Is New Age a religion? Yes, New Age is a religion in that it is a view on spirituality as are all other religions. Also, no it is not a religion because of how it seeks to be applied to your life. Sounds confusing? It is not. All religions are just the most popular views of spirituality as seen by any specific culture. Nomadic and agrarian societies are much simpler and naturally nature would be their focus of their views on spirituality. Higher developed societies such as northern European cultures all have authoritarian-based religion, such as Christianity. In Christianity, they take a characteristic, attach a personality to it, and claim that if you worship this specific personality, you will acquire the associated characteristic for yourself.
For those in that religion that have a heart open to acquiring character, honor, and virtue of personhood, that mechanism will work just fine, and genuine character growth will happen in that church group. Sadly, in Christianity, almost all church groups fall outside of that, and the values demanded are ones of conformity and theological agreement, which results in group isolation and mistrust of the outside world by its followers. All other religions behave in this same way, claiming personal growth happens by correct theological education, not by promotion and practice of character.
New Age is a religion that worships God, as all religions claim to do, however New Age worships God by encouraging self-development, not theological teachings. Other religions worship God as an outside entity, we worship God as the uniqueness within each individual person. Other religions teach we are all vomitous sin, sickening for God to look at us. New Age teaches we are God’s highest creation and the more we develop ourselves into the highest we can be, the more we worship God. God’s identity is in our uniqueness. God’s will is found in our talents and gifts which He put within each person. God’s plan for us is in our life plan that He put together for each of us. This life plan includes when and where we would be born, to whom, and all the specifics you can think of, and they all have a purpose.
Emphasis of New Age is in self-advancement and discovery of the gifts and strengths within us, not in bringing up continually we are always a mistake, a failure, and sin haunts us continually all our lives. New Age teaches what Jesus spoke of when asked, ‘what must I do to have eternal life,’ and Jesus told of the good Samaritan in a parable. New Age teaches that literally as Jesus taught it. If one changes from old life damaging ways to life enhancing ways, then they are automatically forgiven, and the bad Karma created by the sinful state stays down in the level of the old behaviors. If one goes to higher levels of life enhancing behavior, the bad Karma does not follow the changed restored person up to the higher level of life. Change from bad behaviors to higher order behaviors brings automatic forgiveness and starts us on a new chapter in our God created life path.
New Age or New Age Christianity teaches the presence of character, honor and virtue of personhood is what we worship, and not theological correctness. Theological correctness is the basis for all other religions. They argue about who is most right, and there is only one right theological reality. New Age argues that embracing character and bringing it out in our different personal ways is the best way to live our lives, not worry about who is most right theologically. Instead of forcing each person to see one particular religious view, we teach seeing things the way God made each of us to see things is most pleasing to God.
Other religions teach there is only one way to see things which is God’s way, and we teach that God’s way is found in the unique way you are preplanned to see things. Regarding right and wrong, other religions teach there is one universal right and wrong for everything. That is fine for communal things, but not for personal things. In your personal world, which other religions deny exists, we recognize personal worlds do exist and you are to live in your personal world. We are to serve God by being our highest selves, and not serve God by learning a bunch of religious stuff taught to us by clergy. The clergy, or church managements do not know you, what your gifts are, and have no clue as to what your prescribed life path is for you by God. Only you know that, and only you know by how you see things and what you are best equipped emotionally, socially, and skill wise to accomplish.
A person seeking to find, follow and serve God will do so by looking inward and seeing the depth of potential that already lies within themselves. New Age as a religion teaches our relationship with God is the deepest relationship we can build with ourselves. There is no outside God connection with Him on a throne somewhere and we must please this creator by being ashamed of our self as a person and putting others first ahead of ourselves in our own life. All that propaganda was created to dethrone the person and insert an unnecessary intermediary between us and what is right, thusly religion. All that line of logic was created by government under the false label of religion or Christianity.
New Age Christianity teaches as a religion God does not have to command a person to go to Alaska and search for gold and start a goldmine, living in the wild vast Alaskan wilderness to be happy. Nor does God have to command a person to seek professional skill becoming a doctor of cardiology to serve Humankind. We each already have implanted within each of us the role we are to play, the type of person we are to aspire to become. Our personal instincts within best benefit us, Humankind, and lastly is most pleasing to God. New Age teaches as a religion God’s handiwork is already within us. And the worship of Him is in the reverent following of our own skills, talents, and passions He personally put within us for us to develop.
Traditional Christianity believes and teaches the breaking down of our individuality is righteous. New Age or New Age Christianity as a religion teaches that we are to respect, build up, and develop our individuality as it is God’s will and must be worshipped. If you have a passion for studying antiquity, as I do, then it was put in you by God. Serving God for you is different than serving God would be for someone who has a passion for cooking, athletics, or acting and performing Shakespear. The same is true for someone who has a passion for flowers and dreams of opening a flower shop. Serving in the military also qualifies. Being different does not mean incompatible.
A setting in life can also be a talent or gift which God has put into your heart as well. It need not be a profession. If you dream of being a mother and caring for your children and making a home for your husband, then in God’s life path for you there will be a husband or home setting in which you can act out your dream caring for others. God’s will can be in anything positive for which you feel called to do, even in traditional religion. If you feel a passion to serve as a pastor caring for others and leading others to Christ, then you should do exactly that, not because it is right theologically for everyone to do it, but because it is right for you specifically to do it because God put it in you to do so.
Is New Age a religion? Yes, because any religion’s role is to explain spirituality to the believer in a manner that brings the believer to God in a relationship. Unlike perspective from other religious disciplines, New Age or New Age Christianity points us to God to His handiwork of what is within ourselves the individual. That which makes us most different from every other person is that which makes us closest to God. If we are disconnected from ourselves, then we have a disconnection from God, and what He has done within us. If we live in our passion for doing, being, or studying something, then we have our connection to God. Our enthusiasm is our connection to and in God. The original word for enthusiasm is from, ‘en theos,’ which in Greek means ‘God within’. I think the original Greeks had it figured correctly.
Just for the record, this is an emotional and spiritual encouragement ministry. We are selling nothing here and are not at the present time even set up to take donations, and probably never will. Your healed life is our reward enough, and we are very pleased with that. If you want to, please share your strength with others in your future so our nurturing can live on.