“You know, like Ommmmm. That’s how I start my meditation every morning. This book has really changed my life,” she says.

The next weekend you find yourself at the Cineplex with friends. You’re watching a lame movie about a sad woman who finds her husband reincarnated in a young guy’s body.

Your drama teacher recommends “visualization” to help you get into character, and your boss at the bike shop spent all summer talking about self-actualization.

Then there’s Oprah, who’s been on a spiritual vent with guests, preaching about finding divine perfection within ourselves and creating our own reality. Their message echoes thoughts of, Who needs God? You can be perfect and perfectly happy; isn’t this what God really wants for us?

If It Sounds Weird, It Probably Is!
All this fluff teaching is like taking a bite of something that leaves a funny taste in your mouth. What is it?

It’s the New Age, and its ideas are poison.

No matter how trivial or out-to-lunch some New Age practices appear, you need to take the underlying ideas seriously. Not just for self-protection, but because the more you understand the differences between New Age religion and Christianity, the more you’ll be able to eliminate confusion in people who are earnestly seeking the truth.

What exactly is the New Age? Impossible to narrow down, the New Age is actually a vast smorgasbord of beliefs and practices. Each New Ager fills his tray with whatever assortment fits his appetite. All is liberally seasoned with self- centeredness.

Although there are many branches of New Age thought ranging from meditation to fire-walking, they all stem from an ancient stock. The roots of the New Age tree spread around the globe to India.

What Do They Believe?
Here’s what the typical New Ager believes:

• God is in everything (pantheism).

• All things are one (monism).

• Man is God.

• Mind creates reality.

• One’s own experience validates the truth.

New Agers don’t believe in evil. Therefore, they don’t accept man’s problem as separation by his sin from God. Instead, they believe that each of us has forgotten his own divinity. Therefore, the New Age solution is to seek “higher consciousness” through meditation, breathing exercises, yoga, diet, crystals, channeling, spirit guides and more. Some of these diverse practices when done in a New Age context have the same purpose: to awaken the god in man. And guess who’s behind it all? Satan!

While these practices may seem too far out to pose much of a threat to Christians, we need to be on guard. In recent years, New Age influence has crept into our culture through schools, corporations and doctors’ offices. Movies like Star Wars are dominated by New Age spirituality.

If you really understand New Age practices, you’ll notice that one thing is very clear: Eastern practices can’t be blended into Christianity to produce something better! Many New Agers are Universalists, believing that all paths lead to God. They fault Christians for being intolerant and narrow-minded. But God’s Word anticipates this: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

Reaching Out
The good news is that, in a way, the New Ager’s broad acceptance holds the key to getting her back on the straight road to God’s truth. Most New Agers hold Jesus in high regard, believing Him to be a great spiritual teacher or guru. Many study the words He spoke, although they put a different spin on them.

How can we reach those under such subtle deception? The answer is Jesus himself. Because Jesus is “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6), He can be the common ground on which the New Ager and the Christian can meet, though one stands in darkness and one in light.

Here’s a five-step approach to discussing Jesus with New Agers:

1. Who do you believe Jesus is?

2. Who did Jesus say He is?
The Son of God (John 11:4)
“I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)

3. What did Jesus say about other spiritual paths?
“No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

4. Jesus was either who He said He was, or He was a fraud. Given His claims, we can’t logically believe He was only a great teacher, for He would have been teaching falsehood rather than truth. We can conclude only that he is a liar, a lunatic or Lord. (This is an argument made by C. S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity.) By His life, death and resurrection, we can be sure he is Lord.

5. Jesus only is “the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)

New Agers are confused. That’s because they haven’t found the truth but only what fits into the spiritual perspective they’ve constructed. As in the Garden of Eden, the lie has never changed.

But neither has the Truth. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see immediate results from sharing your faith with New Agers. In many cases where they finally came to Christ, God had been planting seeds and watering for a long time. Remember, God loves New Age seekers, too!