Tom Wright (27:25)
Yes, I'm not an expert on the New Age phenomenon, though I do remember one or two people getting very agitated about it. Particularly, I remember one or two people I met in the 1980s, and one theologian in particular, who saw the ways in which some of the New Age movements were actually deeply anti Semitic and was pushing back at them from that point of view. Because Judaism concentrates, and always has done on the real world, on real realities in this world, family land, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas the New Age was kind of trying to escape from all of that. And of course, as we know, in the Nazi movement in the 1930s, there were many pagan practices which the Nazis introduced, often in private, but then sometimes spilling over. And a lot of that was bound up with the rejection at a kind of a deep, fundamental level of the whole Jewish world and everything that went with it. So people who have been more concerned about the dangers of antisemitism in our world have sometimes raised a flag and said, watch out, because if you go the New Age route, that might happen. Now, part of the trouble here is that if you grew up, as I did, in fairly middle to low church Anglicanism, we didn't have incense, we didn't have meditation classes, we didn't sit around in a circle linking arms and breathing deeply and all that sort of thing. So that if somebody then suddenly said in the 70s or 80s, now, as well as doing our ordinary services, we're gonna get together on a Tuesday night and we're gonna sing a chorus which is very easy and simple, and we'll go on and on and on and on singing it until we all arrive at a new state of. I think some people would have found that rather exciting. Other people would have said, no, sorry, this is vain repetition. We shouldn't be doing that. Vain repetition being an echo of what Jesus says about pagan prayer in Matthew chapter 6. At the same time, the general principle here, I think, is that there's a danger in saying that Christianity is 100% unlike everything else before or since. Because as we see in, say, Acts 17, Paul is very clear. He has an altar to an unknown God. Let me tell you about this God who you acknowledge, but you acknowledge you don't know him. And Paul is actually coming in on that by saying that the God of the Old Testament, the Creator God, he is actually the one you're already worshiping. So I'm not telling you anything strange. It's something which you knew you needed to know. And Now I'm telling you about it. And likewise, many people have said that as Christianity has made its way in the world, then there have been some things which have reminded people who've heard the Gospel. So we've got something rather like that in our culture. And then the answer is yes. But now here is something richer and fuller, even if it does remind you of that. And this is because of the goodness of creation, that God in creation has made a world in which human beings, even if they're totally outside the Judeo Christian tradition, are not left without signals of the true God's presence and provision. This is so in Acts 14 as well as 17 and various other passages, of course. And when that is so, then we shouldn't be surprised if some of the religious practices that have grown up in other places and traditions actually can have analog or even crossover points with Christianity. I know when I was first introduced to the Jesus prayer, which many Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox thinkers have used as their staple diet, the repetition again and again of a phrase like Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And there are many holy men and women down the years who have prayed either that or similar prayers with the rhythm of their breathing until they're not even aware that they are praying it. Cause their whole body is praying it. And other things are going on in their mind. But this prayer is continuing. Now, some people would say, oh, this is very dangerous. This is like having a pagan mantra which you have to say om, Om, or whatever it might be. And I wanna say no. Actually, the content of this prayer is stunning and striking and biblical. And God has made us to reflect his image. Paul says, pray constantly. Maybe this is one way of praying constantly. You see, Paul had to face this in Corinth when things like speaking in tongues were all the rage in the Corinthian Church. And Paul is aware that it isn't only in Christianity that this sort of thing happens. So he has to say at the beginning of chapter 12, now listen, if somebody claims to be inspired by the Spirit, then they're never ever going to say, Jesus be cursed. And you can tell therefore that there are times when people are claiming inspiration and then coming out with anti or non Christian things. But there is a crossover between the different ideas of inspiration and what you find in the church. So I would say we have to be wise, we have to be discerning, but we mustn't be dualist. We mustn't say that there's nothing outside the church from which we can possibly learn. And often that has been driven by a sort of a sort of ultra Protestantism, a sort of a rejection of anything that smells of what those Roman Catholics do down the road. Incense or repeated prayers or whatever it may be. And actually in the Bible we can lighten up. You know, as people have said, according to the book of Revelation, you're gonna get plenty of incense in the new creation, so why shouldn't you have some now and so on. So I don't see a problem here. What I do then find is that some Christians in my part of the world, the northeast of England, have emphasized Celtic spirituality, which often involves candles and meditative objects and so on. But this can easily shade off into just a sor of cool, laid back, maybe even slightly tripped out way of being Christian. And I've had to say to people sometimes, hang on, when you look at serious Celtic spirituality, as in the life of Cuthbert and so on, what you find is Cuthbert standing in the sea up to his waist for half the night praying. That's part of Celtic spirituality. If you're going to do that as well as all the other, fair enough. But if you're not, then I would be a bit worried.
