Christian vs. "New Age" Beliefs
Some of you may have already seen this post in our Facebook group, and I think it's so important that I want to reproduce it here as well.
In the process of doing research for my doctoral dissertation on toxic theologies, I came across something that really hooked me. It's a chart -- published by a Christian website -- comparing "New Age" beliefs with Christian beliefs.
Even though the website is strongly fundamentalist Christian (their statement of faith says, "The Bible is verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit, wholly true, without error in the original canon of 66 books"), I was impressed with their even-handed and accurate description of New Age theology. For me, seeing the two theologies side-by-side just confirmed my sense that some of the Christian concepts are indeed toxic.
One of the Facebook comments came from my friend Brant Huddleston, (a former evangelical), who said, "It's like comparing an apple to a fruit bowl. The New Age column is the bowl, containing snippets of everything from Buddhism to Wicca. Having lived in both columns, I like the fruit bowl better."