[Recently in my coursework I wrote a reflection based on several readings related to “New Spirituality.” I found the exercise both enlightening and enjoyable, so I figured I would share my reflection paper on this blog.]

A REFLECTION ON THE RISE OF “NEW SPIRITUALITY” AND ITS IMPACT IN MODERN EVANGELICALISM

 

Introduction

The “New Spirituality” that has emerged over the last half-century is mystifying when considering its establishment of a solid worldview. On the other hand, there is a certain tragic beauty in all that this spirituality professes and promises for the individual. The beauty is that of fatalism and subjective hope. The worldview is disastrous to the Christian as it offers the individual the ability to reign as Lord of their own life and fate. The person is seen as the hero and master of their own story, putting together a piecemeal path from beginning to end. What is lacking in objectivity is made up for in self-esteem. In the last several decades this worldview has merged within modern Christendom and tangled a web among most congregations. Here we must seek to articulate what is attractive about this new spirituality and what can be offered as its criticism.

 

Description

Describing the amalgamated monolith of “New Spirituality” is quite difficult since it carries no specific body of doctrine. In terms of methodology, postmodern spirituality offers more of what it is not, and what it finds disagreeable, than what it actually holds as concrete doctrine. Peter Jones describes the doctrine of new spirituality as a form of esotericism, further describing that term with phrases like “the God within, finding truth within the human heart.” Esoteric spirituality is averse to objective reason because the very assertion of objectivism wages war on the feelings of the individual human heart.

New Spirituality is an umbrella of paganism rooted in self-validation. David Wells describes those following this spirituality as tourists chiefly interested in their own “psychological or therapeutic validation” utilizing only derivative and mismatched means to puzzle together temporary beliefs (132). The actual doctrines of such a spirituality are really a piecemeal assertion of a worldview. Logic and congruency are cast aside as too objective and restrictive. If the human heart is the catalyst for all subjective truth, then there is no true means to identify solid doctrine; all tourists have the authority to appropriate and consolidate beliefs in any pattern and are not suspect to error through any part of the process. Wells divulges that in new spirituality, as with the Greco-Roman cults of old, “the sacred is loved for what can be had from loving it” (152). Describing new spirituality according to these boundaries, a word foreign to such epistemology, the practitioner determines truth by means of what is momentarily sensible to the private self, free from external authority or explanation of reasonableness. The personal truth is asserted as parceled with the individual’s autonomy in the world. Having no outside source to convey what is true, there is no error or sin in the individual as the individual as assented to a particular and private knowledge that the individual has declared to be necessary for that moment.

 

Criticisms

As mentioned above, the human heart is the tent-pole of all new spirituality; this is precisely the greatest criticism against such a worldview as Christianity’s objective authority explains the human heart as being deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9). Having described in brevity what is understood as the “New Spirituality,” I offer a criticism of this spirituality in three overlapping categories: the connection that such spirituality shares with Gnosticism, the pervasive notion of individualism that continues to allow such Gnosticism to thrive, and the personal validation that is sought through the therapy of Gnosticism.

 

Connection to Gnosticism: Peter Jones gives insight into the “New Spirituality” instructing that such spirituality is nothing more than a recapitulation of Greco-Roman paganism. David Wells likewise makes the connection between this new spiritualism and Gnosticism. The criticism offered by these two scholars proves weighty when reflecting on the purpose of such spirituality; similar to gnostic wisdom, practitioners are using their strength to attain to higher planes of existence. Why is there any need to come to terms with redemption or sanctification when the monistic god is “at home…in the stillness of [the] inner self?” Depravity, in the garb of Gnosticism, is only a lack of knowledge. Jesus knows the secrets of God and is therefore capable of passing them along so that the individual can assent individually to the knowledge. Wells, digs deep and finds that even what is deep is right on the surface of new spirituality, an insistent therapeutic desire for the self (138). Peter Jones and Michael Horton agree with Wells, as all three authors point to the fact that what is happening in enlightenment-America is precisely the same thing that was going on in the Roman world long ago. What made Gnosticism so attractive was the personal identification of the problems, that the problems and evils of the person were merely some other force and not of the person, that higher planes could be attained through individual strength and spiritual wisdom gathering.

The study of Gnosticism is saturated with platonic dualism, that the physical realm is a false mirror to the spiritual realm and that there are degrees in between the two. Similar to Buddhism, which is why so many self-described Christians also have no problem with Buddhism, Gnosticism maintains that there is a path to move away from the evil physical realm and gain knowledge that enlivens the true and good spiritual self. The attainment is through a process of asceticism and personal power. Christian Gnostics understood Jesus to be ridding himself of the physical realm and did not truly resurrect. He gave spiritual insight to his disciples who were thereby able to separate themselves from the physical realm and attain to the heavenly. Such a mindset is contrary to Scripture and contrary to orthodox Christian teaching. However, American Christianity at large fails to see how quickly a synergistic approach to the Gospel falls into the trap of Gnosticism. The personal spiritual self-working to obtain some spiritual or experiential knowledge that enlivens an emotional response is completely subjective and prone to assert personal experience against objective authoritative doctrine. The Gnostic connection of new spirituality is one that focuses all attention on the will and sovereignty of the individual while denying the necessity of Christ’s public body (Wells, 174).

