A Theological Analysis of the New Age Movement

INTRODUCTION

The Need for This Thesis

    The Bible envisions a period of increasing apostasy during the Church Age which will reach its fullness in the Great Tribulation.   Included in this apostasy is the intensification of spiritual deception (the “Mystery of Iniquity” of 2 Thess. 2:7), culminating in the recognition and reign of the son of Perdition, the Antichrist.

     In the parable of the wheat and tares (Matt. 13:24-30), Jesus taught that evil would exist and grow, intermingling with the good until the time of the “harvest” (Matt. 13:30).  Samuel Andrews quotes Archbishop Trench regarding this parable:

               We learn that evil is not as so many dream, gradually to wane and disappear
          before good, but is ever to develop itself more fully, even as on the other side
          good is to unfold itself more and more mightily also.  Thus it will go on until at
          last they stand face to face, each in its highest manifestation in the persona of
          Christ and Antichrist. . . Both are to grow, evil and good, till they come to a head,
          till they are ripe, one for destruction, and the other for full salvation.[1]

      Since the first century inception of the church, this spirit of antichrist has been at work
(1 John 4: 1-6) and spiritual warfare has been increasing.  The last quarter of the twentieth century is unveiling what may be one of the final chapters in this battle between the forces of evil and God and His people.  A worldwide movement to unify all religious and politico-economic systems is developing.  New Age author Marilyn Ferguson writes:

            Something remarkable is underway.  It is moving with almost dizzying
          speed, but it has no name and eludes description . . . . Within recent    history “it”
          has infected medicine, education, social science, hard science, even government
          with its implications.  It is characterized by fluid organizations reluctant to create
          hierarchical structures, averse to dogma.  It operates on the principle that change
          can only be facilitated, not decreed.  It is short on manifestos.  It seems to speak
          to something very old.  And perhaps, in integrating magic and science, art and
          technology, it will succeed where all the king’s horses and all the king’s men failed.[2]

    It is imperative that the true Christian community be alerted to the goals, strategies and theology of this global movement.  The spiritual deception of the New Age philosophies is having disastrous spiritual effects even within the Church.  Biblical Christianity must be awakened to the threat of the new Age Movement.  And yet the words of C.S. Lewis must be remembered:  “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about devils.  One is to disbelieve in their existence, the other is to believe and then feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”[3]

Purpose  

     The purpose of this thesis is to alert Christians that spiritual warfare is intensifying and can be seen especially in the occultic core of the New Age Movement.  To this end the major theological concepts and goals of the movement will be documented.

Scope

     The study opens with a discussion of the historical roots of the movement, moves to its doctrines, adherents and status in the last quarter of the twentieth century, and concludes with a comparison of Satan’s  strategies of Genesis 3 and the deceptive promises of the New Age Movement.

[1] Samuel Andrews, Christianity and Anti-Christianity in Their Final Conflict, p. vii.

[2] Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy, p. 18.

[3] C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, p.3.

 

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