical mysticism tends to be monistic, stressing the essential unity of the spiritual and material components of the universe.
It also looks for the hidden forces that cause matter and spirit to interact, in such a way that human and divine minds eventually meet. Here is where theosophy offers mystical redemption or enlightenment. This was a 19 th century movement of writers and thinkers in New England, who shared an idealistic set of beliefs in the essential unity of creation, the innate goodness of the human person, and the superiority of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths.
The chief figure is Ralph Waldo Emerson, who moved away from orthodox Christianity, through Unitarianism to a new natural mysticism which integrated concepts from Hinduism with popular American ones like individualism, personal responsibility and the need to succeed. It was invented in England in by Gerald Gardner, who based it on some scholarly texts, according to which medieval European witchcraft was an ancient nature religion persecuted by Christians. It has become one of the most important centres of the Human Potential Movement, and has spread ideas about holistic medicine in the worlds of education, politics and economics.
This has been done through courses in comparative religion, mythology, mysticism, meditation, psychotherapy, expansion of consciousness and so on. Along with Findhorn, it is seen as a key place in the growth of Aquarian consciousness. The founding of the Findhorn community in Scotland in was an important milestone in the movement which bears the label of the ' New Age '.
In fact, Findhorn 'was seen as embodying its principal ideals of transformation'. The quest for a universal consciousness, the goal of harmony with nature, the vision of a transformed world, and the practice of channeling, all of which have become hallmarks of the New Age Movement, were present at Findhorn from its foundation. Since the end of the 19th century it was a meeting point for European and American exponents of the counter-culture in the fields of politics, psychology, art and ecology.
The Eranos conferences have been held there every year since , gathering some of the great luminaries of the New Age. The yearbooks make clear the intention to create an integrated world religion. Documents of the Catholic Church's magisterium.
Godfried Danneels, Christ or Aquarius? Pastoral Letter, Christmas Veritas, Dublin. Working Group on New Religious Movements ed. A Critical Assessment, London Chapman William Bloom, The New Age. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point: Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy.
Chris Griscom, Ecstasy is a New Frequency: Historical, descriptive and analytical works. Manabu Haga and Robert J. This book has an extensive bibliography. Arild Romarheim, The Aquarian Christ. Edwin Schur, The Awareness Trap. Steven Sutcliffe and Marion Bowman eds. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self. Estudos da CNBB n. Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture, 1: The exact timing and nature of the change to the New Age are interpreted variously by different authors; estimates of timing range from to The following is interesting: See Also section 4 below. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius The August journal of the Berkeley Christian Coalition puts it this way: Today, both have found their way into the mainstream of our cultural mentality.
Quoted in Marilyn Ferguson, op. The system of correspondences is clearly inherited from traditional esotericism, but it has a new meaning for those who consciously or not follow Swedenborg. While every natural element in traditional esoteric doctrine had the divine life within it, for Swedenborg nature is a dead reflection of the living spiritual world. Blavatsky rejected correspondences, and Jung emphatically relativised causality in favour of the esoteric world-view of correspondences. VIII-2, 16, , p. Gaudium et Spes , 19; Fides et Ratio , He also lists Catholic personalities and spiritual institutions clearly inspired and guided by Jung's psychology.
Introductory Ecumenical Notes, Manchester Maranatha , 8. Leslie Fiedler, quoted in M. Frente a una Nueva Era. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Orationis Formas, The list of common points is on p. David Spangler, The New Age, op. For documentation on the vehemently anti-Christian stance of spiritualism, cf.
The Pontifical Council for Culture has published a handbook listing these centres throughout the world: Catholic Cultural Centres 3rd edition, Vatican City, It is particularly the case in schools, where a captive curious young audience is an ideal target for ideological merchandising. Badewien, Antroposofia , in H. Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life. What sort of reflection 1. The New Age and Catholic faith 1. A positive challenge 2. What is new about New Age? There Must be an Angel 2. A Magical Mystery Tour 2.
The fundamental principles of New Age thinking 2. A global response in a time of crisis 2. The essential matrix of New Age thinking 2. Central themes of the New Age 2. New Age and culture 2. New Age and Christian faith 3. New Age as spirituality 3. The Cosmic Christ 3. Christian mysticism and New Age mysticism 3. The God within and theosis 4. New Age and Christian faith in contrast 5. Jesus Christ offers us the water of life 6. Points to note 6. Guidance and sound formation are needed 6. Some brief formulations of New Age ideas 7. A select glossary 7. Key New Age places 8.
Documents of the Catholic Church's Magisterium 8. Some New Age books 9. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. It's scripture, plain and simple, presented logically, rationally, and supported with plenty of historically relevant, contextual voices weighing in on the teaching. If you've primarily focused on heaven and sort of not paid much attention to learning more about the millennial reign of Christ or the coming Judgment, then this will help you tremendously to not only put this life into far more rational perspective, but to take it much more seriously. You'd think we would know it all, but the fact is that the impact of these scriptures on my own life has been transformative.
