WHAT'S LEFT AFTER CHRIST IS REJECTED

A group named "occupy spirituality" confidently proclaimed:

"Revolutions will come and go. Movements will change names and forms. But what is emerging in people's hearts will continue. Most likely it will continue quietly, in small communities, among friends, mostly unacknowledged by the dominant media. It will continue quietly creating a counterpoint to all the institutions and power structures, eventually moving the center of life from values that no longer serve life to relationships that nourish and celebrate life. The skeptics will be surprised. We can promise you that!"

Upon what does such a faith rest? Certainly not the Scriptures! But not even evidence! The world is in chaos.

Instead, this statement reflects the fact that we need hope. But that hope appeals to the spirit of our day. It is one that will mysteriously arise within our own heart. It's against institutions. It rejects not only reason and evidences, but also the lessons of the past and embraces an entirely new age. It is intent on reinventing a wheel without rubber and spokes.

New Age, Human Thriving, and the Good Inner Self

Will love conquer all? Well, it depends on how you define “love.” One anonymous New Ager, reflecting the thoughts of many others, stated:

• Since this inner nature is good or neutral rather than bad, it is best to bring it out and to encourage it rather than to suppress it. If it is permitted to guide our life, we grow healthy, fruitful, and happy.

The way we regard human nature determines how we address human problems. If we regard human nature as basically good and loving, we will gently try to help humans bring forth and accept their natural and good impulses.

David Spangler adds:

• “The New Age approach is to look at the object, people and the events of our lives and to say ‘you are sacred. In you and with you I can find the sacramental passages that reconnect me to the wholeness of creation.’ It is then to ask ourselves what kind of culture, what kind of institutions – be they political, economic, artistic, educational, or scientific – we need that can honor that universal sacredness.”

For Spangler, “sacredness” doesn’t mean that we are created in the image of God but that we remain fundamentally good at the core. And we bring forth humanity’s good nature by affirming their “sacredness.” If we are told we are sacred, perhaps we will begin to act that way.

But if we are basically good and sacred, why is it that we can’t treat others in a loving manner? Why wars, jealousy, hatred, and ethnic cleaning? A common answer is that suffer from a lack of self-esteem. According to New Age guru, Shakti Gawain, we have failed to learn how to trust in ourselves:

• “When we consistently suppress and distrust our intuitive knowingness, looking instead for external authority, validation, and the approval of others, we give our personal power away…Every time you don’t trust yourself and don’t follow your inner truth, you decreased your aliveness and your body will reflect this with a loss of vitality, numbness, pain, and eventually physical disease.”

However, it often seems that those with the highest levels of self-trust or self-confidence can be the most inhumane of people. It is also possible that the attempt to trust in ourselves comes at the expense of understanding ourselves. Perhaps we shouldn’t be affirming ourselves but examining ourselves. Perhaps we do not measure up to the self-trust that Gawain wants us to adopt. Perhaps instead, we need to learn how to be scrupulously honest with ourselves.

Instead, according to another branch of the New Age, our problems derive from our inhumane institutions. In Understanding the Times, David Noebel explains:

• Every humanist psychologist believes the secret to better mental health lies in getting in touch with the unspoiled, inner self.  When man strips himself of all the evil forced on him by society, he will become a positive agent with virtually unlimited potential…The three major assumptions of Humanist psychology are: man is good by nature and therefore perfectible; society and its social institutions are responsible for man’s evil acts; and mental health can be restored to everyone who gets in touch with his inner ‘good’ self.

How then do we get in touch with our “inner ‘good’ self? The outer layers of social conditioning and acculturation have to be peeled back. How? Humanist psychologists use a number of techniques to affirm and love the client through empathy, reflective listening, and unconditional positive regard for each individual, whatever their conduct.

However, while these affirmative techniques often bring about positive and immediate responses, it is questionable whether they succeed in bringing out the good inner self. Perhaps instead they are temporarily effective in manipulating the desired response from the client.

There is also another problem when we believe in the good inner self. We tend to dismiss all other ways of treating others, especially treating others punitively or critically.

Several humanistic women have confidently informed me that any form of punishment is barbaric. After all, if the tender, gentle, and loving response is all that is necessary to bring out the optimal response, then prison and censure become entirely unnecessary, even inhumane.

I asked one of these very lovely and personable women if she thought that if the Allies had just been more empathetic with Hitler, using more reflective listening, they would have been able to tap into his “good inner self,” and WWII would have been averted.

She answered, “Yes.” I was troubled by her revealing response. I was hoping that she would admit that other responses might have proved more fruitful with Hitler, namely a speedy military response.

Wisdom requires discernment. It recognizes that one size does not fit all. It sees that different responses are needful with different people in different situations.

Life is multi-textured, and it requires wisdom to recognize the complexities. Sometimes empathy will not work with a rebellious child. Sometimes firmness and punishment are required. As a probation officer, I often noticed that my younger probationers would respond positively and respectfully to my firmness, as if they recognized that they needed it, and that I was someone who cared about them enough to set firm limits.

The New Age blames institutions and even organized religion. However, our institutions are made up of individuals, each having a “good inner self.” How then is it that our institutions have become so utterly corrupt? We can’t blame other institutions. After all, humanity pre-dated the institutions we created. The answer must be sought at a deeper level.

Perhaps instead, the problem resides in all of us, in our adversity to the truth. Jesus put it this way:

• And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:19-21)

If the problem resides in each one of us, changing institutions will do little to correct it. Instead, we need an answer that goes to the very core of the problem. Perhaps we must be born again. The Prophet Ezekiel prophesied that God would do this very thing:

• And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. (Ezekiel 36:26-29)

Are we really Truth-Seekers as we Claim

Are we really truth-haters, as the Bible claims? God has made known His truth in every marketplace (Proverbs 1:20-32) and in everything visible (Romans 1:18-32; Psalm 19) and invisible (Rom. 2:14-15). But we have loved the darkness, which conceals the truth:

·       This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

Are we really such rebels, such enemies of the truth (Romans 8:5-8; 5:10; Psalm 14, 53)? Do some have substantial reasons to reject the Gospel? Isn’t there room for legitimate disagreements with the biblical revelation? According to the late New Age proponent, Margo Adler, there are many. She writes:

·       “Polytheism is…characterized by plurality [of choice]…and is eternally in unresolvable conflict with social monotheism [Christianity, for example, which maintains, that there is only one truth] which in its worst form is fascism and in its less destructive forms is imperialism, capitalism, feudalism and monarchy.” (Drawing Down the Moon)

·       “Christianity in absolute contrast to ancient paganism… not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends… In antiquity every tree, every spring, every stream, every hill had its own… guardian spirit… By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feeling of natural objects.” (Quoting Lynn White)

For Adler, spirituality is not a matter of truth but of experience, choice, and what works for you. Truth is coercive and imperialistic, while paganism allows freedom of choice. Adler affirmatively quotes a “priestess” in support:

• “It seems like a contradiction to say that I have a certain subjective truth; I have experienced the Goddess, and this is my total reality. And yet I do not believe that I have the one, true, right, and only way. Many people cannot understand how I find Her a part of my reality and accept the fact that your reality might be something else. But for me, this is in no way a contradiction, because I am aware that my reality and my conclusions are a result of my unique genetic structure, my life experience and my subjective feelings…This recognition that everyone has different experiences is a fundamental keystone to Paganism; it’s the fundamental premise that whatever is going on out there is infinitely more complex than I can ever understand. And that makes me feel very good.”

Why does incomprehensibility make the priestess “feel very good?” Truth is restrictive. If you cannot know it, you cannot be constrained by its claims. For Adler and the priestess, “my [subjective and personal] reality” trumps any other consideration. A common reality is simply not a consideration. Why not? It’s incomprehensible – “infinitely more complex than I can ever understand.”

If this is true, we are free to choose any religion or lifestyle we desire. But is reality really incomprehensible, and does this let them off the hook? How does this look in real life? A jury finds you guilty and they justify their verdict by saying:

• Well, we found the evidence incomprehensible, but we just didn’t have a good feeling about you, and we had a better feeling about your accuser.

Would you or Adler accept such a verdict? Of course not! If the justice system operated this way, it would be more expedient to merely allow the police to arrest and punish according to their own will and feelings. However, no society can progress, find stability, and broad-based acceptance based upon feelings and will. Instead, society can only be regarded as legitimate if all are held to the same knowable moral standards.

And the jealous husband who always thinks his wife is having an affair? Should his feelings be the chief arbiter of truth? Of course not!

And revenge? It can feel so sweet! Why not take revenge if moral reality is just incomprehensible? In fact, any form of acting out is permissible if there are no knowable objective moral/spiritual truths.

Increasingly, this is becoming the “wisdom” of this age. We are advised to shut down our minds and just experience. Experiences are simply more satisfying than truth. Truth feels coercive. It places demands and moral requirements on us. Are we guilty for closing our minds to the demands of truth? Yes!

Anthropologist Karen McCarthy Brown decided that if she was going to understand voodoo, she would just have to jump in and experience it, leaving beyond her mind, her critical tools. She did just this and came to some bizarre conclusions:   

• “Although the Iwa [spirits] who possess Alourdes [the voodoo priestess] are often called sen-yo (saints), they are not saintly types in the traditional Christian sense. For example, in stories about the soldier spirit Ogou/Saint James, he not only liberates his people but also betrays them. Ezili Danto/Mater Salvatoris, the mother, cradles and cares for her children but also sometimes lashes out at them in rage. The Voodoo spirits are not models of the well-lived life; rather, they mirror the full range of possibilities inherent in the particular slice of life over which they preside. Failure to understand this has led observers to portray the Voodoo spirits as demonic or even to conclude that Voodoo is a religion without morality—a serious misconception.” (Mama Lola; A Voodo0 Priestess in Brooklyn, 6)

Why shouldn’t spirts that “betray” and “lash out… in rage” at children be considered evil? She gives no explanation for her unreasonable conclusion. Is Brown culpable for her favorable assessment of the voodoo spirits? Were the statesmen who had fawned approvingly over Hitler guilty for giving him a clean bill-of-health? Of course!

We are responsible for what we know and also what we refuse to know. God holds us responsible for both:

• The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

From this perspective, the priestesses are responsible, even for the truths that they had rejected. The plant manager is responsible for the deadly toxins in the workplace. The cigarette manufacturer is responsible for the effects of his cigarettes. We are also responsible for the moral truths that God has written on our hearts.

I too am “without excuse.” I thought I had been seeking God, but I wasn’t. He had to conform to my specifications. I didn’t even begin to ask about Him – who He is. Truth wasn’t even a consideration. I wanted God my way, and nothing else mattered to me.

If I had been willing to think, I might have realized that any relationship depends upon loving the other for who they truly are and not what we want them to be! However, when we reject truth, our world narrows to our own thoughts and feelings. When truth is rejected, so too is real love and relationship.

God: The Energy Force

So many young people are talking about God in terms of an energy force. For us old-timers, this might sound strange, but there is a rationale motivating this preference. One young man admitted:

·        Forces of nature make no moral demands. This god won’t disagree with us. If our conception about god is uncomfortable, we can just look a little harder until we find a god that feels right to us and will affirm who we are. Your god is just too judgmental for me.

I must admit that I appreciated his candor. In essence, he was admitting that he merely believed what made him feel good. I wondered how long such a god could satisfy him and his searching mind. 

I tried to explain to him some of the problems with this god of his creation:

·        God as impersonal energy can’t explain much. Let’s take gravity for example. It can only do one thing – attract! It can’t write a poem or even scramble an egg. How then can you call a force “god?”

·        An impersonal, non-judgmental god is one who is unconcerned about injustice and victimization. How could a mere “force” feel one way or another?  Besides that, this kind of god must surely be a poor role-model. If our god is unconcerned, then there is no reason why we should be concerned.

He kind-of agreed, but didn’t seem very troubled by these problems:

·        Well, I know that there is something out there. There has to be.

However, there seemed to be a barrier to his thinking clearly on this subject. (The Apostle Paul claimed that God’s creation revealed a lot about the nature of God – Rom. 1:18-32 – like a footprint that reveals a lot about the beast who made it). So I tried to leave him with one more parting thought:

·        As a painting reveals a lot about the painter, the universe tells us a lot about the magnificence of its Creator.

I sensed that, at this point, he wasn’t listening. Sometimes, more is less, and silence speaks louder than words. I wanted to tell him that his impersonal force of nature was unable to answer his prayers, hear his cries, or provide him with any sense of meaning or purpose, but he seemed unconcerned.

No one wants to be judged, least of all by a God who could judge us eternally. When I post an essay about morality in an atheist group, some will respond, “Why are you trying to make us feel guilty?” That’s the way it felt to them!

Naturally speaking, our aversion to God is so great that we hate His message, as Jesus taught:

·        This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God (John 3:19-21).

In other words, the natural, unredeemed human hates God. But why then would this young man even entertain the notion that there might be a God? He had told me that he had once been an atheist, but that this position now seemed to him to be unlikely.

I would like to believe that our Savior is beginning to draw him out of his darkness. However, the light can be dreadful to one who has dwelled in the dark for a long time.