 

Individualism: America is an anomaly of spiritual individualism. As a melting pot and a pioneer experiment, America has its roots deep in individualism; what can be accomplished can, or at least should be tried, alone. That being the case, the roots are prepped and watered for a spirituality that is synergistic to the point of ridiculousness. Synergism wires an individual to believe that spiritual heights can be attained through personal, human, works. Even Christians interpreting the Bible purport that God’s work has to be initiated by man’s work. Plodding deeper into the woods of Walden, the individualism in the American worldview asserts that there is no need for leadership, eldership, or authority, as individuals agree to specific terms and ascent is given individually. What is unearthed in this rationale is that even when it comes to the Bible, the individual interprets it from a unique and personal perspective and no one is of the authority, not even the Bible itself, to correct or instruct that personal faith. As I put forth the Scripture of Jeremiah 17:9, those worshipping their new spirituality would perceive that as a personal attack or a misrepresentation of Jeremiah’s words (Wells, 155). Neither approach looks to the objective revelation of Scripture, which makes new spirituality such a toxic and divisive sickness for the church; what postmodern thinker wants to read Jesus’ words in John 17:17 “sanctify them in the truth: your word is truth?”

Synergism promotes the perspective that the human is in control without need of assistance or revelation. Michael Horton presses that synergism, or Pelagianism, is merely a disguised Gnosticism with Christ as an Americanized self-helper. The individualism of new spirituality gives the person a sense of uniqueness, that what is special to the heart of the individual is actually divine. What is really happening in such individualistic approaches to spirituality is the denial of objective revelation and the promotion of monism, both Jones and Wells posit this understanding. Self-knowledge, the specialness of insight by the individual, is what is actually redemptive in the person as it brings them deeper into the divine reality of the self; the person is capable of meditating on the self-knowledge and then emptying themselves into the void of the divine (Wells, 141).

It is one thing to have assurance of salvation, it is another altogether to suggest that the individual has a sort of access to salvation at their disposal. To affirm such a belief is to hold the reins of salvation and determine who and what gets saved and how that who or what get saved; this is American boot strap soteriology at its best. The sole reason for affirming this individualized and privatized soteriology is to ensure the self is prized and validated. Monism is harmless for no one bows a knee to anyone until a problem arises. Everyone loves a good feeling and wants to share good feelings around their community. No one wants to be told that they are in fact what is wrong in themselves and with their ability to be saved. True biblical soteriology is grating against the American psyche and personal pursuit of happiness. It strips freedom and liberty from depraved humanity. It does exactly as God intended.

 

Personal Validation: Michael Horton speaks of the American view of a personal Jesus in a fascinating way. Horton draws the connection of Gnosticism and individualism together to provide a critique of the personalizing of faith; going so far as to reveal the way that churches sing of the individual as he crosses paths with Christ, as opposed to the actual sovereignty and Lordship of Christ. I reflect on the individualism of such hymns as ‘Just as I Am’ and even contemporary phrasings like ‘Here I am to Worship.’ Songs like this are not of themselves terrible, but the authors of the present readings have really made me contemplate the simple language more than even the synergism at work in many of today’s worship songs. The language is symptomatic of a greater problem and that of personal validation.

The trend is now to see the individual as special and unique. “God loves you and he made you exactly how you are so you must be good enough and special enough to be glorified in him.” The postmodern prerogative is to blanket over sin with cosmic love. In a sense a Christian could argue that is what happens in Christ, but what is really going on is the undermining of objective revelation and sovereignty of God. In order to validate an individual prior to an affirmation of their justification, the validation process at work in many seeker-friendly churches, it is necessary to be rid of Scripture and affirm that the individual gained some special knowledge or formulated some grand spiritual ascension. All of the work is done by them and for them specifically. If it is done in community, it is done so that the community might know how great and wonderful they are as individuals who all took part in leading the person to validation. Validation is to claim that there is a worthiness outside of Christ, that there is cleanness to be had outside of grace. That there is righteousness enough in the individual to balance the karmic scales.

 

Conclusion

God will save whom he will save. I reflect on the shorter catechism question, “what is the chief end of man?” Such a question at one time had a clear significance for the student; however, the answer is lost among those professing the New Spirituality. The object of focus has shifted to the detriment of logic, reason, and, most of all, truth. Biblical spirituality orients all work and glory toward the omnification of Christ (to use Puritan minister Samuel Ward’s phrase). New Spirituality, since it is no different than that spirituality of the Greco-Roman variety, is not new, nor is it unconquerable by the church. Yet, the church must reason together and diminish the surge of spirituality present and championed by secularized Christians. As Wells puts it, we must know that God speaks and we must let God speak first, through his Word (174).

A church preaching and teaching the Word of God is a church waging a won war. We must expose the deceit of the heart by educating believers in the Gnosticism rampant in the world and not be afraid to defend Christ as Peter Jones reminds the reader. If New Spirituality isn’t all that new, then we can be encouraged that such paganism has been dealt with by the church’s heroes of faith. Our chief end is to glorify God, we cannot allow for God’s glory to be diminished by his church, that includes falling victim to the pessimism that suggests the church’s defeat in the face of postmodernism. Congregations must be taught not only the Word of God, but be taught publicly; to experience the truth of God’s word among the body of Christ.

 

Bibliography:

Horton, Michael S. Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008.

Jones, Peter R. “The New Spirituality: Dismantling and Reconstructing Reality” in Modern Reformation, vol. 17, no. 3 (May/June 2008): 24-29.

Sanders, Robert. “The Ecstasy Heresy” in Christianity Today, vol. 48, no. 10 (October 2004): 54-58.

Wells, David F. Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in the Postmodern World. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005.