I am so, so grateful to have stumbled upon this little book! A lot of scripture taken out of context. This book is full heretical doctrine. Joey uses a few proof text to reinterpret the whole bible and the doctrine of the judgment seat of Christ. Herb Evans has written great doctrinaly sound review of the heretical teachings of this book.
The Rod: Will God Spare It? by Joey D. Faust -- Schoettle Publishing Company
The fruit of this teaching is destroying many churches and causing unnecessary confusion. Someone joined our church from Joey's church and tried to split our church over this false teaching. Please research Herb Evans reviews. What is disappointing about this book is that it is not a history of the doctrine of kingdom exclusion, but rather an interpretation of history that somehow supports Faust's theory about the end of the ages. It's also poorly written. First, the book is more an outline than a finished product. Second, Faust quotes so many authors, there's very little of his own thought in the book.
His treatment of his source material is vulgar. If someone in history mentions the millennial kingdom, he simply assumes that person believed everything he presents in the book. Some of the people he cites were advocates of purgatory, a thing Faust regards as heresy. On that note, his chapter on purgatory is frankly imbecilic. None of his references are drawn from Catholic sources. That would be important, wouldn't it, if one were writing about someone else's religious beliefs? One wonders if Faust has any grasp of the doctrine of purgatory.
Ironically, his principal objection to the Catholic doctrine is that purgatory is a "place. Faust's approach is to present his own ideas in the guise of historical research. He does more of the first, and little of the second. Finally a complete interpretation of Gods word, he doesn't ignore scripture and he doesn't apologize for Gods word. So many people want to say the bible is so mysterious, when the majority of the time it says what it says. Always hear about interpretation; what about comprehension? They just don't like what it says, so squeeze interpretation in maybe they want to believe they are the gifted ones God entrusted with "the knowledge" to interpret complete catholicism.
Most Christians don't read this because they'll have to get up stop playing games and actually walk a Christian walk. There's not 2 or 3 scriptures supporting Kingdom exclusion but irrefutable. This book is full of meat and I hear a lot of whining from immatures. Whether it's believed or not 1 Peter 4: There are big differences between purgatory and this biblical doctrine if it's looked at with a mature mind. For a refutation of the fundamentally wicked doctrines propounded in this book, please see the following available at the Middletown Bible Church web site: One person found this helpful.
Faust writes that living in a future millennium is a prize which can be forfeited. However, Faust also teaches eternal security and in an attempt to reconcile this doctrine with rest of Scripture, he concludes that many Christians will miss the millennium because they lived carnally or in rebellion.
Thus, entrance into the millennium is conditional and those believers who were not overcomers are excluded from the millennial kingdom, although not from final salvation. Faust separates the "bema" judgment of Rom When Christ comes for his church, these carnal Christians will be resurrected, but not share in the first resurrection. Faust does not want to call this purgatory because that word is associated with Roman Catholicism. Nor is this the soul sleep of seventh day adventism nor the heresy of universalism.
Above all he has avoided the dreaded label of Arminianism. Thus Charles Stanley teaches that disobedient Christians will experience a type of outer darkness that is within the millennial kingdom. Faust taught that they would die again and go to hell, but only temporarily hurt by the lake of fire. They will be banished to the underworld throughout the millennium. They are in danger of temporarily losing their souls and temporarily being hurt by the second death 2: Their names may also be temporarily blotted out of the book of life 3: Yet this is a warning to Christians who can never perish eternally John 6: This is a danger for Christians" [p.
However, there is more than one book mentioned in Revelation However, since their names will be found in the final book of life Or they may be temporarily blotted out of the book for unfaithfulness and after having been scourged, they will again be found in the book of life [p.
In either case they will be incarcerated and chastised during the millennium, but saved in the end. Christians certainly can have assurance that they are saved, but they are to strive until the end and hope in the Lord's mercy, "yet we should never have certainty" concerning the judgment seat [pp. No, I am not making this up. I have labored to state the views of Faust in his own words.
Incredibly, this book is endorsed by many fundamental Baptists and they are holding conferences on this topic. This implies they are having trouble with some of their carnal Church members and need some leverage to restrain them. It is obvious that their cardinal doctrine is unconditional eternal security and that everything else must be cut to fit. It also assumes the category of carnal Christians, a false view of assurance, and a dispensational premillennial division of the general judgment. However, if the millennium is that period of time from Christ''s first advent to his second coming in final judgment, as much of the Church has always believed, then these carnal Christians may be stuck in hell forever with no hope of ever getting out.
I would not want to base my chances of getting out on this theological house of cards. See all 15 reviews. Most recent customer reviews. Published on November 10, Published on February 12, Published on January 28, Published on January 6, Published on November 26, There's a problem loading this menu right now. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations.